Corporate News Media, Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom of Press -- Archive
One of the central issues that Words of Site focuses on is the health of democratic institutions, in particular the need for both a free, independent and aggressive news media and a trustworthy and transparent electoral process.
Without one or the other, no democracy can survive for long; without either, no democracy exists.
Over the last several decades in the USA, and especially within the last seven years, both vital institutions have been seriously if not terminally compromised.
Throughout the world, brave journalists risk their lives to tell the truth.
In the USA, most "journalists" working in the mainstream won't even risk their jobs.
For background on this graphical representation of the unwholesome concentration of media power, click here for Media Channel. To review The Nation's Big Ten media monopolies chart, click here.
Alternative media -- e.g., the blogosophere, citizen journalism, Internet radio, podcasting, viral video, satellite, etc. -- is the antidote; it offer powerful resources and profound opportunity.
There are very few Words of Power posts that do not in some way mention either the corporatist agenda of the US mainstream news media or some other threat to press freedom elsewhere on the planet. This archive simply organizes some posts that predominately deal with such issues of press freedom and responsibility in reverse chronological order.
For comprehensive documentation and analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to serve the Constitution that grants it unparalled freedom and responsibility, go to Media Matters, FAIR and MediaChannel.
-- Richard Power
Global News Media Update: Across the Planet, Having A By-Line Demands Courage, But in the USA, for Every Danny Pearl, There are 100 Anderson Coopers
The Binge is Over. Self-Mugged, Santelli, Kudlow, Cramer, et al, Gibber Away. Meanwhile, Krugman Offers Tough Love & Jon Stewart Offers Hard News
This is Not What Jefferson had in Mind -- Mainstream & Business News Media Fail in Covering Greatest Challenges of Our Time
While Journalists Risk Their Lives Across the Planet, the US Mainstream News Media Continues to Misinform & Misdirect on the Economic Crisis
What Omer Goldman & the Child Soldiers of the Congo Could Teach the Political Establishment & Mainstream News Media
Global Media Freedom Update: Russia Now, the USA Sooner than Later? "Despite the attempts to block us, to arrest us. The site must live.
Weigh the Coverage of Sarah Palin's Ascension Against the Coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi's Hunger Strike & Ask Yourself What Happened to Your Culture?
Will the US Electorate Lay Down in the Poppy Field Sowed by Right-Wing Propagandists & Tilled by the Corporatist Media?
Bill Moyers: "This leaves you with a heavy burden. It is up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible."
Can the US Mainstream News Media be Reformed Through Legislation? Or Revitalized from Within? I Don't Know. But It May Rapidly Become Irrelevant.
Torture, Destruction of Evidence, Lying about GI Suicide Rate -- Helen Thomas to WH Press Corp: "Where is everybody? For God's sake." --Where are You?
Can You Say "PIN-O-CHET"? Those Three Syllables Should Be a Sacred Mantra; Tear Up that Check to PBS, Make It Out to Alternate Media Instead
While US Mainstream News Media & Political Establishment Enable the Assault on Reason, the National Academy of Science Stands Up to Fundamentalists -- NAS Declares "Scientific Evidence Supporting Evolution Continues To Grow; Nonscientific Approaches Do Not Belong In Science Classrooms"
Hard Rain Journal: The Greatest Threat -- Not Al Qaeda or Even Greenhouse Gases ...
Hard Rain Journal 12-3-07: David Gregory Meet I.F. Stone and Tom Paine x 10,00
Hard Rain Journal: Friedman, McClellan & The Definition of Depravity
Global Press Freedom Update: China Tightens Screws on Press in Preparation for 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; Take A Look At Your Future
Crisis in Darfur Update 9-19-07: What Does CNN's Anderson Cooper See in the Mirror?
