Why does info on DU not reach the mainstream news?

[DaveofCali]

Why does so much great info at DU not reach the mainstream news media, and yet anything that Drudge and other right wing sources says gets reported in the mainstream news media?

[movonne]

1. DUH!!!

[Carla in Ca]

46. Skinner's thread is on Buzzflash today.

n/t

[illiteratepresident]

2. Here's Why

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6435.htm
http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtml

[Indiana_Dem]

3. Thank you! And welcome to DU!

:hi:

[bigwillq]

4. Welcome to DU!!

Hello, how are you?

It's nice to have you here.

[0rganism]

11. Well, at least Viacom isn't openly hostile to liberals

They let Jon Stewart and Dan Rather use the microphone, they aren't 100% pure evil.

[in_cog_ni_to]

33. An interesting and DISTURBING fact about CBS and Viacom...

During the 2000 election when Greg Palast released his report about the 57,000 voters who were purged from the voter rolls in FL., CBS called him and asked him if THEY could "run" with his report. He told them they were welcome to it. "Please, continue the invesigation and get it on the air."....Want to know what happened? Greg didn't see the story after waiting a few days so, he called CBS and asked why they hadn't aired it yet. They told him..."Oh yeah, that report. We called JEB BUSH to talk to him about it and HE said it wasn't true so we decided NOT TO DO THE STORY." &^%$#@!@#$%%^&*&^%$ They asked JEB BUSH if it was true??? This is what we are up against.

CBS MAY be trying to make up for that HUGE error by airing the AWOL story, but they dropped the ball on the theft of the 2000 election. THAT report by Palast could have turned the election back to Gore....CBS let Bush steal it. The media BURIED that story.

[finecraft]

5. Example: My boss and I argue about this all the time

He thinks he is one of the best informed people in the world. He reads 4 newspapers a day, watches CNN, MSNBC, FOX and the network channels. I, on the other hand, get most of my news on line, mainly from the linked articles on DU and numerous other websites and blogs.
He always snickers when I talk about where I get my news from. He is my boss, so I try not to get too mad when he gives me that uppity look and snicker....like he is so much better informed than I am.
Time and time again, all I have to do to make him feel like a total idiot is say this:

"Oh yeah? If my news sources are so "fringe" and only for nut-cases and whack jobs.....why did I know there were no weapons of mass destruction and you didn't?"

Shuts him down every time. You think the guy would have learned by
now.

[Professor_Moriarty]

7. The concentration of media power that favors the point of view espoused

by the elite is going to come apart in the next decade precisely because of the internet.This is very similar in principle to the concept of Entropy in Thermodynamics.That principle states that all of nature tends to go from a state of order to a state of disorder.If you think of the totalitarian mindset controlled by the big media as ORDER and the decentralized and free thought patterns represented by the internet as democracy withg its attendant DISORDER we have a valid comparison.Even a madman like Rumsfeld agrees with me when he says freedom is chaotic.So let us rejoice that the mass media do not play up our themes.Soon there are going to be no mass media to worry about!

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jbm]

21. I don't see what you see..

I read the thread you referenced, and it looked to me like the prof made a statement based on soemthing he heard,and later apologized for having made it without being able to prove it. The original comment seemed to be just an aside, and when the comment was questioned, I thought the responses from the professor were reasonable. It did make me cringe to see so many posts jumping him, when I didn't think the reaction was warrented.

Welcome to DU professor!

[louis c]

35. If you check the times

you'll see he apologized after my post.

I'm still skeptical

[burythehatchet]

16. That's a GREAT graphic

[finecraft]

37. Thanks! n/t

[leftchick]

25. then there is the aWol* story.....

among many other under reported events, we at DU knew this LONG before it hit the "tv news"... :eyes:

[0007]

26. A male would have been fired by now!

[finecraft]

40. I freely admit I am very fortunate

to have a Boss, even though he is very Republican, will at least carry on a civilized conversation about differing political opinions. We respect each other's views, and while not agreeing on over 95% of the things we talk about, we still are a great team when it comes to work matters. I think we get along in part because he's an ex-Marine, and I am the wife of a Navy vet, and we both see that people who share some of the same life experiences don't necessarily have the same perspective on a lot of things, and that doesn't make them bad people. That, and the fact that my husband out-ranks him! :)

[annabanana]

6. a lot of it DOES.....

