November 23, 2005
the press
In a previous article, I described many of the external pressures besetting journalists today, including a hostile White House, aggressive conservative critics, and greedy corporate owners.[2] Here, I will concentrate on the press's internal problems—not on its many ethical and professional lapses, which have been extensively discussed elsewhere, but rather on the structural problems that keep the press from fulfilling its responsibilities to serve as a witness to injustice and a watchdog over the powerful. To some extent, these problems consist of professional practices and proclivities that inhibit reporting —a reliance on "access," an excessive striving for "balance," an uncritical fascination with celebrities. Equally important is the increasing isolation of much of the profession from disadvantaged Americans and the difficulties they face. Finally, and most significantly, there's the political climate in which journalists work. Today's political pressures too often breed in journalists a tendency toward self-censorship, toward shying away from the pursuit of truths that might prove unpopular, whether with official authorities or the public.
Michael Massing on 'the press' in the New York Review of Books.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 11:24 AM | Permalink
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Some of the worst abuses of the press are at the local level. How often do you see the "home town newspaper" send a reporter to the local courts and report what he or she observes? How often do reporters go at random, to local schools, and sit in classrooms and report what they observe? How often does the local newspaper seek to obtain the settlements of negligence claims against the local hospital, and report all the detals and names of medical doctors involved? Most of the time the local newspaper, often owned and controlled by larger newspapers, will not even report such information if provided to it for "free" by citizens, even if every part is true.
Try reading some of the articles about the American Cancer Society by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., or about the many problems with mammography or some other related subject on cancer www.preventcancer.com, and then write a letter to your local newspaper and see if the editor will publish it. But there will be no hesitation of these same newspapers to provide "free" cheerleading every year to promote more money for the failed war on cancer, from unwitting citizens.
When my wife was nearly killed, not from breast cancer, but from "treatment", I sought to warn others of this problem. A reporter from our local daily newspaper interviewed me for over 3 hours. He wrote an article about it, which was killed at the last minute. The reporter later wrote me a letter explaining the shananigans behind the scenes to kill the article. But there is no dearth of articles promoting the use of toxic drugs used by the orthodoxy, or the use of high energy X-rays in mammography to unwitting ang gullible women.
If you observe a billboard advertising and promoting mammography by the American Cancer Society, I challenge you to go to that billboard company and seek to buy time next to the ad, explaining the many problems with it, and providing some of the alternatives. You will likely have to purchase the billboard company, just as you would with the newspaper in order to counter the many false and misleading statements promoted about cancer in the orthodox media. The "profession" of journalism has degenerated to little more than a cesspool of scoundrels. I documented some of their untoward behavior in the case of my wife and the American Cancer Society in the document "An Unsuccessful Effort to Deny Use of State of Georgia Facilities for Fund Raising by the American Cancer Society", May, 2000, available at the University of Georgia Library or the Athens Public Library, Athens , Georgia, Heritage Room. There was no effort made to publish the document formally, since no publisher would have accepted it due to their patent bias and prejudice and concerns over being sued. I sent out about 100 copies to various individuals or organizations around the world. In general, the only kind of cancer stories which are told by published books, are "happy stories", which do not make any criticial comments about doctors or orthodox cancer treatments. There may be some exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | Nov 23, 2005 8:26:54 PM
There are many problems - but also more venues for identifying problems.
Posted by: Gotham Image | Nov 26, 2005 6:05:16 PM
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