In my last post I inferred some aspersions on the Rachel Maddow Show for its producer’s interests in responding in-kind to the bombastic journalism of Fox News broadcasts. In contrast to that post, I cannot recommend highly enough that you view the Rachel Maddow Show of Thursday, September 24. In one hour Rachel unmasked the fraudulent accusations against the non-profit community organization, ACORN, to which the mainstream media and Congress have fallen prey.
And, the Show provided a forum for Ken Burns, the award winning documentary filmmaker, to portray his new film of the expansive vision of the US government of the 1930s when FDR inspired the National Park Service legislation through which thousands of unemployed were hired to enhance and make accessible to the public the National Parks.
The September 24 Maddow Show and Burns’ documentary are a must see, if we are to understand what Maddow called our current “national tantrum.”
The Maddow Show of September 24 is indeed a model of the journalism we need; in-depth, scholarly in viewer-friendly language, pertinent to key issues of the day.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
War of Words: Propagainment vs US Democracy
The 24/7 news cycle plus corporate domination of news agencies amplify all politics into propaganda warfare. In this conflict, high intensity words obliterate civil discourse to overwhelm investigative reporting and preclude critical thinking … the life breath of democratic governance. Manipulation of fears and uncertainties in difficult economic times has consistently been the tool of choice for demagogues as they lead populations to support undemocratic regimes.
The current demise of rational discourse is a more serious threat to democratic institutions in the United States than was McCarthyism in the 1950s. Today the threat of demagoguery is increased with the breadth of reach, interactivity and speed of telecommunications, the concentration of media under the control of a few large corporations with profit as the only value driving the enterprise, and with the transformation of US news broadcasts to polemical harangues as entertainment….. trends identified over the years by Edward R. Murrow, Ben Bagdikian, et al.
Regretfully, Bill Moyers’ Journal is on late at night and the Lehrer Report competes during prime time with Olbermann and Maddow. As incisive as are the latter two, they sometimes cross the line into propaganda and entertainment (propagainment), presumably because their producers think they have to compete stylistically with the bombastic broadcasters on Fox News and take their cues from topics that Fox considers most newsworthy.
Where is the US outlet for international news that comes even close to the BBC, the Journal from Germany, the CBC broadcast over NPR? As central as are health care reform, the financial system, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the US, it also matters that citizens of the US remain informed of other global developments. Our republic is deprived of our informed consent if we remain ignorant of the global trends in which our own troubles play out.
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and SNL are different. They neither feign ‘objectivity,’ nor political fairness. All three are billed as entertainment. Their news theatre is effective political commentary because it unmasks hypocrisy with the razor’s edge of humor. Colbert is sometimes more complex. With all due respect, Olbermann and Maddow do use humor. However, Stewart, Colbert, and SNL consistently let us see ourselves for what we may become and the political minefields for what they are….. by-products of corporate interests and influence peddling that are squeezing the democracy from our body politic.
As our behavior and institutions change with high speed, highly interactive telecommunications there are few models of journalism to support civil discourse, free elections and the elected free of financial dependency on corporate interests. Our legal system privileges corporate interests and our sources of news are for the most part corporate sponsored.
We have become the United States of Corporations in America with global reach and interdependence. Sounds different, is different from the United States of America with liberty and justice for all, Alexander Hamilton withstanding.
May what emerges from the current turbulence be less parts corporate and more parts interdependence with liberty and justice for all. Until then, Stewart, Colbert, Terry Gross on NPR, PBS and a few blogs such as TalkingPointsmemo.com are the only line of defense of our democracy against propagainment.
The current demise of rational discourse is a more serious threat to democratic institutions in the United States than was McCarthyism in the 1950s. Today the threat of demagoguery is increased with the breadth of reach, interactivity and speed of telecommunications, the concentration of media under the control of a few large corporations with profit as the only value driving the enterprise, and with the transformation of US news broadcasts to polemical harangues as entertainment….. trends identified over the years by Edward R. Murrow, Ben Bagdikian, et al.
Regretfully, Bill Moyers’ Journal is on late at night and the Lehrer Report competes during prime time with Olbermann and Maddow. As incisive as are the latter two, they sometimes cross the line into propaganda and entertainment (propagainment), presumably because their producers think they have to compete stylistically with the bombastic broadcasters on Fox News and take their cues from topics that Fox considers most newsworthy.
Where is the US outlet for international news that comes even close to the BBC, the Journal from Germany, the CBC broadcast over NPR? As central as are health care reform, the financial system, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the US, it also matters that citizens of the US remain informed of other global developments. Our republic is deprived of our informed consent if we remain ignorant of the global trends in which our own troubles play out.
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and SNL are different. They neither feign ‘objectivity,’ nor political fairness. All three are billed as entertainment. Their news theatre is effective political commentary because it unmasks hypocrisy with the razor’s edge of humor. Colbert is sometimes more complex. With all due respect, Olbermann and Maddow do use humor. However, Stewart, Colbert, and SNL consistently let us see ourselves for what we may become and the political minefields for what they are….. by-products of corporate interests and influence peddling that are squeezing the democracy from our body politic.
As our behavior and institutions change with high speed, highly interactive telecommunications there are few models of journalism to support civil discourse, free elections and the elected free of financial dependency on corporate interests. Our legal system privileges corporate interests and our sources of news are for the most part corporate sponsored.
We have become the United States of Corporations in America with global reach and interdependence. Sounds different, is different from the United States of America with liberty and justice for all, Alexander Hamilton withstanding.
May what emerges from the current turbulence be less parts corporate and more parts interdependence with liberty and justice for all. Until then, Stewart, Colbert, Terry Gross on NPR, PBS and a few blogs such as TalkingPointsmemo.com are the only line of defense of our democracy against propagainment.
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