Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Yellow Dogs Battle Yellow Journalism
Definition of "Yellow Journalism": The term, as it commonly applies, refers to news organizations for whom sensationalism, profiteering, and in some cases propaganda and jingoism, take dominance over factual reporting. Most cases tend to be related to journalistic bias, and the endemic practices of particular organizations to operate as mouthpieces, for rather limited and particular allegiances, rather than for the public trust.
This article highlights some recent examples:
"Elaborate Mission Accomplished-style propaganda backdrops at every public event. Fake news stories filmed at government expense and released to an all too incurious media. Paid journalists and columnists writing fawning stories for profit. Bogus White House correspondents throwing soft ball questions under assumed names. Staged "town-hall meetings" with pre-screened crowds and pre-screened questions – questions like, "Mr. President, did you know my wife and I pray for you every night?" Whew. That’s a toughie. And even with the hand-selected audiences, strong-armed stooges roam the crowd and silence, roust, and arrest any stray dissenters who somehow make it past the crumbled remains of the First Amendment that block the entrances to these tax-supported events.
There’s Dick and Rummy and Condi and Wolfy and even George himself telling us about meetings that didn’t happen; links that didn’t exist; weapons that weren’t there. And now we have notes from British intelligence revealing that as early as July, 2002 the administration was saying it was going to "fix" intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.
For that matter, we have tape of them knowingly lying about the costs of the pharmacy bill, and we know they threatened to fire the government actuary in charge of forecasting costs when he wanted to set the record straight. We know they outed a covert CIA agent as a revenge tactic. We know that there’s a trail of memos justifying torture, extraordinary rendition and other jack-boot tactics that leads straight to the most senior levels of the Pentagon and the White House. One of them was signed by our sitting Attorney General when he was White House Counsel.
The press has allowed Mr. Bush to fundamentally rewrite foreign and domestic policy under a cloud of deception, distortion, and deceit.
Iraq was never about WMDs, or al Qaeda links or "immediate threats" – it was part of a broadly conceived and highly pugnacious neoconservative foreign policy.
Tax cuts were never about "your money," budget surpluses, budget deficits, or economic stimulus. They were – and are – part of a stealth attempt to "drown the beast", to shrink government by starvation.
The Clear Skies Initiative isn’t about protecting the environment, it’s about protecting energy companies.
The Healthy Forest Initiative isn’t about healthy forests, it’s about cutting down trees in pristine wilderness areas.
Social Security privatization is not about rescuing Social Security, it’s about killing it.
Now, it may be that Americans want a country in which the tax burden is shifted from corporations and the ultra-rich to families, workers and individual wage earners. Perhaps we want to cut government services and gut environmental protections, and impose trillions of dollars of debt on our children and our children’s children. And it may be that we want a belligerent foreign policy in which we eschew the UN; reject treaties and alliances; unilaterally launch preemptive wars and encourage the resumption of a nuclear arms race by undercutting the Non-proliferation Treaty with plans to develop new nuclear weapons. Heck, it’s possible that we’re willing to ignore real threats to our homeland such as enough unprotected lose nuclear material to make 40,000 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs. We might even prefer to spend $300 billion in Iraq, while our borders remain porous; our ports, schools, power and chemical plants remain unprotected; our first responders underfunded; and bin Laden roams free.
But it’s doubtful. And that’s why Mr. Bush and friends want to accomplish their objectives by a stealth attack on the media and the truth."
The Influence of Fools
This article highlights some recent examples:
"Elaborate Mission Accomplished-style propaganda backdrops at every public event. Fake news stories filmed at government expense and released to an all too incurious media. Paid journalists and columnists writing fawning stories for profit. Bogus White House correspondents throwing soft ball questions under assumed names. Staged "town-hall meetings" with pre-screened crowds and pre-screened questions – questions like, "Mr. President, did you know my wife and I pray for you every night?" Whew. That’s a toughie. And even with the hand-selected audiences, strong-armed stooges roam the crowd and silence, roust, and arrest any stray dissenters who somehow make it past the crumbled remains of the First Amendment that block the entrances to these tax-supported events.
There’s Dick and Rummy and Condi and Wolfy and even George himself telling us about meetings that didn’t happen; links that didn’t exist; weapons that weren’t there. And now we have notes from British intelligence revealing that as early as July, 2002 the administration was saying it was going to "fix" intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.
For that matter, we have tape of them knowingly lying about the costs of the pharmacy bill, and we know they threatened to fire the government actuary in charge of forecasting costs when he wanted to set the record straight. We know they outed a covert CIA agent as a revenge tactic. We know that there’s a trail of memos justifying torture, extraordinary rendition and other jack-boot tactics that leads straight to the most senior levels of the Pentagon and the White House. One of them was signed by our sitting Attorney General when he was White House Counsel.
The press has allowed Mr. Bush to fundamentally rewrite foreign and domestic policy under a cloud of deception, distortion, and deceit.
Iraq was never about WMDs, or al Qaeda links or "immediate threats" – it was part of a broadly conceived and highly pugnacious neoconservative foreign policy.
Tax cuts were never about "your money," budget surpluses, budget deficits, or economic stimulus. They were – and are – part of a stealth attempt to "drown the beast", to shrink government by starvation.
The Clear Skies Initiative isn’t about protecting the environment, it’s about protecting energy companies.
The Healthy Forest Initiative isn’t about healthy forests, it’s about cutting down trees in pristine wilderness areas.
Social Security privatization is not about rescuing Social Security, it’s about killing it.
Now, it may be that Americans want a country in which the tax burden is shifted from corporations and the ultra-rich to families, workers and individual wage earners. Perhaps we want to cut government services and gut environmental protections, and impose trillions of dollars of debt on our children and our children’s children. And it may be that we want a belligerent foreign policy in which we eschew the UN; reject treaties and alliances; unilaterally launch preemptive wars and encourage the resumption of a nuclear arms race by undercutting the Non-proliferation Treaty with plans to develop new nuclear weapons. Heck, it’s possible that we’re willing to ignore real threats to our homeland such as enough unprotected lose nuclear material to make 40,000 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs. We might even prefer to spend $300 billion in Iraq, while our borders remain porous; our ports, schools, power and chemical plants remain unprotected; our first responders underfunded; and bin Laden roams free.
But it’s doubtful. And that’s why Mr. Bush and friends want to accomplish their objectives by a stealth attack on the media and the truth."
The Influence of Fools
