Searching For Light At Year’s End
December 30th, 2005 - by: danny
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THE YEAR GONE BY
REMEMBER GEORGE GERBNER
BIG STORIES OF THE YEAR
What do you say at the end of a year like this? The sheer darkness of it, the wars, the disasters, from Katrina to South Asia, the death tolls, the torturers, the liars in high places, the spy scandals, the corruption of our politricks and the deterioration of our media and the decline off our democracy….
What can you say except to praise those among us who have not given up and are still at, those who still believe in the need for change and engagement in the fight for democracy.
anding up for the right values even if the way forward is cloudy right now, with little to hope for real change from our politicans and even less from our culture. It’s a transitional time. A terrible time, really in my the memory of my own transition from the sixties to 60 and beyond.
I don’t want to leave you with a bummer so I looked back into a book I love, (It’s probably out of print.) called Nothing Personal with photos by Richard Avedon and text by James Baldwin, two old High School buddies as I noted in this blog a week ago.
Here’s Jimmy Baldwin talking about darkness, a subject he know a lot about and noting:
“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, waiting to be found. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.”
Its been a hard year for us at Globalvision, and me personally. I have spent most of it writing and hopskotching the world preaching the gospel of media change. I promoted my film WMD and started a new one on the debt trap we are all in. Most days I wrote this blog and found time somehow to have two books published to elablorate my ideas and express my outrage. See www.newsdissector.org/store htm.
I sure need help in getting the word out about them and the work we do here in this space and on this site every day. Thanks again to all I work with: Rory, David, Olivia, Jen, Frank, and our regular readers and contributors….
A YEAR AGO
It is in the spirit of appreciation and hope that I write this last dissection of the year. I took the time to go back a year to a time 12 months back , dominated by news of the Tsunami whose living victims are still victimized to find out what was on our minds then. I began a late December 2004 blog tby citing the AP’s top stories a year ago.
“The election victory of President Bush, after a campaign often dominated by the Iraq war and terrorism, was voted the top story of 2004 in the annual Associated Press survey of editors and news directors.
“The war itself was the No. 2 choice, and four other stories in the Top 10 involved either Iraq or terrorist attacks.”
I commented then: “And how well, may we humbly ask, were these top stories covered? Well enough to help assure the outcomes that are being reported. A self-survey of these same stories by your news dissector of the Editor at MediaChannel found these two top stories among the worst covered and most poorly reported. Could this mean that the more visible a story is, the more of a media gang bang it gets, the worse it will be reported?”
What difference has a year made in the way we get our news? I will leave that question for now to say that we at Mediachannel feel our contribution to this discourse has improved and are pleased that so many of you have stayed with us, and feel some obligation to help us financially and politically by joining up and telling friends about the work we do.
Thank you.
TODAY’S NEWS IN THE NEWS
In the news today, more talk about impeachment, more criticism, more talking back in high places as public opinion turns at least for now.
You will be pleased to know that that most objective of institutions, the Pentagon has investigated some of the paid journalism used abroad as propaganda and determined – get this, its is LEGAL. The LA Times carries a piece that says;
“Pentagon Calls Its Pro-U.S. Websites Legal
An internal review finds that efforts aimed at the Balkans, northern Africa break no laws. But a Defense official says they might backfire.”
For a probe of that mover and shaker from England who snagged a $100 million dollar Pentagon info war contract:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1958479,00.html
LATEST OUTRAGE
US Soldiers ordered to promote war while on leave:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml
PROTESTS
The Center for Defense Alernatives predicts: “Sunni Arab protests will soon escalate in Iraq as electoral position slips
“Barring special intervention, the final tally of Iraq national council seats won in the 15 December 2005 election will show further deterioration in the relative position of Sunni Arab parties. This much can be deduced from the national vote totals and the structure of the Iraqi electoral system.
This analysis shows that Sunnis in Iraq do not believe in all the upbeat election stories we have been seeing.
Many Withhold Phone Tax:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1229-05.htm
BI-PARTISAN RENDITIONS
ICH: “The US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) controversial “rendition” program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11404.htm
CIA SPYING IMMENSE
Dana Priest profiles the program in today’s Washington Post:
“The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics…”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901585.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
NO JOY IN MUDVILLE
December 29, 2005, New York- “According to analysts and oddsmakers at BetUS.com – a leading online sportsbook and casino – Republicans are favored with 3-4 odds to win the White House again in 2008. The leading Republican is Rudolph Giuliani with 1-2 odds, and John McCain in a close second at 2-1.”
