Al Gore: Gutless media caves to climate deniers

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/news/al-gore-pusillanimous-media-caves-to-climate-deniers/

?w=250&h=196

***SNIP

That pisses a lot of people off. One of them is Al Gore.


Gore, the former vice president who should have been president but instead used Powerpoint to put climate change on a lot of regular folks’ radars, is not shy about using his outsized soapbox. He was blunt in sharing his reflections Friday during a talk at the Brookings Institution. Here are some choice quotes, as transcribed by The Hill:

“Here in the U.S., the news media has been intimidated, frightened, and not only frightened, they are vulnerable to distorted news judgments because the line separating news and entertainment has long since been crossed, and ratings have a big influence on the selection of stories that are put on the news.”

“And the deniers of the climate crisis, quite a few of them paid by the large fossil fuel polluters — really it is like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage if anyone mentions alcohol, and so the rest of the family decides to keep the peace by never mentioning the elephant in the room. And many in the news media are exactly in that position.”

[legcramp]

1. Too bad someone didn't try to start a more liberal TV network

That could get the truth out to the people.

We could use it.

[cprise]

2. This is deranged

News networks were absorbed into the corporate conglomerate amoeba once deregulation took effect, in no small part because of Reagan-Bush in the 80s and Clinton-Gore in the 90s.

With restrictions on media ownership gone, the industry went through waves of massive mergers and downsizing of full time journalistic staff. They were allowed to monopolize large regions (like parts of the midwest).



Mass media are protecting their interests, and they are not timid in doing so.

[bananas]

3. And they tried to take over Pacifica

They tried to make Pacifica more like NPR, with corporate funding and corporate-friendly programming.

They fired a lot of good programmers, they banned Amy Goodman, they banned "airing of dirty laundry" (on-air discussion of the on-going coup), they hired union-busting law firms, and they almost won.

They did extensive damage.