Ten years ago, when Moyers & Company guests John Nichols and Robert McChesney appeared on the series Now with Bill Moyers, they protested the lack of public involvement in decisions concerning mass media. “There are a handful of very interested parties who are deeply engaged,” Nichols said then, “ who think about it every day, who hire lobbyists, who spend a great deal of money, not merely to lobby Congress, but also, to lobby the FCC.” Continue reading
The U.S. corporate-stream media embodied by ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, MSNBC, PBS, CNN and the major print media, etc., repeatedly and overwhelmingly demonstrates that it is the mortal enemy of truth and concomitantly of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth. Continue reading
(WMR)—Ever since National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden first began releasing information and documents and PowerPoint slides amassed on thumb drives by him before he fled the United States for Hong Kong and Moscow, the information flow about NSA’s super-secret surveillance programs directed against U.S. citizens and foreigners alike has been plagued with redactions. These redactions have been engineered by agreements between newspaper, magazine, and TV network editors, publishers, and managers, on one hand, and NSA, British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron administration officials on the other. Continue reading
(WMR)—The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to hear the appeal of the decision of the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ordering New York Times reporter James Risen to testify before a grand jury and reveal his CIA source, believed by the Justice Department to be former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Federal prosecutors believe that Sterling was Risen’s source for whom the Department of Justice believes revealed information to Risen that he published in his book State of War. Continue reading
(WMR)—WMR has been reporting on political and judicial malfeasance in Alabama for a number of years. Overall, Alabama Republican politicians and judges evoke memories of Al Capp’s Jubilation T. Cornpone, Hee Haw’s Junior Samples, and Green Acres’s Eustace Charleston Haney, otherwise known as “Mr. Haney.” Bumbling, goofball, ignorant, and corrupt vestiges of a bygone plantation-era South don’t even come close to describing what passes for judges and political leaders in the state that refers to itself as the “Heart of Dixie.” Continue reading
While driving on my usual errands’ run the other day, I listened a little to Limbaugh’s radio show. As usual I was completely amazed at the incredible misinformation vomited by the champion of stupidity. Continue reading
Free Speech Radio News, a daily international news program produced for and carried by community radio stations primarily in the United States, aired for the last time on Friday, September 27, 2013. Continue reading
Guardian reporter Lisa O’Carroll last Friday wrote, “Seymour Hersh has some rogue ideas on how to fix journalism: close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.” Right on, Sy. Continue reading
After a long absence, to be exact five years, since President Obama took office, Seymour Hersh is back, out, and talking. And by that I mean really talking. He is calling the reports on Bin Laden’s so-called assassination, by that I mean the mainstream media reports, those dictated by Obama’s White House and Pentagon, big lies, pure bullshit, and not a single word of it true. Continue reading
Mark Landler is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. Under the title “Through Diplomacy, Obama Finds a Pen Pal in Iran,” Landler wrote of President Barack Obama’s deep “belief in the power of the written word,” and of his “frustrating private correspondence with the leaders of Iran.” (NYT, Sep. 19) Continue reading
Twenty years ago several journalists expressed concern that the number of major news sources in America had diminished to fifty. Today, conglomerates have bought up most of those news sources; and the number of major news sources controlling the media has been reduced to six! Continue reading
As soon as Kevin Drum at Mother Jones absolved the CIA of spewing poison gas as a provocation, many on the Liberal Left cautiously threw their weight behind Obama and the thrill of waging a punitive war on Syria. Continue reading
Television anchors and their guests waste hours of viewer’s time. Continue reading
(WMR)—Just as Americans were led astray by the cable news media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction prior to the disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, once again, viewers of cable news channels are being subjected to another information warfare campaign. This time it is an alleged Syrian government chemical attack on “thousands” of civilians in the Ghouta region outside of Damascus. Continue reading
Sen. Diane Feinstein and a horde of members of Congress of both parties want to decide who is and who isn’t a reporter. Sen. Feinstein says a “real” reporter is a “salaried agent of a media company.” Continue reading
Just in case you didn’t already know the authorities own you, they’re going to make sure you do. Continue reading
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck just off the eastern coast of Japan. The temblor did what quakes always do. It leveled buildings, caused $235 billion in damage and spawned a tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people. In addition to this expected chaos and carnage, the earthquake damaged nuclear reactors located near the city of Fukushima. The Fukushima reactors have been in varying degrees of crisis ever since. The world was assured that the crisis was averted back in 2011, but plant operator Tepco has been lying for the last two years. Continue reading
Rolling Stone magazine has a picture of indicted Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the Aug 1, 2013, cover with a detailed feature piece “Jahar’s World” inside, written by Rolling Stone editor Janet Reitman. After reading many excellent articles on the financial machinations of the Wall Street banksters in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, I certainly expected more than the Rolling Stone and Ms Reitman delivered. Continue reading
Long after the American colonials broke away from the British monarchy, long after George Washington refused to take the title of “king,” Americans are still fascinated by anything British and royal. Continue reading
What would a hypothetical person know after diligently reading the newspaper, watching television news and reading online news sources for the past week? That person would know that someone named Trayvon Martin had been murdered and that he looked like or could have been or would look like the son of the president. This anonymous man or woman would know that Al Sharpton, Jay-Z, and Beyonce were sad that Trayvon was dead. The news follower wouldn’t know the ugly truth of why Trayvon was killed, the real reason his murderer went free, or that the man most able to bring justice probably would not. Continue reading
The interventionist EU, that together with the USA inflicts terror on every piece of land rich with oil and other minerals, decided yesterday that a Lebanese resistance to occupation is terror. It designated the Shia movement as a terror organisation. Continue reading
When it comes to reporting or editorialising fast-moving events taking place in Egypt, foreign news media have shredded all pretence of balance. Continue reading
The existence of a compliant media plays a major role in allowing American presidents to create so much violence and chaos around the globe. Far from being a check on officialdom, the press are part and parcel of the machine which crushes so many lives in this country and abroad. Continue reading
By now most people know that though it is perfectly fine to shout fire in a packed theater if there really is a fire, even constitutionally protected freedom of speech does not allow such behavior if there is no fire. Continue reading
Let me begin with some background not covered in the film. Dirty War derives from La Sale Guerre, the term the French applied to their counter-terror campaign in Algeria, circa 1954–1961. Algeria wanted independence, and France resisted. Continue reading
Laying claim to be the first news channel to hit such a milestone, Russia Today (RT) has revealed that it has notched up one billion views on YouTube. Looking at the world through fresh eyes, as it were, RT.com brings you to history in the making as strikingly as television brought you the Vietnam war on your network news decades ago, and film documentaries captured history during WW II. Continue reading
When Gerald Celente branded the American media “presstitutes,” he got it right. The US print and TV media (and NPR) whore for Washington and the corporations. Reporting the real news is their last concern. The presstitutes are a Ministry of Propaganda and Cover-up. This is true of the entire Western media, a collection of bought-and-paid-for whores. Continue reading
(WMR)—Stung by criticism over his administration’s Nixonian-level surveillance of journalists, President Obama, in a May 23 policy speech at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, said he ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to review current law enforcement investigations of journalists and to set up a meeting with representatives of the media. Obama also reiterated his support for a media shield law. Continue reading
Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction? Continue reading
(WMR)—Attorney General Eric Holder announced that in June 2012 he recused himself from the Justice Department investigation of the alleged leak of classified information on a CIA counter-terrorism operation in Yemen after he was interviewed by the FBI as part of their investigation of the leak. The Associated Press published report in May 2012 about a classified CIA counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that intercepted an advanced underwear bomb destined for a passenger plane. Continue reading
Dave Kranzler of Golden Returns Capital declares the April payroll jobs report that was released on May 3 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be “fictitious.” Continue reading
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The lies that will kill America
Posted on October 28, 2013 by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Here in Manhattan the other day, you couldn’t miss it—the big bold headline across the front page of the tabloid New York Post, screaming one of those sick, slick lies that are a trademark of Rupert Murdoch’s right wing media empire. There was Uncle Sam, brandishing a revolver and wearing a burglar’s mask. “UNCLE SCAM,” the headline shouted. “U.S. robs bank of $13 billion.” Continue reading →