KATRINA FOLLOW —UP
REPORT: Nearly four months after Katrina, hundreds of children still missing
http://www.infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/four_months_after_katrina_hundreds_children_missing.htm
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In Praise of George Gerber
December 30th, 2005 - by: danny
FROM THE UK: FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A DECADE
Channel 4 overtakes BBC2 in ratings
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1675337,00.html
MEDIA TREND
Noted by the Club of Amsterdam with approval, They are having a conference to bolster this media trend:
“Much of today’s media is dominated by sports – including football, athletics, cricket, volleyball, motocross, horse-racing, snooker and golf. Entire broadcasting, advertising, media and gaming industries rely on it. They feed off the passion it arouses within ordinary people.
“Players are traded as commodities as part of multi-million deals, while their intimate moments are the subject of popular envy and public press scrutiny. Perhaps, one day, all this and more will feed off the virtual gaming industry too. In the meantime, some musicians are composing songs for first release in computer games and video producers are using
gaming technology to design real-world TV sets, interaction scenarios for mobile phones and prepare shotlists before shooting a movie. Are we at risk if these virtual and real-world lifestyles are interacting so closely? Where do social media like blogs fit in? Ultimately, the convergence of gaming and broadcast is not just a new medium but a whole new world.”
A GREAT LOSS FOR MEDIA REEORM
George Gerbner has died. I was one of the backers of his cultural environment movement and an admirer of his many insight into how our media defrauds our democracy. Unlike many others, he had data and original scholarship to back him up.
He was a major influence….He was a friend of mine.
Myrna Oliver of the he LA Times wrote a long and informative obit:
“George Gerbner, an educator and pioneer researcher into the influence of television violence on viewers’ perceptions of the world, has died. He was 86.
Gerbner, the former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, died Saturday at his home in Philadelphia of unspecified causes.
Always interested in storytelling, the Hungarian-born Gerbner became concerned as television and motion pictures supplanted family members and friends in relaying tales both true and fictional.
By 2000, after more than three decades of study, Gerbner told National Public Radio that he had ceased to view television as a medium.
“I call it a cultural environment into which our children are born, and which tells all the stories,” he said. “You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behavior. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it’s a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.”
He said average homes had a television set turned on at least seven hours a day, and that youngsters were learning to read by watching television commercials, developing a consumer mentality.
During his 25-year tenure as dean in the Penn communications school, which was funded by TV Guide magnate Walter Annenberg, Gerbner received numerous grants to study the portrayal of violence on television and in films and also to analyze how TV and films showcase particular professions and demographic groups.”
George Gerbner, presente. Mediachannel.org honors you for your courage and contribution to our understanding of the peversion of an important medium. His message: if you care about the natural environment, you must care about the cultural environment.
LA Times.com (search)
NEW POLL SHOWS MANY AMERICANS STILL MISINFORMED
http://jabbs.blogspot.com.
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The Last Letters Of a Long Year
December 30th, 2005 - by: danny
Virgina Weldon, a regular correspondent writes:
Dear Danny: There are so many incredible stories that happened during 2005that one is hard-pressed to select one over the other, but this one has allthe earmarks of a real doozie and portends events that will play out in our immediate future. I refer to the Bird Flu Pandemic and to the Bird Flu Vaccine bill just passed by the House and sent to the Senate for ratification. LegitGov.org has amassed all the data and it is staggering. Please check out here: http://www.legitgov.org/flu_oddities.html. In the world of George Walker Bush paranoia runs deep and, as far as I’m concerned, ethnic cleansing (like data mining) could very easily become a domestic import as well as an overseas export.
KNOCK, KNOCK, NY TIMES
Ms Teddi Curtis writes:
“The news that isn’t fit to print in a timely manner, according to the New York Times. Holding a story for a year! Unbelievable.
“The single most reprehensible act of the news providers (I guess that’s what you call people who aren’t journalists, but act like them) is the lack of coverage of the fraud of our 2004 election. With, I assume, a straight face we are told that our decades of exit polling is incorrect while the Ukraine’s first exit poll is exactly right — in the same month, in the same papers. I know I’m off a year, but 2005 should have been the time we were reading all about it.
“Now our elections are just as representative as those held in the Banana Republics.We are being “lead” by a man who wasn’t elected twice. Just one more “unprecedented” to add to his list. Give the Smirking Chimp his banana.”
OIL–GOING, GOING….
