|  |
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.
In a May 1, 2003
article entitled "There is
no media," Mike Hersh made it clear just how "news" has degenerated into brainwashing.
You're not getting the news:
Before 9/11--and the Bush administration's attacks on constitutional freedoms following that
disaster--American citizens had the option of whether or not to inform themselves. But Bush's attacks on our civil liberties now constitutes such a CRISIS that Americans must
either inform themselves or continue to suffer from the
demonic cabal's attacks on basic Constitutional freedoms.
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." One of the few exceptions is the Keith
Olbermann Countdown program, with his periodic Commentaries. But even Olbermann fills much of his "news program" with
inane, mind-destroying "Oddball" stupidity."What masquerades as a free press is largely the propaganda arm of the right wing of the Republican Party.
Few brave souls still present the news in a balanced way. Most of them are 'opinion' writers like Paul Krugman and
Joe Conason.
"Few liberals get to speak out on television - where most Americans get their 'news.' When they do, it's
on 'roundtable shows' where right wingers shout down their comments. Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough and
other rabid right wingers pontificate without any counterbalance.
"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." |
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!
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 much 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 need to have information daily about what's actually occurring throughout the world, so these two 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 the 9/11 atrocity and the Bush junta's fascist attacks on Constitutional rights. WSWS's ability to see current events in a broader perspective is exceptionally helpful in developing a deeper comprehension of current events.
The Web sites I'd suggest you review at least once a week:
McClatchy News
| ConsortiumNews
| Rense.com
| Guardian
| Independent Media Center
| Online Journal
| ||||||||||||||||
The Web sites I'd suggest you review at least once a month:
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.
- Greg Palast
- Jim Hightower
- Paul Krugman
- John Nichols
- Seymour Hersh (see his articles in New Yorker magazine and other publications
- Robert McChesney
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.
By Norman D. Livergood Updated 4/20/08
_______________
If you find that a print news and/or analysis source, such as The Nation, The Los Angeles Times,
or the Jim Hightower newsletter, is exceptionally helpful, you might want to subscribe to that source to provide support.
I'd recommend the new book by McChesney and Nichols, Our Media, Not Theirs
Updates:
