Boot-licking Journalism

– from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

Growing up at the high-water marks of Cold War hysteria in the US led me to a heightened skepticism of the independence and objectivity of the media. We were made to believe myths that Communist government ownership constituted a denial of freedom of the press while diverse private ownership of the sources of information in the West guaranteed access to the truth. Few of us reflected on the fact that the UK government media monopoly, the BBC, seemed to present a more nuanced, tolerant, even sane picture of current events than did our US lap-dog “free” press. At the same time, the sharp move towards theocracy in the US– “In God we Trust” on currency and “Under God” affixed to the Inquisition-like pledge of allegiance– was met by a docile, compliant media.

Any doubts that were voiced– and few were at the time– about the biases of the press and electronic media were radically amplified when the Cold War began to recede, a measure of sanity returned, and revelations exposed the corruption and opportunism of most of the media’s journalistic stars and watchdogs. Truly, it was one the most embarrassing chapters in the fable of US press freedom. Of course the myth remained intact thanks to the major media’s concerted effort to restrict the truth to the marginal footnotes of historical research and the fringe media.

Some liberal commentators concede the horrors of the past, but insist that press freedom rebounded, especially after the end of the Cold War. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s media is as servile to government and capital as at any time in US history. The concentration of media corporations coupled with the centrality of profitability and the narrow band of dissent offered by the two-party system result in a uniformity and conformity in the media that would be the envy of any banana republic.

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