GoLeft TV Guide -- Digital Anti-Oxidant for the Body Politic
Climate Crisis Update 9-1-07: TV "Meteorologists" Can't Just Be Eye-Candy or Comic Relief Anymore, Now They Have to Hide the Truth
Hard Rain Journal 8-31-07: "Tyranny is a Continuum" -- Robert Kennedy, Jr. & George Soros Debate Fascism, the News Media, & the Role of the People
GS(3) Intelligence Briefing 8-9-07: Updates on Geopolitics, Global Economy, Energy Security, News Media Monopolies, & Cyber Crime -- What If
Hard Rain Journal 7-11-07: Michael Moore Brings Us Closer to 2nd Boston Tea Party, But Not Just Boston, All Over the USA, & Not Tea This Time -- TVs
Climate Crisis Update 6-15-07: Lessons from the Failure to Change Course on Iraq -- What has Crippled the Body Politic? Corporatist Money & Media
Hard Rain Journal 5-20-07: A Note on Wolfowitz, the Secret Trade Deal and How to Use the Blogosphere
Hard Rain Journal 5-11-07: CBS Fires Batiste for Doing What Edward R. Murrow Would Have Done -- Speaking Truth and Confronting Lies and Hypocrisy
Hard Rain Journal 5-8-07: In Russia, China and the USA -- Permutations of Orwell's Nightmare Vision
Climate Crisis Update 5-4-07: Is Glenn Beck Going John-Hickley-Jr.? 7 Stories CNN Could Have Aired Instead of Beck's Eco-Nazi Conspiracy Theory
World Press Freedom Day 5-3-07: In Russia and Philippines, Journalists Risk Their Lives; In USA, They Won't Even Risk Their Jobs
Hard Rain Journal 4-30-07: Climate Crisis Update -- Media Matters in the Struggle Against Global Warming
Hard Rain Journal 4-13-07: Imus is Offered as a Sacrificial Goat, Meanwhile the Bush-Cheney Stonewall Implodes -- It is Going to be a Long, Hot Summer
GS(3) Thunderbolt 4-11-07: Darfur Crisis -- As the Circumference of Slaughter Widens, US Mainstream Media Enables Abomination Named Ann Coulter
Hard Rain Journal 4-6-07: US Mainstream Media Smears Pelosi for Her Peace Mission, While the Bush-Cheney Regime Collaborates with Al Qaeda and Taliban
Hard Rain Journal 2-22-07: Corporatist News Media Still Shields Bush-Cheney from the Savage Truth on Plame, Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda and Walter Reed
Hard Rain Journal 2-13-07: Is the Mainstream News Media Ignoring the Biggest Obstruction of Justice in US History?
Hard Rain Journal 1-19-07: The Hard Rain Falls Between PNAC and the PATRIOT Act, but the US News Media Sees, Hears, Speaks No Evil
Hard Rain Journal 1-5-07: Global Free Press Update -- “2006 was the worst year on record — a year of targeting, brutality, continued impunity..."
GS(3) Thunderbolt 11-4-06: Unlike the US Mainstream News Media, the Military Times Knows What Time It Is...
Hard Rain Journal 10-10-06: Global Free Press Update -- Tales of Violence, Intimidation & Censorship Perpetrated By Both Governments & Corporations
Hard Rain Journal 9-7-06: While ABC Catapults the Propaganda, Bush’s “Key Ally” Makes Peace with Al Qaeda
Hard Rain Journal 8-12-06: News Media Control on the Poorest Continent & in the Richest Nation
Hard Rain Journal 8-7-06: Coked Out? ABC Ignores 3 Blockbusters on War & Treason to Suggest Lamont, Not Lieberman, Would Be A "Disaster"
Hard Rain Journal 7-13-06: Dan Rather Not -- Will Former CBS Anchor Join Moyers & Cronkite in Wilderness, & Speak Truth to Abuse of Media Power?
Hard Rain Journal 7-5-06: Al Qaeda Endorsed Bush-Cheney in 2004, But US Mainstream News Media Chose to Ignore It
Hard Rain Journal 6-24-06: Not What "News Coverage" was Supposed to Mean
Hard Rain Journal 6-19-06: Coulter, Beck and The Death of The News
News Media, Alternative Media, Propaganda, Media Reform, Citizen Journalism, Corporatism, Blogosphere, Richard Power, Words of Power
