Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column?- Bill Moyers

[Ichingcarpenter]

>>>>>snip

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders.

These organizations’ self-styled mandate is not to hold public and private power accountable, but to aggregate their interlocking interests. Their reward is not to help fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of “We, the people,” but to manufacture news and information as profitable consumer commodities.

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

Let’s look at what is happening with the Internet. >>>>>>>>snip


http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3790/is_the_fourth_estate_a_fifth_column/

[marmar]

1. Thank goodness for Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, Katrina vanden Heuvel et all....

K & R....:kick:

[rurallib]

4. be sure to add Laura Flanders and her GRITTV to that group

Only been on a month or so on freespeechTV. Usually after DemocracyNow. It is a really good show.

[mod mom]

7. absolutely-thank goodness!

[opihimoimoi]

2. Yup, the picture smacks of Fascism...where the Corps have influence in Gov't matters

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. Fascism

[leveymg]

11. FASCISM: It's Already Here

[hlthe2b]

3. God, I love that man......

A National Treasure.....

[flashl]

5. "the illusion of popular consent"

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

[boomerbust]

6. The local right wing radio blowhard

called Moyers one of the most Anti-American persons he has ever seen. Charlie Sykes- AM 620 WTMJ - Milwaukee

[bbgrunt]

9. he really knows how to eloquently get to the heart of an issue. k and r

[Vinnie From Indy]

10. Thank You Bill Moyer!

Modern mainstream media is dishonest and getting more so everyday.

[Uncle Joe]

12. I believe Moyers is head and shoulders above corporate owned journalist/interviewers, but

after watching him, it literally becomes painful to watch the corporate media pseudo journalist/interviewers and pundit puppets. I suppose it's like coming up from the deep water too fast, you can get the Bends.

One way I believe the corporate media can be challenged is through their price fixing for commercials. They synchronize the timing of commercials so as all happen at virtually the same instance. Use your remote during prime time news and you can see it, you can't get away from their commercials by flipping to a different channel. I believe if they didn't synchronize, the cost and value of their commercial air time would drop dramatically as people could view news on a different channel instead of a commercial.

Thanks for the thread, Ichingcarpenter.

[Uncle Joe]

16. Followup post, maybe the corporate media is reading this, tonight for the first time

in probably a decade or two, at least one of the networks always had a news segment on while the others were on commercial? Was this a fluke or an accident?

One other positive thing I'll say, I liked the segment about dinner time around the world, the American People need to expand their horizons in order to become more culturally aware and to grow their vision instead of having it impaired by the near sighted, shallow, sensationalist crap which is so predominant on the news.

That's all the positive I have in me for now.

[MasonJar]

13. Bill Moyers is back, but the neo-con who fired him is gone. That fact alone

gives me hope for the future.

[snot]

14. Moyers: better late than never.

[cap]

15. a writer friend of mine has pretty much the same opinion

corporations control the editorial board.