Re: Top Journalists Prevented From Reporting Major News Stories

[Guest guest]

Excellent post, Rogene!

The same was true with the runup to the Iraq war, as we now know.

>

> http://www.wanttoknow.info/060507newsjournalistsprevented

>

> Top Journalists Prevented From

> Reporting Major News Stories

>

>

> " The story was developing a momentum of its own,

> despite a virtual news blackout from the major media.

> Ultimately, public pressure forced the national

> newspapers into the fray. The Washington Post, the NY

> Times, and the LA Times published stories, but spent

> little time exploring the CIA's activities. Instead,

> my reporting became the focus. It was remarkable [my

> editor] Ceppos wrote, that the four Post reporters

> assigned to debunk the series " could not find a single

> significant factual error. " A few months later, the

> Mercury News [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away

> from the story, publishing a long column by Ceppos

> apologizing for " shortcomings. " The NY Times hailed

> Ceppos for " setting a brave new standard, " and

> splashed his apology on their front page. " (click for

> more)

>

> -- Pulitzer Prize winner Webb, excerpted from

> landmark book Into The Buzzsaw

>

> May 7, 2006

> Dear friends,

>

> We all know that the U.S. and other developed

> countries have a relatively free press. Yet we also

> know that corporate ownership of the press at times

> influences what is published. After reading the

> revealing summary below of Emmy Award winning reporter

> a Borjesson's book Into the Buzzsaw, you may

> come to agree with me that the media is much more

> controlled than most people think. Please join in

> calling for a truly free press by spreading this

> information to your friends and colleagues and

> insisting that the media cover the most crucial

> stories mentioned here. Thanks for caring, and you

> have a great day!

>

> With best wishes,

> Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info Team

> Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and

> Clinton

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

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>

> Below are concise excerpts from the revealing accounts

> of 20 award-winning journalists in the highly

> acclaimed book Into the Buzzsaw. These courageous

> writers were prevented by corporate media ownership

> from reporting major news stories. Some were even

> fired or laid off. They have won numerous awards,

> including several Emmys and a Pulitzer.

>

>

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>

>

> Jane Akre—Fox News. After our struggle to air an

> honest report on hormones in milk, Fox fired the

> general manager of our station. The new GM said that

> if we didn't agree to changes that the lawyers were

> insisting upon, we'd be fired for insubordination in

> 48 hours. We pleaded with him to look at the facts

> we'd uncovered. His reply: " We paid $3 billion dollars

> for these stations. We'll tell you what the news is.

> The news is what we say it is! " After we refused,

> Fox's GM presented us an agreement that would give us

> a full year of salary, and benefits worth close to

> $200,000, but with strings attached: no mention of how

> Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever

> expose the facts. After declining, we were fired.

> (click for more)

>

> Dan Rather—CBS, Multiple Emmy Awards. What's going on

> is a belief that you can manipulate communicable trust

> between the leadership and the led. The way you do

> that is you don't let the press in anywhere. Access to

> war is extremely limited. The fiercer the combat, the

> more the access is limited, including access to

> information. This is a direct contradiction of the

> stated policy of maximum access to information

> consistent with national security...There was a time

> in South Africa when people would put flaming tires

> around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways

> the fear now in the U.S. is that you will have a

> flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your

> neck. That fear keeps journalists from asking the

> tough questions. I am humbled to say, I do not except

> myself from this criticism. (click for more)

>

> Monika Jensen-son—Emmy-winning producer for 60

> minutes. R. Garwood—14 years a prisoner of the

> Vietnamese—was found guilty in the longest

> court-martial in US history. At the end of the

> court-martial, there seemed no question that Garwood

> was a monstrous traitor. Several years later in 1985,

> Garwood was speaking publicly about something that had

> never made the news during his court-martial. He knew

> of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the

> war was over. He was supported by Vietnam veterans

> whose war records were impeccable….My sources included

> outstanding experts like former head of the Defense

> Intelligence Agency General Tighe and returned POWs

> like Captain Mc, who held the Navy's top award

> for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to

> consider the possibility that prisoners (some 3,500)

> had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to

> make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in

> war reparations. After the war, American POWs had

> become worthless pawns. The US had not paid the

> promised monies and had no intention of paying in the

> future. (click for more)

>

> a Borjesson—CBS, Emmy award winner. Pierre

> Salinger announced to the world on Nov. 8, 1996, that

> he'd received documents proving that a US Navy missile

> had accidentally downed TWA flight 800. That same day,

> FBI's Jim Kallstrom called a press conference. A man

> raised his hand and asked why the Navy was involved in

> the recovery and investigation while a possible

> suspect. " Remove him! " Kallstrom yelled. Two men leapt

> over to the questioner and grabbed him by the arms.

> There was a momentary chill in the air after the guy

> had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and

> entourage acted as if nothing had happened. [Kallstrom

> was later hired by CBS.] (click for more)

>

> Greg Palast—BBC. In the months leading up to the

> November 2000 balloting, Gov. Jeb Bush ordered

> elections supervisors to purge 58,000 voters on the

> grounds they were felons not entitled to vote. As it

> turns out, only a handful of these voters were felons.

