THE DEATH OF JOURNALISM

John Nichols and Robert McChesney report in article in the Nation, "The implications are clear: if our policy-makers do nothing, if "business as usual" prevails, we face a future where there will be relatively few paid journalists working in competing newsrooms with editors, fact-checkers, travel budgets and institutional support. Vast areas of public life and government activity will take place in the dark--as is already the case in many statehouses across the country. Independent and insightful coverage of the basic workings of local, state and federal government, and of our many interventions and occupations abroad, is disappearing as rapidly as the rainforests. The political implications are dire. Just as a brown planet cannot renew itself, so an uninformed electorate cannot renew democracy. Popular rule doesn't work without an informed citizenry, and an informed citizenry cannot exist without credible journalism"

WELL WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? WE NEED A PROTEST ON CAPITOL HILL? WE NEED TO GET MEDIA ATTENTION THAT CANT BE IGNORED? IS IT POSSIBLE?

Journalism vs Capitalism Without Restraints

Robert McChesney and John Nichols, reported in an article for Nation, "Two centuries after Madison wrote those words, American news media are being steered off the cliff by investors and corporate managers who soured on their "properties" when the economic downturn dried up what was left of their advertising bonanza. They are taking journalism with them. Newsrooms are shrinking and disappearing altogether, along with statehouse, Washington and foreign bureaus. And with them goes the circulation of news and ideas that is indispensable to liberty. This is a dire moment for democracy, and it requires a renewal of one of America's oldest understandings: that a free people can govern themselves only if they have access to independent information about the issues of the day and the excesses of the powerful, and that it is the duty of government to guarantee both the promise and the reality of a free press"

Settling for probaganda as news is sickening, and sitting at work I cant even get to the websites that report the news I want to read. Robert Greenwalds link is blocked--Bill O'Reilly's works just fine. Hmm! Censorship I think so. And, Im angry. Something has got to be done about this. The Fairness Doctrine is gone and Corporate America gets to pick and choose what their employees can access online. Wow! And this isnt fascism? Then what is it, because it isnt democracy.