Wendi Meremark says it all comes down to oil – and its disappearence:
“In January, Bush swore to “protect the Constitution” — it seems so long ago for him to just be getting started in second term, still without ever having counted ballots; then bobble-headed into his producer’s springtime, for Hitler, in Germany, burning Social Security books. During December, Bush swore at Congressmen (three reported) in his Evil Office, “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face; it’s only a goddamned piece of paper.” End quote.
“My bookends for 2005. In between are 2222 questions: What’s the noble cause, RummyBushCheney Condi? Hey, hey, neo con, whose families are you killing on? And ALL the questions go unanswered.
“Whether or how much it is the meadia’s fault and how the media labels lies they report, is beside my point that the Biggest Story that was MISSED was that ALL the people’s or reporters’ questions were missed, ignored, delayed, not answered. ALL of them, nevermind what the different subjects are. NO Answer. THAT’s the shape of a guilty secret.
“It helps to sort through the chaff-news nonsense, Danny, if you have a Master Narrative where every story relates. We, the people, humankind, DO: Our history. The narrative is oil, the plot is there’s less of it than we had….
“Media is the bandwagon of military industry politics as long as car companies buy the ads that pay for it, not solar panels and garden seeds companies.
“To preview the next chapter, in 2006 the story unfolds that boom-years Texans told tall tales about the oil they had, and were imitated internationally at other oil discoveries, so global estimates are not really there. Now the ground invaded for its oil has nearly empty wells. Imagine, liars were lied to.
“I see this reads long to spell out the narrative and motives of a theme in the media insanity, the method in the madness as it were. Yet we can build on this reference. Perhaps some length allowance can be made for the Biggest Story of our lifetimes. Oil rus out, as 2005 tips us off, which explains all the other news events.”
COMEDY OF TERROR
Terry Jones of Monty Python has some awards to give out to Bair, Cheneyand Rumsfeld:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1673894,00.html
FINAL NOTE TO THOSE WHO SPY ON US
Sam Smith of Progressive Review wrote a a beautiful essay yesterday. Here’s part of it: “BUT YOU DON’T KNOW ME”
“I don’t know for sure that you’re out there at all, but from what I read and hear there’s a pretty good chance, so I thought I would pass this along.
You may be tapping my phone, scanning my e-mails and collating my other electronic ephemera, but you don’t know me.
Any writer can tell you this: you don’t reveal character or describean individual by just dumpster diving for data. Your efforts are not only intrusive, they’re ineffective as well.
An individual is a product of experiences, some of which – thoughinfluential – may have been lost to memory, some of which — thoug searing – may never be mentioned again, and some of which – thoughexhilarating – may lack the words to describe them.
“You are eavesdropping only on my front to the world. If I am down, I try not to bring my friends down with me. If I am mad about some public act, I try not to bore my friends too much about it. If I am mad about some private act, I try for the calm and restraint I do not feel. If I am really happy, I often lack the words to express it well. And if I have been given something, I try for gratitude even though Ihave no idea what to do with the damn thing.
“You do not know my dreams, my fears, my stupid excesses of doubt, orhow I alternately rebel against, resent or am resigned to the entropy of aging. You do not know how sad I am about the world that the people you work for will leave my children and their children. You do not know that I do not like vinegar, have never read Joyce’s “Ulysses,”sometimes fall asleep while waiting my turn in a board game, neverwatch football, or that two of my uncles were killed in wartime service to our country. You do not know that my utopia would have,above all, no need for dentists as well having “This Land is My Land” as our national anthem.
“If you were to really know me, you would need to hear hundreds ofstories, visit hundreds of places, and meet hundreds of people. Only a few of them are listed on my credit cards.
“But you are not only misinformed. You are also a thief. You arestealing my privacy, my civil liberties, my peace of mind, and theincalculable pleasure of not having to worry about what someone else is doing to you. You are also a vandal. You are throwing rocks at the Constitution, scrawling graffiti on our national conscience, wrecking our reputation, and scratching the face of America.
“And still you do not know me.”
VALERIE PLAME’S COVER BLOWN AGAIN
Reuters reports:
” HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) — The Washington couple at the heart of the CIA leak investigation had their cover blown by their small son as they tried to sneak away on vacation Thursday.
“My daddy’s famous, my mommy’s a secret spy,” declared the 5-year-old of his parents, former diplomat Joe Wilson and retired CIA operative Valerie Plame.”
And on that note, the final greeting. May old acquaintances return next week.
Happy News Year from your news dissector, Danny Schechter, still doing it after all these years.
Comments: dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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