Just a few days later. My hubby thinks I'm psychic :think:

[DaveofCali]

8. Excuses!!!

Democratic Underground is one of the largest organizations of its kind on the Internet. With the kind of resources that DU has, it could collaborate with other groups and develop strategy to make sure that stories shared on it gets into the Mainstream News media, or at least heard much farther than on this website!

Why the Republicans get heard by the Mainstream is not just because of the corporate media, its because they have highly effective strategy (eg the Republican Echo Machine, Noise Machine, etc....) Republicans are War strategy oriented, which may help significantly in that regard.

Blaming the Corporate Media is defeatist talk!

[Elidor]

15. No, it's not defeatist. It's reality.

And until we address the culpability of the corporate media and demand reforms, nothing will change.

Frankly, the corporate media is not interested in journalism.

[DaveofCali]

22. So your just going to accept defeat?

Thats the kind of attitude I'm seeing from people like you.

If your going to believe that, how is that going to make someone like you be enthusiastic about this Election?

This kind of attitude is POISON for Democrats and AntiBush people, period.

[Ladyhawk]

18. What planet have you been living on?

One--ONE!--media outlet dared to report something anti-Bush and all the rest came completely unglued: "CBS, you will march in lock-step! How DARE you insinuate that Dubya is anything but our divine appointed leader, bravely blazing the way into the new century? A pox upon thee, CBS, thou purveyor of forged documents!"

[DaveofCali]

23. Excuse me, there are several democrat contacts that could be tapped....

How about people like George Stephonaupolis, Colmes, Paul Begala, etc.... Plus, if what the Right Wing had been using in its claims to label the media as liberal, that being that the majority of reporters are Democrats, then why can't we tap them!? Even if they don't have power, they can still be tapped and used in coordination.

[greekspeak]

31. Colmes and a lot of the "democrats" in the media

are living, breathing strawmen who melt on cue like snowballs in Miami. Such "democrats" are only on the shows they are on to act as foils for their republican counterparts. They do what their corporate bosses tell them to do. You can "tap" them until they bruise, and all you will have left is a bunch of tapped out bruised strawmen.

[librechik]

36. here's the deal

a lot of us who visit here work for those media organizations you're talking about. Few of us are all the way up to executive level, where content decisions are made, and even those few are subject to editorial and other (executive) constraints.

Let's say hypothetically I'm a researcher at a news organization.Let's say I find a juicy morsel, for example, oh, "Touch Screen Voting Machine manufacturers have blatant conflict of interest with GOP." I can do the research and check if it's true (yes it is) then I get to suggest it to my superior, who also does some checking. She's well aware of what the executives will accept, so she filters out most suggestions. Even the ones that get to the Big Meeting mostly get shot down.

But, say they feel public spirited and decide since it's election year, they might want to do a story about Touch Screen Voting. Only they don't like the conflict of interest angle. Too controversial. If they point out that the GOP is being blatantly partisan, that makes them look partisan and removes their credibility as a news organization. So that gets dumped.

And nobody can say for absolutely sure what's going on with the machines, so they can't explain how the machines are bad, like all the scientists who have studied the matter do. They know one scientist who says the machines are foolproof. So they won't do the Voting Machines have Stunning Flaws story.

And, as their lawyers point out, they are a news reporting organization, and have not done investigative reporting well, ever.
Oh, you thought they were the same thing? Silly You! So they won't investigate to see if there's a fire under all that billowing smoke. Even though it's under their building too.

Hey, that's just company policy, sorry. They aren't 60 Minutes.

Nevertheless, they decide to do a piece on Touch Screen Voting and even assign a reporter. They need a "he said she said." They get a budget. $10,000! Gulp! Don't waste it! No fancy animation!

So they start putting one of those together. Interviews are taped, stock footage assembled, whatever. Then it goes through the editing process, during which a fairly high up editorial type, the most partisan zealot since McCarthy, ruthlessly blue pencils any scent of liberalism that may taint the script.

Then the poor mewling defanged thing sits and waits for a newspeg so it is actual news instead of archival material. And waits. And waits. Sometimes the newshole never opens up.

See? That's why you never see any of the great stories you read on DU in the mainstream media. We don't have executive editors.

