The Fight of Our Lives: Bill Moyers on the Danger of Our Corp. News Media

[Time for change]

The chapter that I discuss here comes from Bill Moyers' book, "Moyers on America -- A Journalist and His Times". This chapter is Moyers' warning to us that if we don't find a way to get our news media back we may have lost our democracy and our country for good.

As Moyers notes, "What we're talking about is nothing less than rescuing a democracy". And, "Free and responsible government by popular consent can¡¦t exist without an informed public". This knowledge was the rationale behind the First Amendment to our Constitution, passed in 1791. But Moyers discusses three powerful forces that are undermining the freedom that our First Amendment was meant to provide us with.


The desire of government for secrecy

This desire of course is as old as history itself. Only seven years after the passage of our First Amendment, Congress passed, under the urging of the John Adams Administration, the infamous Sedition Act, which essentially made it a federal crime to criticize the government. Fortunately for our country, the courage of at least a dozen editors (who went to jail rather than comply with this law), the built in expiration date of the Sedition Act, and the ascendancy to the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson in 1801 all served to limit the damage of the Sedition Act to our democracy.

In 1971 the Nixon Administration used the doctrine of "prior restraint" to try to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers, with their numerous embarrassing revelations on the history of our role in the Viet Nam War. Again, it was the courage of numerous editors (later vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court), who pressured their publishers at the New York Times and the Washington Post not to cave in to pressure from the Nixon Administration, that scored another victory for Democracy.


The priority given by media giants to commercial over democratic values

In 1934 (FDR's Administration) the Federal Communications Act (FCA) was passed, with the intent of preventing monopolies of news that would allow a small number of news organizations to operate against the public interest.

However, the Reagan Revolution ushered in a deregulation ideology beginning in 1981 that resulted in the elimination of many of the public interest safeguards of the FCA. The networks then began to cut their news staff, especially their investigative units, and the priority given to news of public interest began a long decline. Moyers notes:

A crowning achievement of that drive was the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the largest corporate welfare program ever for the most powerful media and entertainment conglomerates in the world ¡V passed, I must add, with support from both parties. The beat of convergence between once-distinct forms of media goes on at increased tempo...

The linkage of media giants with authoritarian government

The protection offered us by our First Amendment is based on the assumption of a separation of our government and a free press, which is supposed to protect us from government abuses. Moyers goes on:

What would happen, however, if the contending giants of big government and big publishing and broadcasting ever joined hands, ever saw eye to eye in putting the public's need for news second to free-market economics? That's exactly what's happening now under the ideological banner of "deregulation". Giant media conglomerates that our founders could not possibly have envisioned are finding common cause with an imperial state in a betrothal certain to produce not the sons and daughters of liberty but the very kind of bastards that issued from the old arranged marriage of church and state.

Consider the situation. Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and -- in defiance of the Constitution -- from their representatives in Congress. Never has the powerful media oligopoly ... been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the peoples' need to know.

He goes on in that vein for some time, but I think this is enough for this post.


So what can we do to avoid losing our democracy?

Moyers concludes that, as history teaches us, in order to preserve democracy it must be fought for. And he ends with a number of general suggestions. We must:
-- Prevent the Internet from being taken over by the media conglomerates.
-- Get our fellow citizens to understand what is happening.
-- Prevent further monopolization and restore the limitations of cross-ownership of news media outlets.
-- Expand opportunities for non-commercial news media organizations.
-- Watch critically and carefully attempts by the government/corporate power structure to further abuse its powers.
-- Recruit and train journalists with a strong sense of public service.


And in Summary

It would take courage to confront powerful ownerships in that way, but not as much courage as is asked of those brave journalists in some countries who face the dungeon... We are in the fight of our lives... Those are difficult tasks at any time, and they are even more difficult in a cynical age such as this, when a deep and pervasive corruption has settled upon the republic.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNN0LHI]

2. The Republicans are using Bill Clinton as a character witness these days

You know they are in deep shit.

Don

[Time for change]

25. I don't believe he mentioned what his point was

:shrug:

[Time for change]

4. I don't see the connection between this and my OP n/t

[blm]

3. This is EXACTLY the problem. Those who argue that the party needs

to move to the right are wrong. And those who argue that the party needs to move further left are wrong.

The Dems aren't losing elections because of their stands on the issues. They are losing because media has been put in place over the years to prevent the real issues from reaching the American people.

They are given thousands of hours of everything BUT real discussion of news and the facts are obscured by hot rhetoric - and done so by DESIGN.

They will not question the security of the vote tallies becuae they DON'T KNOW about the voting machines being controlled by GOP cronies.

The media is behind just about every other problem this country and the Dem party have at this time.

[Time for change]

8. So true

The Republican have three major related advantages over us:
1. Money
2. The Corporate media
3. Their supporters provide our voting machines and count the votes

By comparison, we only have one advantage: Democratic policies are, in general, far more beneficial to the vast majority of citizens. Our main problem, therefore, is making sure that our message gets out. And with the GOP advantages noted above, that is quite a difficult task.

However, it needs to be noted that, in some respects, control of the media does force the Democratic Party to move to the right. That is because, the more the MSM feels that we are too far to the left the harder they work against us. Or so it seems. It's a hell of a situaion to be in!

[blm]

28. That's a great observation, and you put it well....the MEDIA pushes Dems

rightward by their harping and constant misreporting of the left position.

I notice the guys who all ran for Dem nomination saw the media work against them all and now seem to have had their eyes opened to the problem.

I hope they work to expose them.

[Time for change]

30. I feel that this has been going on for a very long time

But it's substantially worse now, because of the media consolidation.

My memory of this starts with the 1972 election, since that is the first one where I was old enough to vote. I felt that the media was very unfair to McGovern. He was labelled as some sort of radical leftist. Why? Because he was for withdrawl from Viet Nam, a woman's right to choose, decriminalization of marijuana, and giving a fiscal break to the poor.

George McGovern was no radical. He was a progressive Democrat very much along the lines of Paul Wellstone. But the media labelled him as a radical, and it stuck. He lost the popular vote to Nixon by about 20%, and he carried only one state -- Massachussetts. I'll bet that there are few Democratic politicians who have forgotten that, and I'll bet that almost all of them keep that lesson at least in the back of their minds when they run a campaign.

[bonito]

5. Great insite! thanks, and recomended.

It's all about what people are aware about, and the media is the key.

[Time for change]

10. I can barely even stand to listen to the networks any more

I get almost all my news from the DU.

It's so refreshing to see a journalist like Moyers, telling it like it is.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. k&r

[Greyhound]

7. One front on the war against America. I love Bill M. n/t

[Time for change]

15. Yeah, isn't he great?

I seriously recommend the whole book.

If half of today's journalists had half of his integrity we'd be in great shape. It's really a shame that he had to leave PBS.

[Peace Patriot]

9. True enough, that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies are

a major problem. Just look what they did on election night--ALTERING their own exit polls (Kerry won) to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won) (--the 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code with which they "tabulated" our votes).

The news monopolies thus denied the American people major evidence of election fraud, and squelched protests and calls for investigation--by giving us FALSIFIED ELECTION NUMBERS (the exit polls).

To my mind, it was the worst journalistic crime ever.

But there is nothing we can do about it until we restore our right to vote.

We need...

1. Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least...

2. Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount, very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).

---------

See this URGENT ACTION thread re: Diebold in California!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5410364

---------

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

---------

I believe that the American people are a lot more savvy, a lot better informed, and a lot more progressive than anyone gives them credit for. Check out the issue polls--huge majorities, way up in the 60% to 70% range, against every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, over the last 2 years. The Iraq war, torture policy, the deficit, Social Security, women's rights--you name it. I believe the American people rose up and voted Bush & Co. out in 2004--and their will was thwarted by Diebold and ES&S (very easy to do with these highly insecure, hackable new electronic voting systems). Diebold and ES&S are far rightwing Bushite corporations, who, with the help of Tom Delay and other Bushite Republicans, and of naive or corrupt Democrats (including local/state election officials), pulled a fast one on the American people, and converted our voting system into this non-transparent, fraudulent mockery of a voting system so fast (2002-2004) that people could not catch up with it, and perhaps found it hard to believe that the system could be so easily and massively gamed, at the touch of a keyboard.

And they have not been helped by the utter silence of the entire Dem Party leadership on Bushite corporations owning and controlling the SECRET COUNTING OF OUR VOTES! Are these Dem leaders afraid or what? In their pockets, too? Beholden to corrupt election officials? In cahoots with the Bush regime to start a war?

Are they insane?

It's beyond understanding. The answers that leap to mind--for which there is some evidence--are corruption (lavish lobbying by the Bushite voting firms) and war profiteering. And maybe most of them LIKE the tax cuts for the rich. Most of them are millionaires, you know. They are not like you and me, as much as they try to pretend to be.

I'm pretty disgusted--I guess that's evident. I'm a 40 year Dem Party loyalist. And their selling away of our right to vote is a betrayal that is almost beyond words.

In any case, the relentless news monopoly propaganda is NOT WORKING. People are holding fast to their justice-loving, peace-loving, lawful, and ethical beliefs. But they can't get their will enforced. They have been disempowered, and, above all, literally DISENFRANCHISED.

So I think the priorities have to be in this order:

Priority #1. Restore our right to vote--re-establish the transparency of our elections.

Priority #2. THEN, we take on the news monopolies--with electoral power.

-------

We may be able to get the first accomplished even with the War Democrat that Diebold and ES&S may be thinking of selecting as our president in 2008 (for their own reasons--for instance, to start laying some of the blame of Bush's financial and foreign policy disasters on the Dems). Even a War Democrat has to pay lip service to good government, and progressive values such as transparent elections. That may be our one and only chance to reform the election system on a national basis. Otherwise it's going to be a long slog at the state/local level (probably more doable at that level anyway, because ordinary people still have some say at that level).

Currently, the American people have been deprived of their sovereign power--our right to vote--and, despite 58% disapproval of Bush's war in Feb. '03, before the invasion, had two pro-war candidates foisted upon us in '04, as our only viable choices. We also have been given NO CHOICE about NAFTA, GATT and the other "free piracy" agreements that have so transformed our country--and other countries--for the worse, and no choice on policies such as the Telecommunications Act, and the Reagan tax code rewrite. The Dems have sold us down the river on these issues, pre-Diebold/ES&S, as the result of corporate campaign contributions and lobbying.

Priority #3. A Constitutional amendment banning all private money from political campaigns. (It's time!)

There is a lot to do to restore our democracy. Huge, revolutionary changes are needed--that will involve knockdown dragout fights with our corporate rulers. But we can't even begin, without transparent elections.

So let us begin!

[Time for change]

16. It looks like your priorities are pretty much the same as mine

(See my post # 8)

Of course they're all very much related. If our news media would do any kind of a decent job in telling people about the problems with our election system, most or all of it would have been corrected some time ago.

The voters of this country would not stand for this if they knew what was going on.

[fooj]

11. Lately, I've been sending all the media whores this...

You might be interested in taking a look at this...

You've obviously misplaced your copy.

http://spj.org/ethics_code.asp

Code of Ethics
Ethics > SPJ Code of Ethics

Preamble
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.

By compliance, you have betrayed your country. Journalists are trusted as guardians of the truth. You have failed us. Miserably.

[Time for change]

17. Your letter is well deserved by many of our present day pre$$titutes

Who have you sent them to?

[rateyes]

12. It's hard to believe that Moyers is a graduate of

a Southern Baptist Seminary. But, he is. I guess that was before they were hi-jacked by the RW Fundie Nuts. Glad to know he's on our side--the side of truth.

[Time for change]

18. He talks a little bit about his religious views in his book

And I found that discussion enlightening.

There are a lot of people in this world IMO, probably including him, whose religious views contribute to their sense if well being, and their strength, and their moral convictions as well. He is a brilliant man. He doesn't let his religious views cloud his thinking, though they are probably always part of his thinking.

[Time for change]

21. I found what he says about this in another chapter of the same book

These aren't exactly his own words, but you can tell that he approves of it. He talks about the idea that the stronger is the doubt, the stronger the faith. The important thing is to work through it yourself: committment tempered by reason. I like that.

[justgamma]

13. How many news reports were withheld

prior to the election, because the reports may influence the election?
I recall several. The trouble is the electorate deserve to know what is going on. Not after the elections, but before.

