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U.S. Media Censorship: Outstanding Reporters Often Fired
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The riveting
excerpts below are from the revealing accounts of 20 award-winning
journalists in the highly acclaimed book
Into the Buzzsaw.
These courageous writers were prevented by corporate media ownership
from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off.
They have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer: |
"In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the
Press as a ‘Great Power’ within the State. As a matter of fact its
importance is immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press
continues the work of education even in adult life. Generally, readers
of the Press can be classified into three groups: First, those who
believe everything they read; Second, those who no longer believe
anything; Third, those who critically examine what they read and form
their judgments accordingly. Nowadays when the voting papers of the
masses are the deciding factor; the decision lies in the hands of the
numerically strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd
of simpletons and the credulous. … With ruthless determination the State
must keep control of this instrument of popular education and place it
at the service of the State and the Nation." Adolf Hitler's MEIN KAMPF |
Jane Akre
Fox News.
After our struggle to air an honest report [on hormones in milk], Fox
fired the general manager [of our station]. The new GM said that if we
didn't agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we'd be
fired for insubordination in 48 hours. We pleaded with [him] to look at
the facts we'd uncovered. His reply: "We paid $3 billion dollars for
these stations. We'll tell you what the news is. The news is what
we say it is!" [After we refused] Fox's GM presented us an
agreement that would give us a full year of salary, and benefits worth
close to $200,000, but with strings attached: no mention of how Fox
covered up the story and no opportunity to ever expose the facts. [After
declining] we were fired. (click
for more)
Dan Rather
CBS, Multiple
Emmy Awards. What's going on is a belief that you can manipulate
communicable trust between the leadership and the led. The way you do
that is you don't let the press in anywhere. Access to war is extremely
limited. The fiercer the combat, the more the access is limited,
[including] access to information. This is a direct contradiction of the
stated policy of maximum access to information consistent with national
security. There was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming
tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways the fear
[now in the U.S.] is that you will have a flaming tire of lack of
patriotism put around your neck. That fear keeps journalists from asking
the tough questions. I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from
this criticism. (click
for more)
Monika Jensen-Stevenson
Emmy-winning
producer for 60 minutes. Robert R. Garwood 14 years a
prisoner of the Vietnamese was found guilty in the longest court-martial
in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question
that Garwood was a monstrous traitor. Several years later in 1985,
Garwood was speaking publicly about something that had never made the
news during his court-martial. He knew of other American prisoners in
Vietnam long after the war was over. He was supported by Vietnam
veterans whose war records were impeccable. My sources included
outstanding experts like former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency
General Tighe and returned POWs like Captain McDaniel, who held the
Navy's top award for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to
consider the possibility that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been
kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to make sure the US would pay the
more than $3 billion in war reparations. [After the war] American POWs
had become worthless pawns. The US had not paid the promised monies and
had no intention of paying in the future. (click
for more)
Kristina Borjesson
CBS, Emmy
award winner. Pierre Salinger announced to the world on Nov. 8,
1996, that he'd received documents proving that a US Navy missile had
accidentally downed [TWA flight 800]. That same day, FBI's Jim Kallstrom
called a press conference. A man raised his hand and asked why the Navy
was involved in the recovery and investigation while a possible suspect.
