Now that a Bush appointee is ON TAPE selling access, will the MSM finally do its job?

[Faryn Balyncd]

Is American investigative journalism totally comatose?




It took the British press to catch (& TAPE) Bush crony & political appointee Stephen Payne attempting to sell access to the Vice President or Secretary of State in return for Bush library $$.

(Here's Mr. Payne clearing brush outside Crawford with his buddy GWB:




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3610825&mesg_id=3610825
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/12/bush-library-donation-scandal/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4322684.ece







Will the US press finally stand up, do their job, and demand answers?

Will they demand to know, at the next presidential press conference if Mr. Payne has been relieved of his duties?

Will they demand a complete accounting of what each Bush Library donor received in return?






Or will the American press continue to sell their soul, a la Faux, in the hope of achieving a little access themselves?



(Is this an omen? - - The Washington Post has decided that the 2008 election year is the logical time to run a 12-part (yes TWELVE, not a typo) series on . . . . . . {did you think they would look at a relevant national security issue such as the unsolved anthrax murders? No way.................} the 2001 unsolved disappearance of Chandra Levy.)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003827036






“The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty”

- - Adlai E. Stevenson



"No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will."
- - Thomas Jefferson



“Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.”

- - Alexis de Tocqueville



“A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.”

- - Albert Camus









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[World Citizen]

1. the MSM is part of the enemy

a very important part. They need to be attacked as if they are the enemy. Cobert and Stuart have been doing a good job of that. We need much more.

[notadmblnd]

2. What? there aren't any more recent white girl disappearances they could distract with?

[Cirque du So-What]

13. No fresh stories involving missing white girls

so they gotta resort to recycling the Chandra Levy story...a two-week serial investigation in the WP. I wish I was joking, but apparently there's not enough happening in the world to keep reporters at the WP busy.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/07/who_killed_chandra_levy_the_re.html

[roody]

3. They are doing their jobs

of protecting corporate interests.

[yardwork]

17. The media are corporations. They are owned and operated by huge corporations.

Corporations such as General Electric benefit greatly from Republican policies.

[spanone]

4. Is American investigative journalism totally comatose? yes

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Sadly, I predict the GOP-controlled media will bring up...

...The Clenis and the Lincoln bedroom.

It's all they have.

[yardwork]

18. Meanwhile, chimpco won't even give us a list of their White House visitors.

But that, of course, is fine.

[ColbertWatcher]

23. Maybe we need to stick them in a room and threaten...

...not to torture them.

Then, maybe they'll talk.

[yardwork]

27. lol!

[u2spirit]

6. In a word

No

[GreenTea]

7. They are republican corporate owned, it's NOT to their benefit to tell us the truth. Get real!

The television news is owned by five corporations ALL five corporations are major contributors to the republican party (RNC) some like Disney (ABC) & Time-Warner (CNN & CNN Headline) are in the top ten of all republican contributors and the other three corporate owned networks, Murdoch, (Fox) GE, (NBC MSNBC CNBC) & Viacom (CBS) are also large republican contributors......As for radio, Clear Channel and a few other republican corporations own most of the radio stations and it's getting to be a smaller republican corporate conglomerate group every day.....And the print media too is being bought up by these same republican corporations, keep Americans dumb....again it's not to their benefit NOT to tell us what's really going on.....

Ever since Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine and then Clinton sewed it up for the republican controlled media by making it so republican corporate conglomerates can own radio, TV & newspapers all in the same market and in as many markets they want.

You really expect the MSM to report the truth, you think it's going to get better? You living in a fantasy world....Just look at 9/11 they jammed that down our throats, so where is good old bin Laden who easily slipped away, better to keep him alive, keeps us in fear!

[yardwork]

20. Thank you for this post. This is exactly the problem.

It won't get better and the "media" won't start reporting anything near the truth until we dismantle the legislation that gave the corporations so much power.

[ljm2002]

8. If they do report it...

...they'll spin it as how rude, how unseemly it was for someone to tape a private conversation like that without permission...

Anyway it's not nearly as colorful, or as newsworthy, as Jesse Jackson's faux pas, now was it?

I mean really.

[malaise]

9. This will be heard all over progressive radio tomorrow

Other than Olbermann and Abrams don't expect more than 15 seconds of coverage anywhere else.
Hopefully Obama will raise it.

[yardwork]

19. If Obama takes on the corporations now they'll shut him down.

Look what they did to Edwards and Kucinich and every other progressive candidate that threatens corporate power. That's why Obama voted for FISA. Our only hope is to get Democrats in power and then insist that they restore a free and independent media. Otherwise it will get worse and worse.

[BlueJac]

10. Quit dreaming...............there are nothing but fools and liars on msm

[NewJeffCT]

11. will it even make the news here?

beyond Olbermann?

[smoogatz]

12. Simple answers to simple questions:

No. They won't. Because they think their job is to entertain us!

[gateley]

14. They know their job is to bring in advertising dollars and profit. nt

[ArbustoBuster]

22. They can entertain me pretty easily.

I find political mayhem incredibly entertaining. Bring down President Bush! I promise to watch CNN all freakin' day.

[annabanana]

15. To recount a tale I heard here a while ago... If you hold up

a sweater in a store and ask a friend "What's the product and who's the customer?", they will answer.. "It's a sweater, and I'm the customer".

And if you hold up a newspaper at a newsstand?. . Are you the customer?


no.


You are the product and the advertisers are the customers.

Always remember this when you consider the state of the media (any media.)

[dysfunctional press]

16. investigative journalism only really happens under democratic administrations...

go figure.

[2008]

21. The MSM is already doing its job, and has been doing it well for a long time

Its "job" is to make as much money as it can, by keeping its ratings as high as possible, so it can sell advertising at the highest possible prices.

It accomplishes this by sprinkling a little politics and government in with its celebrity reports and favorite YouTube clips, among other fluff.

It further accomplishes this by not pissing off those in power who are heavily invested in its advertisers.

The so-called "Fourth Estate" can no longer be seen from Main Street. It's become a smattering of log cabins hidden deep in the wilderness.

[ColbertWatcher]

24. Not to be ignorant, but...

...what laws were broken?

[0rganism]

25. are those rhetorical questions?

:P

Seriously? there's very little chance that this will get covered by anyone in MSM other than KO, maybe Lou Dobbs if he's in a bad mood, and crack CC reporters Stewart & Colbert.

[snot]

26. you have to ask?

were you around when some of us were pushing for legislation to restore restrictions on consolidation of media ownership, restore the Fairness Doctrine, etc.?

there is no power without knowledge; and we the people have no knowledge without the fourth estate.