Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich have gotten the short end of the deal since they entered the race for President. The MSM has not covered their campaigns and The New York Times in an editorial recently, left out their names completely when talking about the anti-war stances of the candidates. This must be particularly upsetting to these two candidates that are trying to get the message of their campaigns out.
After almost seven years of an administration that has used distortions and lies to wage war for oil, the American people want an honest, open Chief Executive that wants the best things for the people, instead of the military industrial complex. Kucinich and Gravel should be covered, just as any other candidate. I have heard more about Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee and Tommy Thompson than either Kucinich or Gravel. Who is the NYT catering to? Is it their advertisers that want an atmosphere of “business as usual” in Washington, as opposed to what Gravel or Kucinich would bring to the table?
These are the months leading to the primaries. I have kept my Democratic Party card so that I can vote in the primaries. What good is the card if Kucinich or Gravel never make it to South Carolina? I realize that most people don’t follow politics as I do. The names they know are the names they see on TV and the press. Unless these two are given a fair shake, people will come to the polls asking Mike who? We have seen candidates lose their momentum after getting whipped in the primaries by candidates that had grass roots support. How can that happen when one of the largest newspapers in the country doesn’t even mention their names? If you didn’t know that much about the Democratic slate, you would believe there are only six candidates running. That’s just not right.
Mike Gravel brings so many ideas to the Democratic field. His beliefs in the powers of Congress, his beliefs in changing the way people are taxed, his beliefs in heath care, these are all exceptional ideas. His ideas however, won’t see the light of day because his candidacy has been “redacted” by the mainstream media, the same with Kucinich. Many progressives believe in these two men, the others don’t seem too different from what we have now in Bush.
This country of ours has in effect, a brand of censorship that is controlled by the corporate elite that can disparage journalists from writing what they believe will never be printed. Editors don’t want to take a stand and cover candidates that they believe have no way of winning. Isn’t that one of the reasons why they won’t? What happened to journalistic integrity? If every major newspaper decided that they would publish what their advertisers didn’t want them to print, where would they advertise? If things are so bad for the newspapers with declining readership and all of their other problems, maybe their readership is declining because they are failing to really cover the news!
People just about know what to expect when they read the editorials of The Washington Post and The New York Times. They expect to see spineless editorials on topics that have been beaten to death by television pundits the night before. It is really no wonder why readership is down. The fourth estate has become a summary of what you watch on TV. No longer do you see investigative reporters digging up stories and breaking them on the front pages of newspapers. No longer will you see editorials that break from the status quo and paint pictures of corruption or expound on ridiculous breaks from reality from the White House. No matter what the President says or does, the print media will usually give it their full attention, instead of coming out and saying that what has been said is ridiculous. I don’t need to pay a buck and a half to read that kind of ‘news”. It’s about time that the newspapers take a long look at where their place in this society is. They can either be a proactive place for news and clarification of facts brought out by TV so that the people can get a larger view of the “big picture”, or they can just “summarize” what went on the night before on CNN and write milquetoast editorials on non-events. That’s the way I see it.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Tim was banned from the site for posting private email from the publisher to him on his blog, and then attacking the publisher and the site in emails and articles. OEN has no responsibility to publish articles from people who attack the site.
Tim's accusations that he was banned for his political positions are untrue. Check his articles. He repetitively wrote about and had published exactly the things he claimed he was banned for doing.
Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
Though you could put a whole other title on top of it. For example:
''Corporations in full control of US media''
Which covers the content a lot better. I don't think the media will be ignored by the masses unless there is a great grassroots movement which does it's own news handling.
by
Han (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 204 comments)
on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 4:50:04 AM
was once a bastion of our democratic process. Not only are the candidates who stand aganst corporate control of our nation given the silent treatment in the press but even news and events are censored.
We have seen, in this great nation, a cyclic political athmosphere, one in which conservatives came and went, replaced by moderate Presidents and Legislatures who were, in turn, then supplanted by the conservatives again. This has been ongoing since Adams replaced Washington and was replaced by Jefferson.
