A 4th Estate Situation-There Is A FAILURE Of the Media To Tell The American People What Is Going On"

[kpete]

When you’re in a Fourth Estate situation
As things stand today, the Fourth Estate is a state of mind. Some in the press have it, some don’t. Some who have it are part of the institutional press. Some, like Ladar Levison and Edward Snowden, are not.
by Jay Rosen

If the public knew what the government was doing, the government wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore is a perfect description of a “Fourth Estate situation.” That’s when we need a journalist to bring the hidden facts to light and put public opinion into play, which then changes the equation for people in power. If it doesn’t happen, an illegitimate state action will persist. “My hope is that, you know, the media can uncover what’s going on, without my assistance,” Levison said. He’s like a whistleblower who will go to jail if he actually uses his whistle. All he can do is give truncated interviews that stop short of describing the pressure he is under.

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Whoever can speak to the whole nation becomes a power. It used to be that the only way to “speak to the whole nation” was through the major media channels that reached everyone. The Fourth Estate became the editors and reporters who worked in Big Media newsrooms. But as Peter Maass pointed out, Poitras and Greenwald don’t operate that way. They make alliances with the press establishment to get their stories out. If necessary, they will go it alone. Greenwald raises his own money from readers who support what he does, as he explained in a June 4th column in The Guardian:

I believe Bruce Schneier was correct when he wrote in the Atlantic this week that the U.S. government has “commandeered the internet.” He urged the big technology companies to fight back. But even if they don’t, others will. And when they make that decision, they will pick up the tools of journalism and try to alert the public. If the press won’t help them, they will go it alone. Wise professionals in journalism will understand this, and choose accordingly

When you’re in a Fourth Estate situation

As things stand today, the Fourth Estate is a state of mind. Some in the press have it, some don’t. Some who have it are part of the institutional press. Some, like Ladar Levison and Edward Snowden, are not.

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http://pressthink.org/2013/08/when-youre-in-a-fourth-estate-situation/

[woo me with science]

1. The press has been largely purchased and/or intimidated into silence.

A surveillance state intimidates and dries up sources.

Targeting of journalists and sources dries up stories.

A surveillance state and a free press are not compatible.

[JDPriestly]

4. Surveillance eventually intimidates everyond.

Think of it. (And here is what has happened in other totalitarian states.)

The people attracted to surveillance work (including those who have no job opportunities anywhere else) have to justify their salaries and continued employment.

That means that they have to show that what they are doing is worth what they are being paid.

If they are in security or surveillance, they have to prevent either crime or enemy activity or subversion or theft or . . .

They have to intervene in favor of the authority that pays them and employs them. They have to provide some measurable service and value. They have to prove their worth so to speak.

Historically, in a lot of different countries, systems, and cultures, that has meant that somebody has to classify as suspect or criminal behavior a lot of behavior some of which may be rather ambiguous in nature and some of which may just be free expression or legitimate efforts so improve, say, the government of the country.

So, the fact that we have a well-paid surveillance industry is likely to encourage Congress and the president to make more things illegal if only to justify the existence of the surveillance industry and the hiring and paying of salaries and wages to the people it employs.

That is the first step toward really repressive government.

We usually think that we get repressive governments and then surveillance begins. But it doesn't have to happen that way. This is why people keep using the metaphor of the boiling of frogs.

We have Snowden to thank for the fact that we have been warned that the water we are in is being heated up. It's up to us to get Congress and the president to turn that water off before we all get boiled to numbness and death -- including some of them.

[indepat]

5. Presence of a surveillance state concomitant with the lack of a free press would seem

fertile ground for a plutocracy, of which Noam Chomsky speaks, to thrive.

[longship]

2. No matter what...

This situation is a clusterfuck.

I have stayed out of the corner on this as best I can, preferring to take in information before I decide. I am still unsure.

Like all complex problems in situational ethics, solutions do not come easy let alone simply.

By clusterfuck I mean that this a big enough mess that getting out of it with things remaining the way they are now is likely impossible. The problem is when somebody throws a big monkey wrench the resulting chaos makes it difficult to predict what will ensue.

Maybe those who propose simple monolithic solutions do not see the whole picture here. I certainly could rationally argue any number of the conflicting positions posited here, which is why I try not to have a position. Even that is difficult, especially when one hates what is happening.

Such is this situation with clusterfucks.

[JDPriestly]

3. Great interview. Everyone who is interested in the surveillance issue should listen to this.

What cannot be said is as important if not more so than what is said. But you need to hear it to figure out what is not being said.

[newblewtoo]

6. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma