How can you get through to the media?...

[politicasista]

on the recound/fraud issue? They relentessly attacked Kerry during the election. They are Bush's friend. They always give him a free pass. It's a joke period. Just curious.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

1. You cannot. The MSM is corporate controlled.

Corporations are in bed with the govt. Corporate welfare is huge, so why would they "bite the hand that feeds them"?

[MelissaB]

5. I've neglected my job all day to research some

things that have been bothering me. I ran across an interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I posted this in another thread in another forum, but I think it is worth repeating.

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/signs20041108.htm

Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.


Q: Is nothing left of it?
K: All that is gone. And just because of the monumental arrogance and incompetence of this one president. The USA is the most hated nation of the world. 5.5 billion people around the world fear and despise us. That's for me the most bitter pill of the Bush presidency. And Americans have no idea about it, how much they are hated around the world. They just won't get informed.

Q: The free American press withholds such information?
K: The media today are the result of a thirty year old strategy of the American right. In the seventies an unholy alliance was built between the environment destroying industries and the right-wing ideologists. First they created right-wing think-tanks in the shadow of the capitol. Then they overtook the media.

Q: Mr. Kennedy - You exaggerate!
K: You think? I tell you: Right-wing, almost right-wing extremists are controlling all 5000 US TV-stations, the 15,000 radio stations and 80% of our print media. The free press, invented in the USA, is now controlled by a Christian taliban. By right-wing extremist, fundamentalist heretics!

Q: Do you know that the people all over the world see CNN?
K: And do you know that 72% of the Bush-voters still believe that it was Iraq that was behind 9/11? This is the kind of information that will always be distributed by, for example, Fox news. Owned by Rupert Murdoch, this broadcaster distributes such news into US broadcasts. With only the "Los Angeles Times" on the West-coast and the "New York Times" on the East-coast, you can't hold against it. It's just impossible.

Q: And what are the consequences of this situation?
K: You know, I'm at the point of hating radio in the US. In the United States of America today it is like the twenties of the past century in Germany, Italy or Spain. A true brown-shirt attitude takes over. Whoever criticises the government will be branded as unpatriotic. But without a free and critical press the survival of our democracy is very difficult to imagine.

Q: Now you've gone to far!
K: Also in Europe there were the right-wing industrialists who made a pact with fanatical fascists, which until then just existed on the edge of civil society. But with the money of industries... Don't forget - also Hitler was elected democratically - from the people of the most educated nation of the world. And as with Hitler, so also Franco and Mussolini. In the USA we see today a similar pattern. This is pretty scary for those who believe in progress and democracy.

Q: That's strong tobacco - The USA like the pre-nazi Germany!
K: Look at the composition of the cabinet of the Bush government. There are three times more CEOs as in any other previous American government. And they will continue in the levels below of this administration. Everywhere are sitting the lobbyists of the most greedy and destructive industries in the political top-positions.


at the end of the article:

Q: But you are the heir of the president John F. Kennedy and Robert, his minister of justice, your father. Where is your engagement for the American democracy?
K: Of course I fight back. I do nothing else but fight those guys. I don't know yet what I will do in four years. First the dust has to settle down. But whatever happens - the following four years I will be in a direct fight with these guys. And probably a long time after that.




-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think we have a friend. Anybody want to call him up and ask what the hell we do next??

Melissa

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

9. Thanks for the article...

I wish I had his #

[kk897]

10. word to the wise...

If I were you, I'd stay clear of the folks who put together this site. I know from personal experience.

(Not that the article is a sham... just don't get too deep into the rest of it).

[MelissaB]

13. Thanks! Do you think

this interview is invalid?

[kk897]

15. interview invalid?

Welllllll... when I was involved with this group, about two years ago, now, they didn't just outright make stuff up. They were pretty careful with their research and all the members of the group were right on top of current events all over the world.

There's no link, though, so who can say? And who can say if the translation is accurate?

It wasn't so much the information they'd gather as what they'd do with it. Poke around there a little more and you'll see that it's *seriously* nutty tinfoil hat stuff.

Mind you, I polish my tinfoil hat upon the hour, but these guys are out there, man. And I have met many of them in person, including the originators of the site. They're rational, but the conclusions they reach aren't necessarily. (I bought into their line for a long while myself).

Gosh, don't want to go into too much detail. Just caveat lector.

(and PM me if you're well and truly curious)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Do what the repukes did for so long:

Think "sandblasting".

Hit them hard with letters, hit them long and hit them oh so very often.

Swamp them. Make them deal, every day that the mail truck rolls up or every time they check their email inbox.

That's how THEM did it. That's how we should do it too.

[KurtNYC]

3. Remember Clinton? They didn't like him either.

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." - Henry Mencken

[kerry2win]

4. ignore them

cancel cable, cancel newspapers, boycott sponsers. Ask all dems to not appear on their shows, let them get out of their own mess.

[MelissaB]

7. I think we are going to have to do more than ignore them.

They are controling how the general public thinks on almost all issues.
I think we are going to have to fight them. How? I don't know!

