"`Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented,' Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in 2011. `Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships their names, their addresses, their locations, and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence.' Assange's assessment is prescient, accurate, and ironic, as Assange delivered it in an interview on RT, the state news network of the Kremlin. Since 2011, the Russian government's state surveillance operation has become even more brutal and has benefited greatly from Western social media ventures. Silicon Valley and the state intersect at disturbing inflection points, ones that often involve espionage, like those Danny Casolaro was investigating before he died.
"Despite the eventual rollback of many of the policies they inspired, the Church Committee and Pike committee matter, if only because they present a model for future efforts to enforce accountability. In the 1970s, whistleblowers and reporters brought the truth to light, the public cared and demanded more, and officials complied with their demands. This progress was derailed by the Reagan administration and its operatives, who also learned quite a lot from the two committees. They learned how to make sure this level of accountability never happened again. They gutted the Fairness Doctrine, a 1949 federal act that required the media coverage of controversial political topics be balanced. They created a vast media infrastructure to spread propaganda and repressive laws aimed at preventing internal critique under the guise of national security. They shifted political culture so far to the right that the sensible investigations of the 1970s seems radical in retrospect."
- Sarah Kendzior (2022). They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent. New York: Flatiron Books, 188-189.
People still in corporate media are operating under pressures I cannot even imagine. I've been out of it for 11+ years and even then, the walls were closing in.
Yeah, it's bad. I do think there's a little laziness* in the trenches, but mostly the few remaining are absolutely sweated, and pressed to please sponsors and avoid the asymmetrically vicious complaints of partisans, and avoid troubling pretty little heads.
* The laziness of being a stenographer and not a reporter. The laziness of promoting only one view, or one view and a sock puppet, or forcing apparent symmetry by treating cranks as parallel sources. As a counterexample, I think of Denver's Kyle Clark, who demonstrates that it can be done, though never without personal risk, and surely most easily by white male headliners.
I think any lazy journalists have long since left the farm. There's simply no room for them. Journalists are being called on to do the job of three people. It was bad when I was there but it's far worse now.
And I shouldn't say all lazy journalists have left the building. I'm sure there are some that remain and how they survive and ignore all the duties placed upon them is beyond me.
Well, I think there are different kinds of laziness. and that a lack of intellectual laziness is pretty severely punished. And there's so much else to do that I have no intention of dissing journalistic energy and application, but having to fight for every half-sentence of contesting has got to be incredibly dispiriting, and the general need to scramble makes it easy to not get to it.
She is a hero. What a sad pathetic country.... related item below?
64 Australian Parliamentarians Endorse Diplomatic Trip to Free Assange
"We believe the right and best course of action would be for the United States' Department of Justice to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange."
It's so sad they did that to her. She is so understandably upset. And he should be fired, not suspended!
I admire her so much.
The other shoes are dropping! The 4th estate is needed now more than ever.
Amen.
"`Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented,' Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in 2011. `Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships their names, their addresses, their locations, and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence.' Assange's assessment is prescient, accurate, and ironic, as Assange delivered it in an interview on RT, the state news network of the Kremlin. Since 2011, the Russian government's state surveillance operation has become even more brutal and has benefited greatly from Western social media ventures. Silicon Valley and the state intersect at disturbing inflection points, ones that often involve espionage, like those Danny Casolaro was investigating before he died.
"Despite the eventual rollback of many of the policies they inspired, the Church Committee and Pike committee matter, if only because they present a model for future efforts to enforce accountability. In the 1970s, whistleblowers and reporters brought the truth to light, the public cared and demanded more, and officials complied with their demands. This progress was derailed by the Reagan administration and its operatives, who also learned quite a lot from the two committees. They learned how to make sure this level of accountability never happened again. They gutted the Fairness Doctrine, a 1949 federal act that required the media coverage of controversial political topics be balanced. They created a vast media infrastructure to spread propaganda and repressive laws aimed at preventing internal critique under the guise of national security. They shifted political culture so far to the right that the sensible investigations of the 1970s seems radical in retrospect."
- Sarah Kendzior (2022). They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent. New York: Flatiron Books, 188-189.
Such a great book.
I raise a glass of ice tea. to Joan Meyers.
And I bet those officers went out chuckling about "the crazy old lady."
Here's to the media, when they work. And the not-working? Most of that is due to gross underfunding and corporate pressure. Most.
People still in corporate media are operating under pressures I cannot even imagine. I've been out of it for 11+ years and even then, the walls were closing in.
Yeah, it's bad. I do think there's a little laziness* in the trenches, but mostly the few remaining are absolutely sweated, and pressed to please sponsors and avoid the asymmetrically vicious complaints of partisans, and avoid troubling pretty little heads.
* The laziness of being a stenographer and not a reporter. The laziness of promoting only one view, or one view and a sock puppet, or forcing apparent symmetry by treating cranks as parallel sources. As a counterexample, I think of Denver's Kyle Clark, who demonstrates that it can be done, though never without personal risk, and surely most easily by white male headliners.
I think any lazy journalists have long since left the farm. There's simply no room for them. Journalists are being called on to do the job of three people. It was bad when I was there but it's far worse now.
I'm sure they're very busy. Wrung out and righteously desperate.
And I shouldn't say all lazy journalists have left the building. I'm sure there are some that remain and how they survive and ignore all the duties placed upon them is beyond me.
Well, I think there are different kinds of laziness. and that a lack of intellectual laziness is pretty severely punished. And there's so much else to do that I have no intention of dissing journalistic energy and application, but having to fight for every half-sentence of contesting has got to be incredibly dispiriting, and the general need to scramble makes it easy to not get to it.
That was so hard to watch. Shame on all of them. And consequences.
She is a hero. What a sad pathetic country.... related item below?
64 Australian Parliamentarians Endorse Diplomatic Trip to Free Assange
"We believe the right and best course of action would be for the United States' Department of Justice to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange."
https://www.commondreams.org/search/?q=julian+assange+