The Future of Media Doesn’t Belong to Murdoch; It Belongs to Us

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The Future of Media Doesn’t Belong to Murdoch; It Belongs to Us
by Josh Silver

The following are my opening remarks from the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, which I delivered this morning.

Good morning. My name is Josh Silver. On behalf of the Free Press staff and board of directors, I’m honored and proud to welcome all of you to the fourth National Conference for Media Reform.

I can’t tell you how exciting it is to look out at so many faces, and know that this conference and this movement for better media is growing to a level we never could have imagined.

Look around you! Here in Minneapolis and across the country, we have created a national movement for media reform!

You know, I never thought I’d open the conference with a quote from Scott McClellan.

The man who spoke for the Bush White House during the Iraq war now admits that, quote “he national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation…. the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.”

That’s putting it mildly. Later, McClellen said that the news media were quote “complicit enablers” in the White House’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval.”

More and more reporters, including major tv correspondents like Jessica Yellin and Chris Matthews have recently admitted that their bosses were pro-war and that it slanted their coverage.

These Johnny-come-lately confessions confirm what’s been obvious to everyone in this room for years: The corporate media is not a watchdog protecting us from the powerful, it is a lapdog begging for scraps.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/02/9460/