TomDispatch — There is obviously some secret deal between our media and Bush.
Imagine that the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate scandal had broken out all over the press — no, not in the New York Times or the Washington Post, but in newspapers in Australia or Canada. And that, facing their own terrible record of reportage, of years of being cowed by the Nixon administration, major American papers had decided that this was not a story worthy of being covered…
This is, of course, something like the crude pattern that coverage in the American press has followed on the Downing Street memo, then memos. As of late last week, four of our five major papers (the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and USA Today) hadn’t even commented on them in their editorial pages. In my hometown paper, the New York Times, complete lack of interest was followed last Monday by a page 11 David Sanger piece (Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn’t Made) that focused on the second of the Downing Street memos, a briefing paper for Tony Blair’s “inner circle,” and began: “A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made %u2018no political decisions’ to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced.”
From the TomDispatch
“There is obviously some secret deal between our media and Bush”
I agree. Now that he’s lame duck I don’t see why the press is bending over backwards.
But it might be more than just selling their souls to Bush. Maybe it’s all because there is no independent press. Now that the news is all about profit it’s simpler to avoid real controversy and stick to reporting about the lives of celebrities.
The end of a discussion between Lou Dobbs and Bill Moyers, the other day, left this as a topic to be discussed. Neither saw anything especially positive in our future — about a tame press and useless TV “news”.
They agreed that a significant part of the cause was the acquisition of most major news sources by entertainment conglomerates. After all, they don’t make money — as far as they can see, which usually is the next quarter at best — by providing useful information or informing an already ignorant electorate.
The saddest part is that investigative journalism as such originated in the United States. The Muckrakers of an earlier time started the movement that resulted in food quality standards. Not that they aren’t getting ready to disappear, as well.
All he says is that the editorial pages didn’t comment. What did the news pages have to say? The editorial pages have been talking about the war for some time now, including the lack of WMD and everything else. Should they next have chimed in on the mock impeachment hearings?
The U.S. media coverage – in the news page or editorial pages – pretty much ignored the memo for, what was it, a month!!! Look at how fast, and hard, the so called liberal media jumps on Durbin for his comments, Dan Rather, Newsweeks story, John Kerry re: the Swift Boat crap, etc.. The intensity of the media’s coverage on the refusal of Bush and company to listen to the evidence of the outgoing administration, lack of WMD, lack of connection btw. Saddam and 9/11, lack of body armor and safe vechicles (even now), the lack of preparation for the end of the war, the inconsistencies in Bush’s social security plan, etc. is very low compared to the coverage on the failings of the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore, Daschle, anything Democratic or liberal. Look it up.