I mention this only to attempt perspective and a longer range view of this nations political history. I accept the argument that our government, our media, our policies are all in the control of those who profit most from that ownership. I do not wish to speak so much doom and gloom ,however, that folks despair of being able to make change, to return us to a saner and more liberal era.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 7:53:17 AM
I gave up on American newspapers the day that 140 of them called for Bill Clinton to resign because of his affair with Lewinski. (I kid you not: they all did it within 24 hours of one another.) Now I simply check the NYT & WashPost headlines 3 or 4 times a week to keep abreast of the propaganda. If CNN didn't come with my cable package, I certainly wouldn't pay extra for it. But it's also a good propaganda index. And just so you don't think this is exclusively an American affliction, the last decent Canadian newspaper bit the dust a coupla years ago.
Why even bother with this tabloid jouralism when sites like CommonDreams and Cursor and OpEdNews do such a good job of reading them for us and pulling out what's worth reading? Moreover, the Internet makes it possible to keep abreast of all perspectives, from far right to far left and everything in between: it has made me a far better informed citizen than newspapers ever did -- even when they were still publishing real journalism.
If we lose the Internet we're screwed.
by
delia (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 112 comments)
on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 9:17:11 AM
The demise of the newspaper is that it only does display a select amount of views and those views depend on what they think Americans support. Rather, on sites like this, we don't have to regulate opinion. I can have free flowing discussions on Obama without someone editing out the negatives and only showing the positives.
by
Kevin Gosztola (235 articles, 127 quicklinks, 72 diaries, 907 comments)
on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 9:32:48 AM
Yes. newspapers are shooting themselves in the foot and my sense is that their readership will never return. Who need 'em, this is cyperspace time and why hassel with something (a.) you have to pay for, (b.) is wall to wall propaganda, and (c.) gets your hands dirty while you read it. The forth estate is now electronic.
Thank you for this observation.
solidarity, Bill
by
W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (251 articles, 53 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 599 comments)
on Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 12:12:31 PM
It's all about profit and the interests of profit.
If you want to know who the NYT caters to, you might take note of the fact that publisher Sulzberger is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is known to be chummy with the CIA. I'm sure you'd find that the publisher of The Washington Post (whoever that is, I haven't looked it up) has similar interests and associations.
Muckraking journalism, as it was practiced by Ida Tarbell and others, never went out of style with the public. It just so happens that muckraking magazines were bought up by monied interests, run into the ground, and closed. The scanda-loving public still loves scandal, but today they get their fix from inanities such as "The National Enquirer." Those rags, you might take note, publish sexually juicy nonsense about movie stars and politicians but NEVER publish "hard-news" stories about the financial interests and/or criminal activities of political and financial leaders -- articles, that is, such as McClure's Magazine used to do.
The problem with newspapers is greedy ownership. Last I knew, profit margins in the retail grocery business run in the neighborhood of 3 percent. Profit margins at newspapers typically run 15 to 25 percent. I don't know where else in the world you can get a return of 10 percent on your investments, year in and year out, but when a newspaper turns a profit of a measly 10 percent, its owners scream that they're losing money and start looking for a buyer. Reporters are fired, coverage is reduced, content shrinks, all in the cause of holding onto that 15-percent-or-better margin.
The excuse offered to the public is that they're losing money. The excuse offered to the academy and to the publishers' peers is that they're only giving readers what the ignorant public wants, which is dumbed-down content. Of course what the public REALLY wants is scandal. But the rich people who own what we call "news" don't deal in scandal, which could prove personally embarrassing for them and for their class. It was their grandparents, after all, who wrecked muckraking journalism a hundred-odd years ago.
Today the terms "scandal sheet" "scandal monger" are epithets. Names like that are what one publisher calls another publisher whom he or she does not like. Names like that are what political and financial leaders call any publication that reports unfavorable news. Still, as I was told in graduate school 15 years ago, the highest-paid print journalists in America work at The National Enquirer. Is that a scandal or what?
by
Jimmy Montague (3 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 61 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 8:34:20 AM
If I'm Dennis Kucinich, then I'm smart enough to understand the bigger picture, the phenomenon surrounding my campaign's lack of media coverage, and how ultimately, without that coverage, I have zero chance of success. What do I do? Continue wasting my time and resources spinning my wheels, or do I try to shake up the system by telling the ENTIRE truth about what is happening in this country and let the chips fall where they may?
by
Bill Cain (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 329 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 8:48:51 AM
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