Washington is a media city. It is home to many major outlets, including the Washington Post, the Washington Times and USA Today. Every network has a big bureau there. The National Press Building houses many media offices.
Washington is also the base of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency that makes government media policy, of the reactionary National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and of the cable industry.
It's the center of lobbying by well-connected law firms and K-Street influence peddlers that are paid big bucks to carry Big Media's water.
We all know that the war could not have galvanized the support it did without media collusion and complicity, a charge I document in my forthcoming book, When News Lies, and my film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception).
THE MEDIA MERGED WITH THE PENTAGON
Responsible leaders such as Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) have denounced the media for falling for the war "hook, line and sinker."
We all know how the media "merged" with the Pentagon's pro-war propaganda effort and not just with its embedded-journalist program.
We all know about the jingoism posing as journalism on the airwaves, the false claims, the contrived "facts" and, yes, the relentless, ongoing deception.
We know this was also a war by media.
We know how few antiwar voices were heard on TV and how many conservative pundits dominated the discourse 24/7.
We know that the stream of lies continues. We know that the media's limited apologies and Mea Culpas were just ways of co-opting critics and pacifying the public.
So, why not add some media targets to the mix so that marchers can express their disgust with media subservience and demand truth as well as responsibility and accountability?
Back on February 15th, a small group of activists who wanted to picket CNN were discouraged on the grounds that they would "alienate" the reporters.
Did you see the pathetic coverage? CNN didn't have to be alienated. They, like many corporate media outlets, already are -- alienated from deeper truths and honest reporting.
In that period, the networks and not just CNN had become PNN: the Pentagon News Network.
It is time to recognize that the war in Iraq was not just a government crime. It was and is still a media crime.
Washington is also the base of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency that makes government media policy, of the reactionary National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and of the cable industry.
It's the center of lobbying by well-connected law firms and K-Street influence peddlers that are paid big bucks to carry Big Media's water.
We all know that the war could not have galvanized the support it did without media collusion and complicity, a charge I document in my forthcoming book, When News Lies, and my film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception).
Responsible leaders such as Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) have denounced the media for falling for the war "hook, line and sinker."
We all know how the media "merged" with the Pentagon's pro-war propaganda effort and not just with its embedded-journalist program.
We all know about the jingoism posing as journalism on the airwaves, the false claims, the contrived "facts" and, yes, the relentless, ongoing deception.
We know this was also a war by media.
We know how few antiwar voices were heard on TV and how many conservative pundits dominated the discourse 24/7.
We know that the stream of lies continues. We know that the media's limited apologies and Mea Culpas were just ways of co-opting critics and pacifying the public.
So, why not add some media targets to the mix so that marchers can express their disgust with media subservience and demand truth as well as responsibility and accountability?
Back on February 15th, a small group of activists who wanted to picket CNN were discouraged on the grounds that they would "alienate" the reporters.
Did you see the pathetic coverage? CNN didn't have to be alienated. They, like many corporate media outlets, already are -- alienated from deeper truths and honest reporting.
In that period, the networks and not just CNN had become PNN: the Pentagon News Network.
It is time to recognize that the war in Iraq was not just a government crime. It was and is still a media crime.
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