United States is 49th in press freedom

We're #49 in World Press Freedom. Canada is #8.  "In the United States, 2014 was marked by judicial harassment of New York Times investigative reporter James Risen in connection with the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer charged under the Espionage Act with giving him classified information. US journalists are still not protected by a federal shield law that would guarantee their right not to name their sources or reveal other confidential information about their work. Meanwhile, at least 15 journalists were arbitrarily arrested during clashes between police and demonstrators protesting against black teenager Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri."

 http://index.rsf.org/

Sports and Greed

Recent events in science, politics, national security and the economy have caused many of us to completely lose faith in our so called “free and independent press,” because broadcast and print journalists carried the water for Obama in 2007-2008, downplayed the pinholes in the expanding housing bubble when there was still time to do something, research institutions and gatekeepers of the peer review sources manipulated data and blacklisted colleagues for the sake of government grants and personal gain in science, and cable, new media “fact checkers” and news aggregators played up every mistake of the military during the Bush years while ignoring the big picture with an end result of helping our enemies. The final straw has been the Tiger Woods story, at least for me. Yesterday I was reading How Tiger Protected his Image, in the WSJ. As I tried to work my way through the convoluted, complex story of Tiger’s deal with Golf Digest, I stumbled over many other media sources--Conde Nast, Tiger Woods’ own foundation, American Media, Inc., The National Enquirer, Men’s Fitness, News of the World, News Corp., Woods’ handlers, representatives, photographers, Laveley & Singer law firm in LA, spokespeople, editors, Media Industry Newsletter, and finally (but not the first) the hapless, untipped waitress in the church parking lot and her family.

And no, this isn’t just a story about sex, or even possible redemption, which for some reason many Christian writers are playing up. It’s a story about a systemic problem--greed. When his wife or babies test positive for an STD, then maybe we can say it’s about infidelity and sex, but in the meantime, the sports and information industries have some explaining to do their values.

Dunn explains how it's done

How to keep the press in your pocket and suppress all other views.



She says: "Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.


"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.


"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama'schief campaign manager.


"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

HT Chicago Ray


Here's Plouffe (Obama's Campaign Manager) keeping the press out of the National Press Club

Bill of Rights
Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Read that paragraph 3 or 4 times, and think about how precious it is, how few countries have this. Then think about what has happened since September 2008, and specifically in the last 100+ days. Our government has done more to encroach on this important amendment, than at any period during my life time, and that includes the McCarthy era, that little blip the Communist Party of the USA looks back on as their shining moment of martyrdom and glorious myth. But they are very clever. Now, no law has to be made. Only a regulatory commission or agency is needed to silence political speech on the radio or marriage sermons from the pulpit; only a charge of hate speech to silence a preacher or synod or priest; the press can be silenced by destroying advertising (no market, no competition, why advertise?) so what’s left is a mouthpiece of the government; only comedic goons such as Garafalo or Hilton on TV threatening with impunity those who peaceably assemble to redress grievances of taxation or voice their sincere beliefs about what is in God‘s Word.

General Sanchez' view of the press, Congress and the war effort

Ricardo Sanchez' harshest words were for the media, then Congress at his Military Reporters and Editors Address, Washington D.C. I'll excerpt a few items. First the media:

You feel qualified to make character judgments that are communicated to the world. My experience is not unique and we can find other examples such as the treatment of Secretary Brown during Katrina. This is the worst display of journalism imaginable by those of us that are bound by a strict value system of selfless service, honor and integrity.

You seek for self aggrandisement or to advance your individual quest for getting on the front page with your stories.

The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry. Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change.

The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our servicemembers who are at war.

Holy moly. And for the administration:

This administration has failed to employ and synchronize its political, economic and military power. The latest "revised strategy" is a desperate attempt by an administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war and they have definitely not communicated that reality to the American people.

And for the Congress

Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship as the republican and democratic parties struggled for power in Washington. National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising effective, executable, supportable solutions. At times, these partisan struggles have led to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield.

Congress must shoulder a significant responsibility for this failure since there has been no focused oversight of the nations political and economic initiatives in this war. Exhortations, encouragements, investigations, studies and discussions will not produce success.

At no time in America's history has there been a greater need for bipartisan cooperation. The threat of extremism is real and demands unified action at the same levels demonstrated by our forefathers during World War I and World War II. America has failed to date.

These are just excerpts. It's not pretty. But a strong feel of truth.

When Washington Post wrote up the speech, it totally left out his criticism of the media. Oh my gosh, what a surprise!