> This extraordinary news ran on page one of the

> country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was the

> wrong country: Britain. In the USA, it was not

> covered. The office of the governor also illegally

> ordered the removal of felons from voter rolls—real

> felons—but with the right to vote under law. As a

> result, 50,000 of these voters could not vote. The

> fact that 90% of these were Democrats should have made

> it news as this alone more than accounted for Bush's

> victory. (click for more)

>

> Levine—25-year veteran of DEA, writer for New

> York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today. The Chang

> Mai " factory " that the CIA prevented me from

> destroying was the source of massive amounts of heroin

> being smuggled into the US in the bodies and body bags

> of GIs killed in Vietnam. Case after case was killed

> by CIA and State Department intervention and there

> wasn't a thing we could do about it….In 1980,

> CIA-recruited mercenaries and drug traffickers

> unseated Bolivia's democratically elected president.

> Immediately after the coup, cocaine production

> increased massively. Bolivia became the source of

> virtually 100% of the cocaine entering the US. This

> was the beginning of the crack " plague. " …The CIA along

> with State and Justice Departments had to protect

> their drug-dealing assets by destroying a DEA

> investigation. How do I know? I was the inside source.

> I sat down at my desk in the American embassy and

> wrote evidence of my charges. I addressed it to

> Newsweek. Three weeks later DEA's internal security

> called to notify me that I was under

> investigation….The highlight of the 60 Minutes piece

> is when the administrator of the DEA, Federal Judge

> Bonner, tells Mike Wallace, " There is no other

> way to put it, Mike, what the CIA did is drug

> smuggling. It's illegal. " (click for more)

>

> Webb—San Mercury News, Pulitzer Prize

> winner. In 1996, I wrote a series of stories that

> began this way: For the better part of a decade, a Bay

> Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and

> Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug

> profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine

> that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in

> urban America….The story was developing a momentum all

> of its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the

> major media. Ultimately, it was public pressure that

> forced the national newspapers into the fray. The

> Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los

> Angeles Times published stories, but spent little time

> exploring the CIA's activities. Instead, my reporting

> and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was

> remarkable [Mercury News editor] Ceppos wrote, that

> the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk

> the series " could not find a single significant

> factual error. " A few months later, the Mercury News

> [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away from the

> story, publishing a long column by Ceppos apologizing

> for " shortcomings. " The New York Times hailed Ceppos

> for " setting a brave new standard, " and splashed his

> apology on their front page, the first time the series

> had ever been mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News

> not long after that….Do we have a free press today?

> Sure. It's free to report all the sex scandals, all

> the stock market news, and every new health fad that

> comes down the pike. But when it comes to the real

> down and dirty stuff—such stories are not even open

> for discussion. (click for more)

>

> —Author, ABC producer. ABC hired me to help

> produce a story about an investment firm that was

> heavily involved with the CIA. Part of the ABC report

> charged that the CIA had plotted to assassinate an

> American, Ron Rewald, the president of the investment

> firm. said on camera that the CIA had

> asked him to kill Rewald. After the show aired, CIA

> officials met with ABC executive Burke, who was

> sufficiently impressed " by the vigor with which they

> made their case " to order an on-air " clarification. "

> But that was not enough. CIA Director Casey called ABC

> Chairman Goldenson. Thus, despite all the documented

> evidence presented in the program, despite ABC

> standing by the program in a second broadcast,

> Jennings reported that ABC could no longer

> substantiate the charges. That same day, the CIA filed

> a formal complaint with the FCC charging that ABC had

> " deliberately distorted " the news. In the complaint,

> Casey asked that ABC be stripped of its TV and radio

> licenses….During this time, Capital Cities

> Communications was maneuvering to buy ABC. CIA

> Director Casey was one of the founders of Cap Cities.

> Cap Cities bought ABC. Within months, the entire

> investigative unit was dispersed. (click for more)

>

> McChesney—500 radio & TV appearances. There has

> been a striking consolidation of the media from

> hundreds of firms to an industry dominated by less

> than ten enormous transnational conglomerates. The

> largest ten media firms own all US TV networks, most

> TV stations, all major film studios, all major music

> companies, nearly all cable TV channels, much of the

> book and magazine publishing industry, and much, much

> more. Expensive investigative journalism—especially

> that which goes after national security or powerful

> corporate interests—is discouraged. Largely irrelevant

> human interest/tragedy stories get extensive

> coverage….A few weeks after the war began in

> Afghanistan, CNN president Isaacson authorized CNN to

> provide two different versions of the war: a more

> critical one for the global audience and a sugarcoated

> one for Americans….It is nearly impossible to conceive

> of a better world without some changes in the media

> status quo. We have no time to waste. (click for more)

>

>

>

>

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>

>

> For a powerful 10-page summary of this material:

> www.WantToKnow.info/massmedia

> For other reliable resources on the media cover-up:

> Media Information Center

>

>

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