2008 Woodie Awards
The Real Deal: Media not doing their job...but who cares?
Paul McNeill
Issue date: 10/24/06 Section: Opinions
We have access to more information than any civilization in history, yet we still know so little. With the abundance of media and technology we should be the most liberated and most educated people ever, yet we embrace ignorance and scoff at liberty. We're eager to trade freedom for security, and we happily ignore truth in return for a reaffirmation of our own beliefs.
Our media and our government habitually fail us, but we don't seem to care.
The publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, its Spanish language sister paper, recently resigned after it was revealed that the Bush administration paid reporters of El Nuevo Herald to spread anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba and southern Florida.
What's scarier is The Miami Herald, and many other papers, have vague policies about reporters accepting government bribes, and many halfheartedly enforce those policies. The Bush administration has no problem paying off reporters (Who can forget President Bush's gay stooge Jeff Gannon?) and standing in the way of a free press.
The U.S. has arrested and detained four journalists in Iraq and an Al Jazeera cameraman for nothing more than reporting stories the Bush administration didn't want reported. That's the only conclusion one can make because no one has produced any evidence to support criminal charges.
The U.S. ranked sixth in the world in the number of journalists it put in jail last year. No. 6! The land of the free, the jewel of democracy is No. 6. Why doesn't this outrage more people?
Last year, the United States military also paid Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories about coalition forces. I guess our mission of spreading liberty doesn't apply to media.
Television stations here at home have been running stories produced by the government during their news broadcasts, and neglecting to reveal who created them.
The Homeland Security Department is paying U.S. universities to develop software designed to monitor negative opinions of America and its leaders in foreign newspapers. The government says the software's purpose is to help identify potential threats, and it emphasizes the phrase "foreign newspapers." Although the government says it wants to monitor the global news media, is there any doubt this technology will be used to monitor American media?
Our media and our government habitually fail us, but we don't seem to care.
The publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, its Spanish language sister paper, recently resigned after it was revealed that the Bush administration paid reporters of El Nuevo Herald to spread anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba and southern Florida.
What's scarier is The Miami Herald, and many other papers, have vague policies about reporters accepting government bribes, and many halfheartedly enforce those policies. The Bush administration has no problem paying off reporters (Who can forget President Bush's gay stooge Jeff Gannon?) and standing in the way of a free press.
The U.S. has arrested and detained four journalists in Iraq and an Al Jazeera cameraman for nothing more than reporting stories the Bush administration didn't want reported. That's the only conclusion one can make because no one has produced any evidence to support criminal charges.
The U.S. ranked sixth in the world in the number of journalists it put in jail last year. No. 6! The land of the free, the jewel of democracy is No. 6. Why doesn't this outrage more people?
Last year, the United States military also paid Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories about coalition forces. I guess our mission of spreading liberty doesn't apply to media.
Television stations here at home have been running stories produced by the government during their news broadcasts, and neglecting to reveal who created them.
The Homeland Security Department is paying U.S. universities to develop software designed to monitor negative opinions of America and its leaders in foreign newspapers. The government says the software's purpose is to help identify potential threats, and it emphasizes the phrase "foreign newspapers." Although the government says it wants to monitor the global news media, is there any doubt this technology will be used to monitor American media?
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