Many times in the past I’ve written about some of the problems with Corporately owned media and how they cover up crimes and push bold faced lies for the Washington establishment, particularly for President Bush. For the past few weeks their credibility has taken a harder beating — the conflict in Georgia, the 3-years-in-the-making report about the implosion of World Trade Center (WTC) building 7, and the current presidential race are just a few of the latest stories making corporately owned media look bad.
The war in Georgia is a great example of how the media skewers facts to manipulate public opinion. Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, conveniently timed to start with the opening of the 2008 Olympics, was conducted with U.S. approval. Georgia’s military is funded, trained and supported by the American military as well as Israeli’s military and intelligence. Russia’s quick military response to Georgia’s attack seemed to surprise the Bush administration. A look at the puppet masters behind Georgian President Saakashvili can be found from Information Clearing House. Once the Bush administration started their hypocritical rhetoric blaming Russia, corporately owned media followed suit and created “news” that suited the requirements of the Bush administration.
As noted by The World Socialist Web Site:
“The media presentation of the Georgia crisis is a textbook example of the way in which the “free press” in America functions as little more than a semi-official propaganda agency of the government.”
Unfair and Unbalanced Reporting
An article from The Washington Post written by a Russian citizen studying journalism in the U.S. notes that the journalism of Watergate is well behind us and reporting in the U.S. is no longer fair and balanced.
Coverage of the conflict between Georgia and Russia has been, at the least, unprofessional. American newspapers constantly deluged the public with stories about how an “evil” Russia invaded a Democratic, sovereign neighboring state. Russia did not start the invasion. Russia finished it. Little if any attention was paid to the facts. Georgia’s attack killed more than 2000 innocent civilians with Russian citizenship.
This alleged sovereign, democratic state is, like America has been for the past seven and a half plus years, a dictatorship ruled by a delusional wannabe dictator using premeditated actions and propaganda to achieve the desired end result. Until recently, corporately owned news media was able to influence public opinion and push presidential propaganda. Now it’s becoming more difficult.
‘New Phenomenon’ Caused WTC 7 Collapse
Recently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, released a report (PDF) about a “new phenomenon” responsible for the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) that had never happened before in history — despite the fact that news stations and ground zero workers knew the building was going to collapse hours before it happened — blaming fire that induced a ‘progressive collapse.’ WTC 7 imploded into its own footprint. This is the second time the NIST has released flimsy ‘evidence.’
The NIST report is not based on forensic evidence. It’s based on computer stimulation — a computer program that can be tweaked to come up with the desired results. It took 3 years to come to the conclusions in the report, meaning either it took someone that long to figure out how to tweak the program to show their version of how it collapsed, or they had to find the right time to release the results. Of course, there will undoubtedly never be a peer review of the ‘evidence’ used to generate the report.
Mark Loizeaux, the owner of a demolition company (Controlled Demolition, Inc…CDI), was conveniently on the scene right after the attacks of 9/11. By his own admission, he called friends in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 and told them to get out of the area because the buildings were coming down. Loizeaux is mentioned in the NIST report where he reaches the conclusion that WTC 7 was not a controlled demolition. No testing was ever done for explosive residue at the WTC site and all the evidence was quickly picked up and shipped away, and destroyed.
A month or so ago, Mark Loizeaux was on a British Broadcasting Company special giving his reasons why WTC 7 couldn’t be a controlled demolition — saying that over-pressure from the blasts would have caused window breakage on every surrounding building, on all sides of the building, and that there was no way around it — although his web site boasted that they were able to drop a building with the exact square footage as WTC 7 without breaking many windows at all facing the explosions, much less breaking the windows on the opposite sides of the demolition.
When the North Tower fell, the debris cut WTC 6 nearly in half and severely damaged WTC 5. The “official” story of 9/11 said WTC 6 was damaged when the tower fell. The “official” story is a lie. WTC 6 was severely damaged by a large explosion before the North Tower fell. WTC 5 burned out of control for over 9 hours but didn’t fall. The NIST is lying and some of the corporately owned news media outlets are trying to convince the American public that these lies are the truth. Popular Mechanics, edited by Benjamin Chertoff — alleged to be a cousin of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — has tried to debunk 9/11 truthseekers a few times. As usual, it’s easy to debunk the debunkers. A video in which you can hear explosions before WTC 7 imploded can be found from American Everyman’s Blog. More information can also be found from Lataan Blogspot, Wake Up From Your Slumber, Prison Planet, What Really Happened and George Washington’s Blog.
Turning Journalism Into Infotainment
In theory, free press is supposed to be an independent source of information that presents the facts, doesn’t take sides and lets the reader reach their own conclusion. For the most part, that hasn’t happened in many years. It has just become more blatantly obvious during the current Bush administration. Corporately owned media has turned journalism into infotainment.
Corporately owned media plays a big hand in elections and politics too, most recently trying to destroy Obama’s candidacy. On day one of the Democratic National Convention, the media focused its attention on speculating as to whether there is lingering bitterness on the part of Senator Hillary Clinton and her supporters instead of the unity message put forth from the Democratic party, with no mention of any political issues involved.
Online news outlets hold their own against traditional outlets because pertinent facts aren’t purposely omitted or ignored. FOX News has become a laughing stock with their ‘journalists’ spending more time spreading lies and slandering people than reporting actual news.
Only 30% of their viewers believe CNN, once the ‘most trusted’ source for news reports. ABC News and NBC News have a believability rating of 24%. CBS has a believability rating of 22%. The New York Times has a believability rating of 18%. An interesting summary of how media credibility has plummetted can be found from News Busters.
It’s Time To Wake Up America!
For years the corporately owned media has covered up a lot of important facts that impact virtually every American. Corporately owned media has been complicit in keeping information about the attacks of 9/11 — which conveniently served as a pretext for endless war — the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the Georgia-Russia conflict and many other crimes the Bush administration is responsible for covered up. As their complicity continues, their credibility declines. Owners of these media giants need to be held responsible for their actions too.
For years after the attacks of 9/11, America’s fears were purposely taken advantage of and intentionally played upon by the Bush administration with help from corporately owned media outlets. Now that people have finally starting choosing not to believe the lies fed to them regarding the attacks of 9/11 and everything since, the political propaganda machines are paying the price. It’s time to wake up America!
As noted by Michael Parenti from Media Alliance: “…media bias does not occur in a random fashion; rather it moves in the same overall direction again and again, favoring management over labor, corporations over corporate critics, affluent Whites over low-income minorities, officialdom over protesters, the two-party monopoly over leftist third parties, privatization and free market “reforms” over public-sector development, U.S. corporate dominance of the Third World over revolutionary social change and conservative commentators and columnists…” Parenti also notes that media bias rarely strays into territory that might cause discomfort to those who hold political and economic power, including those who own the media or advertise in it. It’s time to change that. The people of this country have been betrayed too much already. The time for accountability is now.
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