"Remove him!" [Kallstrom] yelled. Two men leapt over to the questioner
and grabbed him by the arms. There was a momentary chill in the air
after the guy had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and entourage
acted as if nothing had happened. [Kallstrom was later hired by CBS.] (click
for more)
Greg Palast
BBC. In
the months leading up to the November [2000] balloting, Gov. Jeb Bush
ordered elections supervisors to purge 58,000 voters on the grounds they
were felons not entitled to vote. As it turns out, only a handful of
these voters were felons. This extraordinary news ran on page one of the
country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was the wrong country:
Britain. In the USA, it was not covered. The office of the governor
[also] illegally ordered the removal of felons from voter rolls "real
felons" but with the right to vote under law. As a result, 50,000 of
these voters could not vote. The fact that 90% of these were Democrats
should have made it news as this alone more than accounted for Bush's
victory. (click
for more)
Michael Levine
25-year
veteran of DEA, writer for New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
USA Today. The Chang Mai "factory" that the CIA prevented me
from destroying was the source of massive amounts of heroin being
smuggled into the US in the bodies and body bags of GIs killed in
Vietnam. Case after case was killed by CIA and State Department
intervention and there wasn't a thing we could do about it. In
1980, CIA-recruited mercenaries and drug traffickers unseated Bolivia's
democratically elected president. Immediately after the coup, cocaine
production increased massively. Bolivia [became] the source of virtually
100% of the cocaine entering the US. This was the beginning of the crack
plague. The CIA along with State and Justice Departments had to
protect their drug-dealing assets by destroying a DEA investigation. How
do I know? I was the inside source. I sat down at my desk in the
American embassy and wrote evidence of my charges. I addressed it to
Newsweek. Three weeks later DEA?s internal security [called] to
notify me that I was under investigation. The highlight of the
60 Minutes piece is when the administrator of the DEA, Federal Judge
Robert Bonner, tells Mike Wallace, ?There is no other way to put it,
Mike, [what the CIA did] is drug smuggling. It's illegal. (click
for more)
Gary Webb
San Jose
Mercury News, Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I wrote a series
of stories that began this way: For the better part of a decade, a Bay
Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA
and funneled millions in drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA.
The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban
America. The story was developing a momentum all of its own, despite a
virtual news blackout from the major media. Ultimately, it was public
pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray. The
Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles
Times published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA's
activities. Instead, my reporting and I became the focus of their
scrutiny. It was remarkable [Mercury News editor] Ceppos wrote,
that the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the
series could not find a single significant factual error. A few months
later, the Mercury News [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away
from the story, publishing a long column by Ceppos apologizing for
"shortcomings". The New York Times hailed Ceppos for "setting a
brave new standard", and splashed his apology on their front page, the
first time the series had ever been mentioned there. I quit the
Mercury News not long after that. Do we have a free press
today? Sure. It's free to report all the sex scandals, all the stock
market news, [and] every new health fad that comes down the pike. But
when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff, such stories are not
even open for discussion. (click
for more)
John Kelly
Author, ABC
producer. ABC hired me to help produce a story about an investment
firm that was heavily involved with the CIA. Part of the ABC report
charged that the CIA had plotted to assassinate an American, Ron Rewald,
the president of [the investment firm]. Scott Barnes said on camera that
the CIA had asked him to kill Rewald. After the show aired, CIA
officials met with ABC executive David Burke, [who] was sufficiently
impressed "by the vigor with which they made their case" to order an
on-air "clarification". But that was not enough. [CIA Director]
Casey called ABC Chairman Goldenson. [Thus] despite all the documented
evidence presented in the program, despite ABC standing by the program
in a second broadcast, Peter Jennings reported that ABC could no longer
substantiate the charges. That same day, the CIA filed a formal
complaint with the FCC charging that ABC had "deliberately distorted"
the news. In the complaint, Casey asked that ABC be stripped of its TV
and radio licenses. During this time, Capital Cities
Communications was maneuvering to buy ABC. [CIA Director] Casey was one
of the founders of Cap Cities. Cap Cities bought ABC. Within months, the
entire investigative unit was dispersed. (click
for more)
Robert McChesney
500 radio & TV
appearances. [There has been a] striking consolidation of the media
from hundreds of firms to an industry dominated by less than ten
enormous transnational conglomerates. The largest ten media firms own
all US TV networks, most TV stations, all major film studios, all major
music companies, nearly all cable TV channels, much of the book and
magazine publishing [industry], and much, much more. Expensive
investigative journalism, especially that which goes after national
security or powerful corporate interests, is discouraged. Largely
irrelevant human interest/tragedy stories get extensive coverage.
A few weeks after the war began in Afghanistan, CNN president Isaacson
authorized CNN to provide two different versions of the war: a more
critical one for the global audience and a sugarcoated one for
Americans. It is nearly impossible to conceive of a better world
without some changes in the media status quo. We have no time to waste.
(click
for more)
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