Stephen Lendman

Truth Emergency: Inside the Military Industrial Media Empire

Former PC Director Peter Phillips and former Associate Director Mickey Huff discuss the terrible toll from America's imperial wars, with special emphasis on the carnage in Iraq. In America today, a "literal Truth Emergency" exists given the absence of "a truly free press" to report accurately on events and developments abroad or at home at a time of grave economic crisis, affecting growing millions, and misdirected spending for militarism and banker bailouts.

In January 2008, a Truth Emergency Movement held its first summit to devise ways to promote and distribute truths to a population starved for them and defeat the military-industrial-media complex's dominance. They quoted famed journalist George Seldes (1890 - 1995) saying that "Journalism's job is not impartial 'balanced' reporting. Journalism's job is to tell the people what is really going on."

It's for committed alternative sources to counteract corporate media propaganda, and for a popular super-majority to rely on them for real news, information, and analysis to stay informed. Otherwise, a free and open society is impossible.

Pentagon Propaganda, Spin, and Lies about America's Imperial Wars

They come from dominant domestic and international media sources; so-called National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting, and the BBC; state propaganda services like Voice of America; many figures in academia and the clergy; and ideologically driven conservative and extremist organizations that control most vital information given the public. Without them, imperial wars aren't possible because enough popular opposition could be marshaled against them. Most Americans today distrust the popular media. It's time they directed that sentiment for real change.

Fear & Favor: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

FAIR's Peter Hart writes about how the global economic crisis has impacted corporate newsrooms and the media overall as "owners who gambled on debt-financed expansions" have been hammered by shrinking advertising and subscriber revenues, with no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

Surveys show that large majorities of broadcast and print journalists say financial pressures have increased, and about one-fourth cite considerable owner and advertiser influence in their newsrooms.

Consider Fox News, for example. A summer 2001 Seth Ackerman FAIR article cited its "extraordinary right-wing tilt (as) The Most Biased Name in News." Its founder and president, Roger Ailes, was described by former GHW Bush aide Lee Atwater as operating on "two speeds - attack and destroy." Reputedly, he only hires on-air staff who assure him they're Republicans, yet Fox insists its reporting is "fair and balanced."

The UK-Based Index on Censorship

Currently, defamation is casting a chill on free speech as a recurring theme. In the past year, UK libel law favored claimants by being hostile to free expression. In addition, "libel tourism," letting overseas plaintiffs sue in British courts, has turned the country into a virtual "international tribunal for defamation," but not without countermeasures from other countries, including in America where New York, Illinois, and Florida passed laws protecting their residents from English libel suits. Congress is also considering a law to make them unconstitutional.

The Index on Censorship magazine devoted an entire issue to the state of defamation around the world, and found that while the spirit for reform is strong, scant change followed.

The Hyperreality of a Failing Corporate Media System

Andrew Hobbs and Peter Phillips explain that "Hyperreality is the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not," typical of how the corporate media operate, especially Fox News. Since most people rely on television for information, they're "embedded in a state of excited delirium and knowinglessness," the same sentiment expressed by an old TV sitcom law professor complaining about new students "com(ing) in(to his classroom) with a head full of mush...."

In the corporate media, model democrats like Hugo Chavez are called strongmen, autocrats and dictators. Figures like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck become folk heros for the extreme right. Others as bad get prime time exposure while real journalists are nowhere in sight.

Is PC a Left-Leaning, Conspiracy-Oriented Organization?

Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff would agree about a conspiracy for truth over propaganda, lies, disinformation, and junk news. Each year, "over 200 faculty and students from multiple disciplines and political orientations work with PC," and since 1976 "Over 1,500 students have been trained in media research techniques," ones that produce real journalism, not the fake, deceptive corporate-controlled kind that delivers everything but what people need to know.

They quote media scholar Robert McChesney saying in his book, Rich Media, Poor Democracy:

"A media system set up to serve the needs of Wall Street and Madison Avenue cannot and does not serve the needs of the preponderance of the population." Stories getting almost no coverage are those on what "the political and economic elites are in agreement."

Phillips and Huff add: "Without media freedom, not only can democracy not thrive, it simply cannot exist."

Electoral Fraud, Eroding Democracy, and Media Complicity in 2008

At a time of the latest technology and corporate-controlled electronic voting, it's easier than ever to rig elections, and convincing evidence shows that's precisely what happened in 2000 and 2004. Not only did the Supreme Court hijack the 2000 election, but the Florida recount showed Gore won the state and the election. Fraud was even more extreme in 2004, denying John Kerry the office he won.

The process repeated in 2008 in the form of millions of disappeared votes with electronic ease. Without verifiable paper receipts or paper ballots, however, recount checks aren't possible. Today, America's privatized voting process lets corporate interests decide at the ballot box who's elected and who's not. It's even easier when the losing side won't complain and when the dominant media support the sham.

Expanding Investigative Research for Independent Media and Human Betterment

PC Director Peter Phillips explains that "Investigative research is the use of social science research methods to conduct data collection and analysis of important socio-economic issues for broad public dissemination - much like in-depth investigative reporting."

In an academic setting, it uses alternative media channels to get vital information to the public, and asks key questions like:

-- who has most power;

-- whose decisions most affect our lives;

-- how are power positions gotten;

-- what advantages do they have; and

-- how do they affect others in society?

In the West and especially America, class, race, socio-economic status, ethnicity and gender advantage an elite few over most others, and having a black president makes no difference. Today, inequality is endemic in the country, and evidence shows it's growing more entrenched.

Human Trafficking and Domestic Prostitution

By far, prostitution is the leading form of human trafficking in America, accounting for nearly half of it. The rest shows up in domestic service, agriculture, sweatshops, factories, restaurant and hotel work, and various other types of human exploitation. It persists for lack of regulation, work condition monitoring, and a growing demand for cheap labor and plentiful sex enabling unscrupulous scoundrels and criminal networks to exploit powerless people, including children, for profit.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) states that the average entry prostitution age is from 12 - 14, and a congressional finding estimated that up to 300,000 children are at risk at any time. In addition, the lack of safe and legal migration facilitates trafficking, and few societal protections are available for victims. The profiteers take full advantage.

Water as Commodity or Commons?

Attracting many thousands from around the world, the World Water Council's (WWC) fifth World Water Forum (WWF) was billed as "the world's biggest ever water-related event." Yet it was one of the year's least reported stories because of vocal opposition to its privatization agenda that will make water available only to those who can afford the exorbitant cost. As part of the commons, clean water is a human right, not a commodity to be exploited for profit.

In her book Water Wars, Vandana Shiva says:

"Water is a commons because it is the ecological basis of all life and because its sustainability and equitable allocation depends on cooperation among community members."

Author Maude Barlow adds:

"You cannot trade or sell a human right or deny it to someone on the basis of an inability to pay."

WWF participants plan to do just that by charging prices unaffordable to billions.

Lesbian and Gay Standpoint Films

Writer James Joseph Dean examines them from 1980 - 2000, "focus(ing) on lesbian and gay characters' lives from the point of view of a lesbian and gay subculture." Throughout this period, Hollywood began normalizing homosexuality images, but "almost always isolate(d) the gay and lesbian from a larger lesbian and gay subculture" and continued to portray heterosexuality "as the normative identity of the majority." As human beings, Dean argues that society must afford gays and lesbians normal and equal recognition and tolerance.

Final Comments

The Project Censored team has made PC a national treasure, dedicated to media democracy in a free and open society. As guardians of power, today's dominant media system is in crisis because it's bottom-line driven, unresponsive to public needs, and concerned only about the interests of wealth and power.

As a result, fiction substitutes for fact. News is carefully filtered, dissent marginalized and denigrated, and supporting the powerful substitutes for full and accurate reporting. The fallout has imperial wars called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Washington has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street, and patriotism means supporting militarism, violence as a way of life, global dominance, lawlessness, torture, and an Orwellian society in which "war is peace, freedom is slavery, (and) ignorance is strength."

Democracy requires a free, open, vibrant, and diverse media, elements totally absent under our corporate-driven system. PC holds it accountable by revealing what it suppresses.

Support Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation (MFF) that works closely with PC. Read Censored 2010: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008 - 09, and follow PC daily at projectcensored.org and MFF at mediafreedominternational.org. They're our best hope to restore freedom in a healthy and functioning democracy, something very much absent in today's corporate-dominated America.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://republicbroadcasting.org/Global%20Research/index.php?cmd=archives.year&ProgramID=33&year=9

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