[Time for change]

19. I would say that a multitude of things that would have influenced

the election were witheld. The most obvious was the fact that Bush was wired up for the debates with Kerry. Can you imagine that?! A Presidential candidate who can't even be trusted by his own handlers to be able to get through a debate on his own. The news media knew this, and they kept silent about it. Can you imagine what that would have done to Bush's chances of winning the election, or even coming close, if a proportionate amount of time was devoted to that as it was to, let's say Monica Lewinsky, or Whitewater, or Gore's sighs during the 2000 debate against Bush?

And Tim Russert is the worst whore of all IMO, because he pretends to be a neutral professional journalist with integrity. Whenever he has a serious Democratic contender on his show he badgers and badgers them with meaningless stupid questions just to make them look bad. But when Bush appears on his show it's just one softball after another. He would have destroyed Bush the last time he appeared on Meet the Press prior to the election if he had devoted half the hard questions that he usually saves for Democrats. And even with that kid gloves treatment, Bush still appeared like the idiot that he is.

[WiseButAngrySara]

14. K & R. This is excellent, and I'm still reading. I adore Moyers! ..n/t

[Time for change]

23. Thank you -- You should get the book

Though I feel that this particular chapter is the most important one in the book, the whole book is filled with important insights.

[snot]

20. THANKS for this valuable post. I'm amazed

that even among progressives, so few folks seem to understand how dire the situation is and why it matters.

HERE'S AN ACTION ITEM FOR US:

Pls write your reps re- the following, which as far as I know is still pending:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x21930 :

Democrats Move to Re-Regulate Media

This will be good if it can get some legs in the General Population.

Do not expect the LMSM to report on this

<snip>
Two liberal House members who recently have been critical of what they view as attempts by conservative Republicans to take over America’s mass media and public broadcasting have now introduced a sweeping bill that would re-regulate radio and TV back to the days before the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005 (MORA) is co-sponsored by Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. and Diane Watson, D-Calif. In a written announcement, MORA is described as legislation “that seeks to undo the massive consolidation of the media that has been ongoing for nearly 20 years.”

The measure would restore the Fairness doctrine, reinstate a national cap on radio ownership and lower the number of radio stations a company can own in a local market. It also reinstates a 25% national television ownership cap and requires stations to submit regular public interest reports to the Federal Communications Commission.
<end of snip>

link
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/189

[Time for change]

26. Thank you for this valuable action item

I will write my reps about it.

[Hypatia82]

22. It's not the media, it's who makes it up...

There are no HL Mencken's today, no Mark Twain's, no Edward R Murrough's. Ultimately it doesn't matter who owns what when the people who do the work are almost entirely hacks. Mencken didn't care who was what, if he saw a bad idea he called it out. He was the only person in the media to stand up to Woodrow Wilson's forced censorship openly and he didn't care he could go to jail for it. He was never touched, largely because he openly dared the administration to touch him. But today no one would hire Mencken. And as much as people would like to say they'd accept him, they wouldn't. Today someone who said "The aim of practical politics is to alarm the populace with an endless series of hobglobins, all of them imaginary, and thus clamorous to be lead to safety" would be villified by both right and left. Even though the statement is as true today as when Mencken wrote it. Mencken, like Ambrose Bierce, was the ultimate non-partisan, he saw all sides as equally deserving contempt and ridicule.

[Time for change]

27. The problem IS the media

The reason that most of those who work for the mainstream media are hacks is that those are the people who are hired and allowed to stay on. For example, Phil Donohue was fired from MSNBC and replaced by Michael Savage because he was considered to be too critical of the our involvement in Iraq.

Why would we have more hacks and less courageous journalists today than several decades ago? We haven't changed that much as a people. It's the way the system is set up. There is way too much power in too few hands, and that leaves real journalists with too small of a voice.

[burrowowl]

24. Thank DOG for Bill Moyers!

May he be with us for several years more.

[Time for change]

29. Yes, it's so refreshing to see so much integrity in a journalist today

Do you recall why he is no longer with PBS? Was he pushed out?

