Kevin Gosztola: Behind the Scenes of the Manning Trial Ignored by Corporate Media

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/kevin-gosztola-behind-scenes-bradley-manning-trial-ignored-corporate-media-1374035142

The judge in the Bradley Manning case says she will decide Thursday on his lawyers' request to dismiss seven of the charges he faces, including allegations that he aided the enemy when he provided hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The defense says the prosecution has not provided sufficient evidence that Manning had actual knowledge that the information he leaked would end up with the enemy. Lawyers for the government have said that, based on his training, Private Manning knew that al-Qaeda and other groups could have access to the documents. For an inside look of the Manning trial we speak to Kevin Gosztola, a civil liberties blogger at Firedoglake who is one of only a handful of journalists covering the Manning trial on a daily basis. "It really is only being covered when the outlets in the U.S. media feel they have an obligation to cover something," Gosztola says.

TRANSCRIPT

AARON MATÉ: We end today’s show with an update on the trial of Private Bradley Manning at Fort Meade. The judge hearing the case said she will decide Thursday on his lawyers’ request to dismiss seven of the charges he faces, including allegations he aided the enemy when he provided hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The defense says the prosecution has not provided sufficient evidence that Manning had "actual knowledge" the information would end up with the enemy. Lawyers for the government have said that, based on his training, Private Manning knew al-Qaeda and other groups could have access to the documents.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, last week we spoke with—about the trial with Kevin Gosztola, civil liberties blogger at Firedoglake, who has been covering Manning’s trial at Fort Meade in Maryland every day. He’s the co-author of Truth and Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. He joined us via Democracy Now!video stream from his car in the Fort Meade parking lot. I interviewed him along with co-host Nermeen Shaikh and began by asking him about how the trial has been covered by the media.

KEVIN GOSZTOLA: It really is only being covered when the outlets in the U.S. media feel they have an obligation to cover something. So, for example, this is the first day of the trial—that’s something important; this is the first day of Bradley Manning’s defense—that’s feels like something important. Other than that, we aren’t going to see a lot of outlets. We’ve seen a small, dedicated, core group of individuals, of which I have been a part, an independent journalist named Alexa O’Brien, Courthouse News reporter who works in New York City named Adam Klasfeld. We’ve had a courtroom sketch artist named Clark Stoeckley, who also happens to be the driver of the WikiLeaks Truck, which, I have to tell you, it is quite remarkable and phenomenal to watch that drive onto the base every single day. And then we have Nathan Fuller, who is a reporter for the Bradley Manning Support Network. And these are the people who have been showing up every single day, and many of us don’t even live in D.C. It baffles me that in a city of Washington, D.C., where I assume there are thousands of journalists, there aren’t more reporters who feel like they should be here regularly. But we’ve had Associated Press here regularly. They have been doing good work as an establishment news organization. Occasionally we see The Washington Post, The Guardian. The New York Times shows up from time to time because they were shamed by their public editor, Margaret Sullivan. We just don’t have the sort of wall-to-wall coverage that the George Zimmerman trial has or some of these other more sensational trials.

[Laughing Mirror]

1. "The New York Times shows up from time to time ... "

It baffles me too, if you consider that NYT, the paper of record, was in on publishing some of the documents, along with Wikileaks and a few others, and so that would seem to make NYT an interested party.

[bvar22]

2. The MESSAGE from our 1% Owned Government to Journalists & Media:

Watch what you SAY!
Cross Us, and you will be sorry.




"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities,"--- Propagandist Karl Rove


Bonus points if you can identify the origin of this quote.

[font size=3]"All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. When there is question of bringing a whole nation within the circle of its influence, as happens in the case of war propaganda, then too much attention cannot be paid to the necessity of avoiding a high level, which presupposes a relatively high degree of intelligence among the public. "

<snip>

"But the most brilliant technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."[/font]
---???

That could be the Mission Statement for FOX & CNN.