Replies: 19 Comments
Comment #1: jen said on 5/15/05 @ 10:05am ET...
Rep. Conyers, Mr. Brown is finally "reporting" what many of us have known for a several years. The Conference for Media Reform is going on this weekend in St. Louis. I believe there is hope - it's going to take all of us working together. Thank you for standing up as a leader we can rally behind! I'm sure you know by now how sorely you are needed and how thankful so many of us are for your outstanding service to our country!
This is from Newshare which is following the conference:
Ex-mainstream journalist says: Please criticize us so we can battle corporate owners
A former mainstream journalist, who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for coverage at the Orlando Sentinel of unconstitutional contraband seizures, spoke up today at the Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis saying line reporters need criticism in order to keep heat on corporate owners.
“Up until about two years ago, I was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the mainstream media at the Los Angeles Times,” said Stephen Berry, now a journalism professor at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “I want to congratulate [media watchdogs] and say keep on keeping on.”
Journalists need the public to pressure them to do better, said Berry, because that gives the journalists and line editors ammunition to take to corporate managers and owners....
Comment #2: Dan said on 5/15/05 @ 10:34am ET...
Although Mr. Brown's article was spot on, it seems to suggest that we just GIVE UP on the whole idea of real news.
We can shape it just as we can shape corporate behavior. If it's the money, then we are the source.
We must continue to speak out, louder and louder, until we break into the Disney dream cycle that we seem to be in and then through OUR jingling pockets, the media conglomerates themselves.
Giving up is not an option.
Comment #3: rainbow sally said on 5/15/05 @ 11:07am ET...
STOP.
Any one of our representatives, ANY one of them... can get up and make a one-minute or five-minute speech or a special orders report.
John, it's not just the media that is under our watchful eye.
So far nobody has given us the keywords to look up at thomas.loc.gov. Not even Kucinich (last time I checked).
So there is NO DOCUMENTATION in the House Record.
Let's all just agree to go down in a fireball of mutually agreeable cowardice.
What say?
Comment #4: hankg said on 5/15/05 @ 11:11am ET...
Contribute
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Please help me get to the bottom of the Ohio election debacle and reform the election laws so that millions of voters are never disenfranchised again! Your donation will help ensure I get my message across in the face of strong Republican opposition, and get re-elected.
Click here to make a donation.
SEND MONEY! JC is getting tired of pumping these non issues for nothing. SEND MORE MONEY!
Comment #5: Dan said on 5/15/05 @ 11:16am ET...
Good morning Hank.
Providing the link to the donation page would be helpful.
Comment #6: thank said on 5/15/05 @ 11:21am ET...
Keep sending MONEY! MONEY TALKS.
There is a convenient "contribute now" link right on the main page. Simply go to it and give $$$$$$.
If the MONEY dries up JC will not have any incentive to keep up on these NON ISSUES!
Comment #7: Dan said on 5/15/05 @ 11:28am ET...
We know about the main page Hank.
It would just be more convenient to do it from this page after reading one of your inspirational, though often misspelled, messages.
We could contribute while we were still freshly "in the spirit".
It would be a boon to the congressman's coffers.
Comment #8: Kenny said on 5/15/05 @ 12:09pm ET...
Can you post a copy of the memo for download?
Comment #9: Drew said on 5/15/05 @ 12:17pm ET...
Text of the memo can be found at the bottom of http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=426&row=0
Links to most media mentions of the Conyers letter are up at http://www.seanhanity.com/
Comment #10: Jack said on 5/15/05 @ 12:32pm ET...
Y'all be patient with Hank. Maybe if he keeps coming here and reading, he'll learn something. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Thanks for the link Hank, just gave the Congressman a couple hundred.
Please continue to post the reminders!
Comment #11: Dan said on 5/15/05 @ 12:44pm ET...
The Downing Street Meno must not be folded into the issue of the press not reporting on the real news of the administration. It will get sucked up into that morass and disappear.