[kerry2win]

11. I was going along the lines of

hitting them in their pocketbooks. Maybe if we had our own 24hr news we could ignore them. I know I havn't watched TV since nov 2nd, hasn't bothered me a bit. I get my info via the internets.

[MelissaB]

17. I agree! I think we desperately

need our own network.

[otohara]

6. They Just Make Up Shit - NYT's Bill Safire on Salon for YEARS of Lies

and the NYT's did nothing - just kept letting him spew lies, ruin peoples lives.

William Safire's dubious legacy
The departing Times columnist says he's proudest of his reporting. Looking over decades of his false accusations and erroneous assertions, it's hard to see why.

By Eric Boehlert

Nov. 22, 2004 | Most newspaper reporters would really rather be columnists, free to pontificate instead of chasing down quotes. So why does New York Times pundit William Safire want to be remembered as a reporter? And given his track record, is that such a good idea?

Following the Monday announcement of his pending retirement after more than three decades of writing his influential "Essay" column, Safire, in interview after interview, signaled what he hopes his legacy will be -- reporting. "It's perfectly okay to do a straight, thumb-sucking column, and some do that," he told the New York Daily News last week. "I personally prefer to get on the phone and work some sources." Boasting to the Boston Globe, he added, "I helped move along the idea of opinionated reporting."

Top Washington columnists have always done some reporting, sprinkling their work with inside nuggets from trusted sources and making predictions about how Beltway conflicts will play out, with the added advantage of having talked to the senior players involved. But Safire is different for two reasons. The first is that he calls so much attention to his reporting, relentlessly reminding readers that he's working the phones. The more significant difference, however, is that Safire consistently goes beyond informed speculation, making serious accusations that have all too often turned out to be baseless. From Bert Lance to the war in Iraq, Safire has been wrong more times than you can count, yet the instances in which he has acknowledged his errors in print can probably be calculated on two hands. (He's written well over 2,000 columns.)


more...you have to look at an ad to finish article

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/22/safire/index.html

[SueZhope]

8. Has any one tried contacting Bill Moyers on the vote issue?

He appears to be focusing on many of controversial issues that the other media seems to be ignoring or spinning . When it comes to the the election system there is a HUGE story in itself about the partisanship of the election , who counts the votes , lack of paper trail The fact that we are voting on a "good faith" system. Keith O is on the story in a light hearted way....I would think Bill would want to go after this? What does he have to lose?

Have others tried contacting him? It seems that exposing injustice is what he is about.
Am I missing something about him?

[rockedthevoteinMA]

12. He was forced into retirement this year

I think his last show was this week (with him on it). There's been a major overhaul of PBS - they want it to be more "representative of the government" or some B.S. like that. They were threatened with losing more funding if they didn't. That's why Tucker Carlson has his own show now. I forget where I read this - I think it was on the Fairness and Accuaracy in Reporting website, or the Columbia Journalism review.

[distantearlywarning]

14. I cancelled my subscription to Newsweek today.

And I told them why, too. You gotta hit these cowardly bastards where they feel it - in the pocketbook. I am currently considering other plans to distance myself from other mainstream/large corporations. I want to stop contributing to my society until it shapes up. Someone on another thread suggested sending back magazine subscription inserts with a short message stating why you won't consider buying any of their crap until they get some journalistic integrity and stop pandering to this administration. I think I am going to turn off my cable news too (and tell them why), as soon as I can figure out how to do it without losing things like the Discovery channel and HGTV.

I strongly encourage other people to start taking the same type of action. I think a removal of "Blues" from the public sector might prompt a stronger response than any untelevised protest will. I am also actively soliciting ideas for what else to do. Anybody got any other ideas? Let's boycott everything until the rest of the US gets their heads out!

Here's the text of my message to Newsweek:

I have been a big fan of your magazine for several years. I always look forward to receiving it in my mailbox, and in the past I have trusted you to provide me with a neutral viewpoint on many domestic and foreign issues.

However, I have been waiting in vain since November 2nd to hear any kind of real news from your magazine discussing the THOUSANDS of voting irregularities that took place in this presidential election, or about other potential problems associated with the use of electronic voting machines in future elections.

As I have not seen any evidence that your magazine is interested in these extremely important stories, I must sadly conclude that Newsweek is no longer interested in maintaining its previous role as purveyor of real and important information to the American people.

I count on my media to investigate where I, a relatively powerless
individual citizen, cannot. Your silence on this matter indicates to me that you are no longer interested in performing this function for myself and other readers. Because you are unwilling to maintain journalistic integrity in this instance, I am afraid that I can no longer trust you to provide me with truthful, accurate, and complete information in the future.

Please cancel my subscription.

Sincerely,

DistantEarlyWarning

[Eric J in MN]

16. Send them your favorite article on voter-supperession,

using the list at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x816939

[Boswells_Johnson]

18. Maybe if the international media

can be persuaded...the CBC, the BBC, etc...

I've already noticed a few agencies starting to pick up on it, but I think if the CBC or BBC were to pick the story up, it would get through somehow.