Where Are All the Resignations of Editors Who Ran Bush Propaganda?

[struggle4progress]

By Dave Lindorff, ILCA Associate Member

When CBS goofed up, people were fired and quit in disgrace. But when dozens, maybe hundreds of news outfits run Bush administration-made propaganda posing as legitimate news reports, nobody has to resign. What gives here?

Okay, so we know now that the Bush administration has been using all kinds of devious means to push propaganda on the American public--fake news generated by the Pentagon for overseas, and ultimately, courtesy of blowback, U.S. consumption, fake news reports by fake reporters peddled to local TV stations, bought reporters and syndicated columnists paid to shill for the administration's policies, and even fake reporters salted into the White House press corps to ask puffball questions if the president or press secretary start getting too much heat.

But why is this all happening? Surely the Bush administration isn't the first to push its story out there. And sure, the administration should take some of the blame for this Soviet-style manipulation of public opinion. <snip>

It wouldn’t be so bad if the American media weren’t so sanctimonious about itself. Look at how the talking heads of journalism and the big names in news management and academia came down on CBS for its failure to fully check out those internal memos from Bush's AWOL National Guard days. We still don't know for certain that those documents were faked--they may well have been real--and moreover, there's good reason to believe that they were at worst just recreations of what actually had been written about the president's sorry-ass record of service in the Guard. And yet "60 Minutes," under withering criticism by the rest of the media for its failure to do due diligence, ended up firing or asking for the resignation of several senior staffers.

So where are the mass resignations of editors of the news outlets that ran the reports by "Karen Ryan" and "Mike Morris," or whoever they are, the journalistic poseurs from the Bush administration who fobbed off their television reports on the public? I haven't heard of a single firing or resignation. <snip>

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1866&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[The Zanti Regent]

1. The GOP controls the media

Remember how the classic Outer Limits series opened?

The Control Voice said he was controlling what you see and hear?

That is what the Nazi Republican Party does now. They have total media control.

[Mugsy]

9. First Amendment end-run? Serious possible crime.

I was reading Maureen Dowd's mention of how she was denied a press pass while Gannon received his. This got me thinking...

This is the very reason we have the First Amendment... to keep the government in check when Congress itself fails. So consider for a moment that the ONLY way the White House can deny the "liberal press" access to the Press Room or Air Force 1 "out of hand" is to claim "not enough seats available". So they relax the scrutiny of the Conservative Press in order to fill up seats so people like Maureen Dowd can be denied access on the weak basis of simply "No more room. Sorry."

The only way to prove this theory is to see who else was denied access, and do a "media bias headcount" of reporters in the Press Room to see if in fact this is going on.

Get on it Bloggers!

[Hissyspit]

2. Someone forward this to Howard Kurtz at Times

He's really p*ssing me off lately. I don't have his email address.

[Skittles]

3. who is going to hold the fascists accountable?

certainly not the press they OWN

[Selteri]

4. Here here. NT

[blondeatlast]

5. If even one resigns or is fired, the whole fairy castle topples.

They are spending so much time covering each other's ass to protect their own that their behavior has become almost cultlike. If they let up on this for a moment, the entire scheme could be exposed (look at the the Novaks/Plame and Guckert situation) and then they'd all be exposed for the LAZY crooks and liars they are.

We need to take one down, but quietly. I see Howard Kurtz as incredibly vulnerable--his RW shill wife is the main reason. He's easily exposed for the shill he is.

[UL_Approved]

6. You hit this one

The fairy castle. I couldn't have summed it up better.

This is the cult of ass play. Cover asses, $%^& asses, etc. Its all about ass. Pure and simple.

Well, boys, a biker said it best:

Ass, gas, or grass: nobody rides for free.

[indepat]

7. They are out there running Bush propaganda every day

[Bozita]

8. That's the article that spurred Newsjock's superb thread ...

... on his experiences as an editor of a mid-size daily newspaper.

IMHO, it's one of the best threads EVER on DU.

Link to Newsjock's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3146465&mesg_id=3146465

[blondeatlast]

10. It's a miust read.

Tells it exactly like it is regarding what we are up against.

One wonders what it must be like for experienced journalists who still believe in their valuable contribution to democracy to see this all happening.

It must be very depressing for them.

Very sad.