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With Malice Aforethought
By Nancy Greggs
ABC Network, All Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
It was with great dismay, but not surprise, that I read about the upcoming ABC-TV production “The Path To 9/11”. The advance critiques of this film have been scathing in their assessment that the entire enterprise will be yet another glorification of the Bush administration, a whitewash of its obvious failures, and of course the now traditional finger-pointing at Bill Clinton.
The fact that this “docudrama” was penned by a political hack – a man whose leanings are, shall we say, more than a bit slanted to the extreme right – is a dead giveaway as to what the viewing public will be subjected to in the days to come: political propaganda dressed up as fact, blatant disinformation tarted up like the corporate-pleasing whore the mainstream media has become.
Suffice to say I, like millions of other Americans, will not be watching this program. And that is because I, like millions of Americans, determined long ago that ABC-TV, along with other networks, has become totally irrelevant, especially when it comes to reporting the news and the true nature of what has been happening in our nation.
I literally grew up with television. My father was one of the first TV cameramen in the country, and television was part of our lives long before our relatives and neighbors had decided to take the plunge into this new-fangled technology. In fact, my father spent the largest portion of his career with ABC-TV in New York City. He passed away two years ago, and I can’t help but wonder tonight what he would have thought about this upcoming airing. I can assure you that as someone who took great pride in the integrity of the network he once worked for, he would not have been pleased.
It is sad to think that a medium so promising in its infancy, especially in the area of news coverage, would end its days in such utter disgrace. The Conkrites, the Murrows, the Huntleys, the Brinkleys, have now been replaced by people whose only “talent” is having the right hairdo, a pleasing on-screen visage, and a willingness to do as they are told. Sadly, journalistic integrity is just another once-popular show that has been cancelled, not due to poor ratings or a waning audience share, but due to corporate masters who must be served.
Fact checking has been replaced with fax checking, as news writers rush to the fax machine to assure themselves that those on high – corporate owners, corporate sponsors – have sent their instructions on how a news story is to be slanted and spun in order to fit a political agenda, and so as not to endanger the government contracts that keep the money flowing into the right pockets.
We, the American public, have, of necessity, informed ourselves via the internet, out-of-country newspapers, and satellite TV feeds from the around the world. And what we have learned is disheartening. We know about the White House generated propaganda pieces that are aired on US television and radio networks as ‘news’; we know about the broadcasting of cleaned-up versions of Bush’s speeches and the carefully edited remarks made by his spokespeople. We know about the deletion of comments that are awkward or embarrassing, or that might be construed as not in keeping with the current administration’s talking points.
And yet you continue to present yourselves as journalists speaking truth to power, while at the same time spewing utter nonsense that has, more often than not, already been debunked in more reliable quarters as complete fabrication. There are times that nightly news broadcasts have fallen so completely into the realm of the ridiculous, one could easily believe they are watching the latest sit-com, complete with characters that are too off-the-wall to be taken seriously, too ill informed to be viewed as anything other than satiric entertainment.
It is hard to imagine that journalism was once a voice that spoke truth to the masses without regard to political double-speak, and righteously eschewed interference by any government body. It was a sacred trust, as much a part of democracy in action as fair elections, transparency of government, and freedom of speech.
What it has become is a travesty, a rewriting of history literally as it happens, a form of propaganda akin to the kind of repression of truth that American journalists once decried in covering stories about the Soviet Union and countries behind the Iron Curtain. But that was back in the days when journalistic integrity was not an aberration, but the norm.
To fail to inform the public is bad newscasting. But to purposely misinform the public is not just bad reporting; it is bad citizenship. In fact, in my opinion, it is nothing less than treasonous.
Unfortunately, too many American citizens still unwittingly believe TV news broadcasting to be accurate and unvarnished, and form their political opinions based on what they see and hear on the tiny screen that has, over the decades, gone from being part of the living room décor to being a trusted member of the family.
And never before has that trust been so completely abused, the truth so unabashedly battered, the facts so blatantly distorted and/or completely ignored as has been evident in the TV news media during the tenure of the present administration.
As I reflect on the mainstream news media nowadays, I am oft reminded of the scene from “On The Waterfront”, when Marlon Brando, as would-be fighter Terry Malloy, confronts the fact of his complete betrayal by the person he most trusted. “You was my brother, Charley. You shoulda looked out for me a little bit.”
It’s akin to what I feel when I watch TV newscasters these days. The betrayal has been complete; the mainstream media has been taking those dives for the short-end money for years, without regard to their impact on the viewers, or on our society as a whole.
Once upon a time, you WERE our brother, and you did look out for us. That was not just your job, your occupation, your livelihood; it was a responsibility you took seriously, and executed with integrity. And our country, and our world, was once a better place for it.
Now you are just another whore, servicing fat-cat corporate executives and politicos who have no more respect for you than the people you have so utterly betrayed.
It is difficult to pinpoint the most egregious of your many sins. Maybe it is the constant insult to the viewers’ intelligence, the oh-so-obvious distortion of the facts, or the arrogance of your self-delusion that you are pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes.
Or perhaps it is just the deafening sound of thirty pieces of silver jangling in your pockets, and the knowledge that you were willing to sell out your own integrity, your country, and your fellow citizens, for such a paltry amount.
Yours Most Truly,
Nancy Greggs
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