Truth in America is being exterminated, and the destruction of CBS news was the starting point. As Mary Mapes reports in her book, as soon as Viacom was entirely rid of 60 Minutes with the firing of the entire staff, on the very next day Viacom held a triumphant annual investor meeting. Chairman Sumner Redstone was awarded a a $56 million paycheck for 2004. Chief operating officers, Les Moonves and Tom Freston, "each pocketed a whopping fifty-two million for the year."
And the CBS news team went without mortgage, car, or health insurance payments.
Mapes writes: "Just a few years ago, this kind of corporate executive largesse was unheard of. Now, these media Masters of the Universe have taken over the public airwaves and they have one obligation: making a profit." Ever a larger one, which requires protecting the government and the corporate advertisers from investigative reporting.
The consequence today is that the American media are completely unreliable. No reader can rely on any report, not even on a New York Times obituary.
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