This is a re-post.
Mr_Jefferson_24 posted it here on the 19th Sept.- and had not a single response.
Well, I went through my unread e-mails today and find this piece very informative and important for all DU'ers to read.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2835917By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted September 19, 2006.
FAIR co-founder, media critic and former Fox News commentator Jeff Cohen explains the importance of independent media and what it'll take to outfox Rupert Murdoch.
Having worked for all three major cable news channels, Jeff Cohen has witnessed firsthand how corporate media conglomerates are killing our democracy. He talked to AlterNet's executive editor Don Hazen about his experiences and his new book "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media" (PoliPoint Press, 2006). Two video clips of his appearances with Robert Novak on CNN's "Crossfire" in 1996 are also available: "For Vengeance" and "Feminist Weenies."
snip
I'm in there when the management is scared witless about offending the administration. I'm on the air every afternoon and I'm merciless in going after their lies and distortions. Not just about foreign policy but about clear skies and healthy forests and you name the issue. I was blaming them for not stopping Sept. 11th. A lot of great evidence at the time was just coming out about how inept the Bush administration was. I called them asleep at the wheel in the advent of 9/11. They should have prevented it.
And then you have Phil Donahue who came on in July of 2002 and they're petrified at MSNBC at this point. When they made the move to hire Donahue, it was in the early spring of 2002. No one could really see the war in Iraq. Obviously they knew about it in the inner reaches of Team Bush, but at MSNBC they had no or little clue. That's why they hired Phil. Then there was a 2.5-month gap between when they hired him and when he went on the air the first night.
In that 2.5-month gap, these normally timid MSNBC executives -- and believe me, I was in touch with them week by week -- they became even more scared. And that's why they put a straightjacket on the Donahue show even before we went on the air, and it just got worse and worse as they tightened the screws. At the end they were trying to turn us into a Fox News program look-alike.
and much more at:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/41803/
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