You may disagree with me but a majority of American Media personnel have un-neutralized themselves for a long time. During the Iraq’s shameless shock-n-awe war, the CNN, FOX and other media were truly ‘embedded’ with our government; they became mouth pieces for the government.
Thomas Jefferson made a strong statement about the role of media in a democracy when he noted, “If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Describing the role of the press, George A. Krimsky, the former head of news for the Associated Press’ World Services and co-author of Hold the Press, writes, “In the wake of America’s successful revolution, it was decided there should indeed be government, but only if it were accountable to the people. The people, in turn, could only hold the government accountable if they knew what it was doing and could intercede as necessary, using their ballot, for example. This role of public ‘watchdog’ was thus assumed by a citizen press, and as a consequence, the government in the United States has been kept out of the news business.”
The US Congress, the Senate and the Media all acted like sycophants of our President during the Afghan and Iraq wars. I am glad the then Senators Obama, Paul and late congressman Murtha had the guts to speak their minds while others sheepishly following the pied piper.
Could the Iraq war have been prevented had our media asked the right questions? We could have saved the lives of our soldiers; we did not have to carry the guilt of massacring the innocent Iraqis and Afghans – for one Bin Laden? Would the American families have suffered had we not had the budget deficits resulting from the wars?
Our cavalier attitude towards the administration, the senate, congress and the press was shameful. Enough is written and talked about the collective guilt and I hope the future generations forgive us.
Thank God we have the NPR, PBS and BBC to give us a semblance of another point of view. I am looking forward to Aljazeera to set the new standards in journalism by asking dare devil questions that most of the American reporters dare not ask and risk their jobs. What are you afraid of?
The Aljazeera Show “Empire” gathered Carl Bernstein, Amy Woodman and a few other media stalwarts about the role of media. The questions the facilitator asked were incredible! He said “the American media acted as the mouth piece of government” and indeed we sounded like the state television of Gaddafi.
The essence of democracy is the ability to question everything without worrying about censure against such inquiry. How many journalists from the mainstream media have failed this test in recent times?
I have seen Anderson Cooper grill a few right wingers a few times, more of it is needed. We should question every damn politician if we want our freedom to prevail over their interests and I am glad he still has his job unlike Helen Thomas.
I welcome Aljazeera to pave the way to American Journalists or hire them to regenerate their guts to report the facts and not what Rupert wants them to say in critical matters. We must cherish, nourish and fight from freedom, nothing is more valuable than freedom.
# # #
A note to Aljazeera: Please show the names of the anchors or reporters. I still did not get the name of the news anchor and the host of the Empire.
Mike Ghouse is committed to offer pluralistic solutions and work towards building a cohesive America. His work is listed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/