It must be held separate and distinct, along with the other proof already given, as it is the root of the most heinous atrocities attributable to this administration.
The only way we can honor the fallen is to see that it never happens again. That no other father, brother, mother or sister dies for a lie.
Comment #12: Horkus said on 5/15/05 @ 1:36pm ET...
Great column by Sylvester Brown Jr. I saw him on O'Reilly a few months ago(I was flipping the channels),
and was surprised that they would let someone as articulate as him on the show. O'Reilly was, as usual, in his talking points memo attack dog mode.
He let O'Reilly know that papers like The Village Voice and Mother Jones are liberal, not the NY Times.
What Sylvester is doing is trying to save journalism. Good luck to him. The mainstream press is digging it's own grave. Those of us who can get real news will get real news. The longer they wait to expose vote fraud, the more harm their doing to themselves if a smoking gun is found. And I'm sure that the "internets" won't be too kind.
Comment #13: Jim said on 5/15/05 @ 2:04pm ET...
Good article, but a terrible headline. If you are just a headline reader it seems to paint you as a muckracker Mr Conyers. That was just my take when I read it. Keep up the fight Sir, more and more Americans are starting to see the light.
Comment #14: John Conyers, Jr. said on 5/15/05 @ 2:20pm ET...
Jim: An interesting point. I read it in the context of the overall article, which was an attack on the values of the modern day media. In Mr. Brown's view, I am looking for news in all of the wrong places.
Comment #15: Peter Wells said on 5/15/05 @ 3:26pm ET...
You may like to look into another document revealed during the British election campaign that has been ignored by the US mainstream media. This was the publicaton of the intial legal advice from the UK Attorney General on the legality of the war. This was generally acknowledged to be a good exposition of the internaltional law. The later opinion given to the UK cabinet and Parliament was not.
You may wish to note than in it the AT explains some interpretations of International Law and the relevant UN resolutions that are unique to the USA.
I have extracted some of the issues of the differences between the two pieces of legal advice and how these raise serious doubts over the legality of the war in the UK. It forms a diary on Booman Tribune at
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/5/14/10112/0495
Comment #16: Kryten42 said on 5/15/05 @ 7:56pm ET...
@ jen #1
Thanks for that! Very interesting. :) I have felt that there are several (real) journalists who are very unhappy about the state of affairs of the Media moguls. :)
@ JC #14
So... I guess that means that you are really looking in all the right places then? Heh... Go get 'em Sir! :)
@ Peter Wells #15
Now that is very interesting! Thank you. Isn't it just too sad when the US press is compared to the UK press?? It's like night and day! Unbelievable how the US press that was once known for it's honesty and integrity is now even worse than the Russian controlled media!
Oh well... sign of the times I guess... sign of the times!
Peace.
Comment #17: PM said on 5/15/05 @ 11:35pm ET...
You can thank successive corporatist administrations for the media concentration and convergence - Republican AND Democrat. Yes Mr. Conyers, you and your party are just as culpable as the Republicans and Conglomerate Boards of Directors.
Remember when there where Anti-trust and Anti-monopoly laws in the old days? Time to being them back! Pull a Standard Oil on the media before the 5 networks in the US become the 1 network in the US.
Comment #18: Terre said on 5/16/05 @ 2:01pm ET...
In response to Jim #13, and Congressman Conyers #14, I just wanted to say that until I happened on Sylvester Brown's article, I had never heard of him, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
When I first read it, I was completely aghast! I couldn't believe that someone would write such a condescending letter! I even diaried it at dKos. I'm not generally gullible, but this caught me unaware.
Needless to say I was set straight on Mr. Brown's "snark", and mercifully the diary died a relatively quick death.
I can't help but wonder how many other "new" readers of Mr. Brown's letter read it as I did the first time.
Comment #19: Matt Fox said on 5/19/05 @ 10:36pm ET...
I can't tell here if it is genuine irony or cynicism. Perhaps it doesn't matter anymore?
Welcome to the New Media indeed.