[Time for change]

31. Another very good book on this general subject is Eric Alterman's

"What Liberal Media -- The Truth about Bias and the News":

http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/

[blm]

34. I like Alterman, but what bugs me is that he KNOWS that media is complicit

but hangs his blame all on Kerry when he knows FIRSTHAND that Kerry WON his matchups with Bush while it was the leftleaning and objective media who had their asses handed to them on a daily basis by a RW message machine that overpowered them with sheer volume and greater access to broadcast media than anything the left could muster.

He knows this, but FAILS to admit that the left media FAILED to fiercely tell the truth about Kerry and Bush using FACTS better than the RW media fiercely spun their manufactured lies about Kerry and Bush.

[Time for change]

36. How do you mean that?

Alterman's main message in his book is that the main stream media is in fact very right wing, not liberal at all, as the right wingers would have us believe (and he documents that fact very well).

What do you mean when you say that he blames Kerry and fails to admit that the left wing media failed to tell the truth?

[blm]

37. He has written articles blaming Kerry for not controlling the media when

he himself has written about the RW controlling most of the media, and that includes the editting of the campaign speeches and rallies.

He doesn't say the RW overpowered the left media during the campaign, he blames it on Kerry. Yet all the left media had to do on their daily appearances was counter the RW machine with some force of their own personalities and convictions for the Dem platform and Kerry the man.

Kerry certainly gave them an incredible biography to support enthusiastically. How often does the person who uncovered the most government corruption in modern history run for president? How often do Democrats run war heroes and men who have helped to end wars?

Instead they debated lamely as if they were underinformed, while the RW machine had no trouble mounting proBush rhetoric based on mountains of lies. they CREATED a heroic image of Bush, while the left media didn't even know Kerry's actual history.

It's important because the public was seeing Dem pundits opposite GOP pundits everyday for hours. Their performances were crucial. Kerry was out campaigning and his words were being heavily editted and reduced to soundclips. The daily burden to communicate to the general public was with the Dem pundits and DNC spokespeople. They just never overcame the disciplined messaging of the RW media machine.

Left media couldn't dominate the RW media the way Kerry dominated Bush in the debates.

[Time for change]

38. I agree with you that Kerry was a good candidate

He trounced the hell out of Bush in three successive Presidential debates, and IMO he did a good job of campaigning, and he certainly had the credentials to run: A war hero, several terms as a Senator.

I think, though, that there is not really much of a left wing media. I'm sure that there were a number of individual journalists and talking heads, etc., who wanted Kerry to win. But those in power, those who own the networks did whatever they could to cover up for Bush and make Kerry seem like something he wasn't.

Forums like those that take place on Cross-Fire, for example, don't accomplish very much IMO because you have two opposing sides arguing, and neither ever gives an inch, and the Republicans lie through their teeth, but they're not exposed usually.

Then you have supposedly neutral forums like Tim Russert's Meet the Press and Chriss Mathews' Hardball, and those hypocrite bastards do everything they can to cover for Bush, while sticking the knife in the Dems., while appearing neutral. And most people buy it.

[blm]

39. And that's why GOP bought up control of most broadcast media in the 80s

and 90s.

They knew EXACTLY how they would gain power and stay in power.

[Time for change]

40. Yeah, and that's the only way they can do it too

Without constant brainwashing from the MSM they couldn't even get enough legitimate votes that they would be close enough to steal an election.

[blm]

41. Simple fact is that ANY Democrat could win election if we had a real media

.

[Time for change]

42. As it stands now, that is certainly true

If we had a good, unbiased, professional news media in this country, that would force both parties to move way to the left. In that case, the center would actually represent the center of the American people. And after that happened both parties would, in general, stand an approximately equal chance of winning a fair election, because they would both be an equal distance from the center.

[Time for change]

32. Bill Moyers on his last months at PBS

I had indeed become a pariah in official Washington and was proud of it. When right wing appointees to the governing board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting start calling for your head, you have to know that journalism still matters, can still touch a nerve in the imperium. It was not my opinions that made me a pariah; it was NOW's investigations of what partisans didn't want reported... Reportting such stories over the three years of NOW brought down on PBS executives the wrath of the aroused and threats to hold up public broadcasting's legislative reauthorization unless I was "dealt" with.

[Time for change]

33. Moyers' scathing indictment of right wing media upon his retirement

I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people

[earth mom]

35. KICK!

:kick: