Because "the news" is no longer the news--it's sound bites and headlines
Because you're letting mainstream TV, radio, and newspapers feed you spin (biased opinion) and babble
Because "the news" has become "paid lying"
"Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims." 1
Before 9/11--and the international capitalist cabal's attacks on constitutional freedoms following that
disaster--American citizens had the option of whether or not to inform themselves. But the cabal's attacks on our civil liberties now constitutes such an ongoing CRISIS that Americans must
either inform themselves or continue to suffer from the cabal's attacks on basic Constitutional freedoms.
If you're going to become an informed citizen, you're going to have to inform yourself! The so-called TV "news" shows don't even pretend to provide a balanced presentation of varying points of view. A Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in the year 2001 revealed that 92 percent of
all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable,
75 percent were Republican.
FAIR's
exposé of the Bill O'Reilly program reveals the ugly visage of bigotry and egomania. TV only
provides DIS-information and inane entertainment which it calls "news."
In a January 9, 2010
article entitled "Hard Lessons from Decades Past," Robert Parry made it clear just how "news" has degenerated into brainwashing.
"Newsweek was in the vanguard of what would become a trend of the American news media, to ignore or 'debunk' investigations of major national security crimes rather than seriously investigate them.
"By the early 1990s, the historic role of the American press as watchdogs for the public had been transformed. Instead of growling at the corrupt and powerful, the press corps had become guard dogs, protecting the new Republican establishment and snarling at citizens, whistleblowers and even fellow journalists who sought to expose wrongdoing.
"But many Americans – including some who should have known better – still thought the Watergate/Pentagon Papers press corps was alive and well. After all, the new reality was obscured by a steady flow of right-wing propaganda promoting the false (or at least obsolete) notion that the national press corps had a 'liberal bias.'"
"If information is the oxygen of democracy, the United States has just been gassed, not by weapons of mass destruction but by a weapon of mass distraction . . .
"The transformation of active citizens into passive consumers was enabled by the Federal Communications Commission
under Ronald Reagan's Mark Fowler, who declared 'the perception of broadcasters as community trustees should be
replaced by a view of broadcasters as marketplace participants.'
"TV's Fox could not get away with its shameless shilling for the White House if the Fairness Doctrine were still in
place, and radio's Clear Channel monopoly would not be able to impose wall-to-wall Limbaugh, Hannity and Savage,
etc., on the public if broadcasters were accountable to public opinion rather than the dictates of plutocrats.
"Totalitarian regimes don't tolerate any distinction between journalism and propaganda, but in most democracies it
is unprecedented for the free press to abandon Joseph Pulitzer for the methods of Joseph Goebbels.
"This undemocratic confluence of politics and propaganda has long been in the making as corporate media have been
incrementally empowered while public influence, input and 'interest' have been eliminated."
Ian Masters, host of "Background Briefing" on KPFK-FM (90.7) in Los Angeles, in a 2004 commentary in the Los Angeles Times
Along with news, an informed citizen needs comprehensive analyses of information
which allow facts to be understood from a larger perspective. Those long-range news analyses are just as
important as the more immediate news sources.
So how do you go about getting news and analysis for yourself?
Easy--you get your news and analysis from alternative Internet news programs!
On any given day, if you want to know what's really happening--instead of the rabid right-wing spin given
to every "news" item on TV--then go to the progressive Internet news sources. There you'll find the real news--the information that's important for American citizens to stay abreast of. Fortunately for us, these outstanding alternate Web news sites sift through all the news daily and provide a digest of the most significant items, saving us a tremendous amount of time and energy.
The best way to review these informational Web sites is in terms of layers:
Those sites you will need to review daily
Those you'll want to review weekly
Those to review monthly
What news and analysis sources are important to you, individually, depends on your world view.
This article only applies if you want genuine news about what's really going on--beyond spin and propaganda. If you are
intellectually committed to a doctrinaire religious or political viewpoint and want to review news and analysis from only that
perspective, then this article won't be of any real use to you.
What I'm examining in this article is a broader progressive perspective--which gets at
what's really going on, not what ideological spin tries to make us believe is happening.
You'll need to re-examine your news sources periodically, because some sources simply disappear or change so radically that they're no longer dependable. This article is revised frequently so that only the latest, most reliable sources are recommended.
You need to have information daily about what's actually occurring throughout the world, so these Web sites are essential for you to review each day:
Citizens for Legitimate Government will provide you with all the immediate-breaking news. I suggest you
subscribe to their email service so news flashes come to you throughout the day.
The World Socialist Web Site provides a comprehensive analysis of world events. By reviewing it daily,
you see what are the three or four most important events of that day. If you want to get a feel for the broader-based study of
news the WSWS provides, I'd
suggest this article, which
examines Obama's coverup of the Flight 253 False Flag terrorist scam. WSWS's ability to see current events in a broader perspective is exceptionally helpful in developing a deeper comprehension of current events.
Media Monarchy and Blacklisted News inform you of the important breaking news of the day.
The Web sites I'd suggest you review at least once a week:
Each of these essential information sources has its own idiosyncrasies, but their digesting of news
worldwide makes them invaluable. For example, Jeff Rense's site also contains all the latest UFO and cattle mutilations
sightings, but his savvy in selecting important news items and long-term analyses makes his site one of the best on the Web.
One of the interesting facets of these primary news digests is that they often find
important news items in the mainstream newspaper Web sites. So if you review the news at these sites you'll often
find them linking you out to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, or
even the Christian Science Monitor.
Penetrating analysis of news is provided by a few Internet journalists, most of whom have their own Web sites as well as write for newspapers or magazines:
Seymour Hersh (see his articles in New Yorker magazine and other publications
If Americans are to retain the democratic liberties our constitution provides us,
we must keep ourselves informed. We can't expect the mainstream news sources to provide the information we need.
Fortunately, we have an excellent source of essential news and analysis on the Internet. Now it's up to us to use it
efficiently to become truly informed citizens.
3/10/03: Eric Alterman, "Bad News, Film at 11," "Raleigh, NC's three network anchors together make more than the entire payroll of 260 at the local paper"
Before 9/11--and the international capitalist cabal's attacks on constitutional freedoms following that
disaster--American citizens had the option of whether or not to inform themselves. But the cabal's attacks on our civil liberties now constitutes such an ongoing CRISIS that Americans must
either inform themselves or continue to suffer from the cabal's attacks on basic Constitutional freedoms.
Along with news, an informed citizen needs comprehensive analyses of information
which allow facts to be understood from a larger perspective. Those long-range news analyses are just as
important as the more immediate news sources.
What news and analysis sources are important to you, individually, depends on your world view.
This article only applies if you want genuine news about what's really going on--beyond spin and propaganda. If you are
intellectually committed to a doctrinaire religious or political viewpoint and want to review news and analysis from only that
perspective, then this article won't be of any real use to you.