[illiteratepresident]

9. An anniversary of another sort

It was on September 11, 1973 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3646660.stm that the elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende, was killed in a military coup. Political killings, torture and disappearings ensued as Allende worked to put down public dissent.

That good Republican foreign policy was kicking well then: Newly declassified documents show our then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger all but blessing the killing and torure practices of this regime:
"IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE, YOU SHOULD DO THEM QUICKLY" http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133 /
Of course the problem was that darned Terrorism thingy...maybe the killing and torture was all justified...that's the way we think now. 3 years later. It's wrong thinking.

'TERRORISM' is the best catch all word invented in the last hundred years, especially if you are selling arms or running dope on the side..."Our main problem in Argentina is terrorism. It is the first priority of the current government that took office on March 24. There are two aspects to the solution. The first is to ensure the internal security of the country; the second is to solve the most urgent economic problems over the coming 6 to 12 months. Argentina needs United States understanding and support…." At a time when the international community, the U.S. media, universities, and scientific institutions, the U.S. Congress, and even the U.S. Embassy in Argentina were clamoring about the indiscriminate human rights violations against scientists, labor leaders, students, and politicians by the Argentine military, Secretary Kissinger told Guzzetti: "We are aware you are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any clear separation. We understand you must establish authority."

Prescient.

As you may recall, that scion of moral turpitude was of course GW's first pic for the chair of the 9/11 commission (after finally relenting to allow its creation at all.). Second stringer and retired New Jersey Governor Tom Kean instead filled the slot when it became clear his consultancy was more important to Kissinger than covering his buddy GW's ass.. On this anniversary, let's not fail to take a look at Mr. Kean for just a moment:

Fortune Magazine reports ... that both Kean and Bush share an unusually well-placed business partner: one Khalid bin Mahfouz -- perhaps better known as "Osama bin Laden's bagman" or even "Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law."
Kean, like so many worthies, followed the revolving door out of public service into lucrative sweetheart deals and well-wadded sinecures on corporate boards. One of these, of course, is an oil company--pretty much a requirement for White House work these days. (Or as the sign says on the Oval Office door: "If your rigs ain't rockin', don't come a-knockin'!") Kean is a director of Amerada Hess, an oil giant married up to Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil in a venture to pump black gold in Azerbaijan. (The partnership is incorporated in a secretive offshore "tax haven," natch. You can't expect a worthy like Kean to pay taxes like some grubby wage slave.)
One of Delta's biggest backers is the aforesaid Mahfouz, a Saudi wheeler-dealer who has bankrolled some of most dubious players on the world scene: Abu Nidal, Manuel Noreiga, Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush. Mahfouz was also a front for the bin Laden family, funneling their vast wealth through American cut-outs in a bid to gain power and influence in the United States.
One of those cut-outs was Mahfouz factotum James Bath http://www.michaelmoore.com/_media/images/documents/sal ... a partner in George W.'s early oil venture, Arbusto http://stewwebb.com/Money%20Laundering%20BCCI%20A%20Mys ... . Bath has admitted serving as a pass-through for secret Saudi money. Years later, when Bush's maladroit business skills were about to sink another of his companies, Harken Energy, the firm was saved by a $25 million investment from a Swiss bank--a subsidiary of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BBCI), partly owned by the beneficent Mahfouz.
What was BCCI? Only "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history," according to the U.S. Senate. What did BCCI do? "It engaged in pandemic bribery of officials in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas," says journalist Christopher Bryon, who first exposed the operation. "It laundered money on a global scale, intimidated witnesses and law officers, engaged in extortion and blackmail. It supplied the financing for illegal arms trafficking and global terrorism. It financed and facilitated income tax evasion, smuggling and prostitution." http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd01312003.html
Boston Herald , December 10, 2001
Two billionaire Saudi families scrutinized by authorities for possible financial ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network continue to engage in major oil deals with leading U.S. corporations.
The bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans, who control three private Saudi Arabian oil companies, are partners with U. S. firms in a series of ambitious oil development and pipeline projects in central and south Asia, records show.
Working through their companies - Delta Oil, Nimir Petroleum and Corral Petroleum - the Saudi families have formed international consortiums with U. S. oil giants Texaco, Unocal, Amerada Hess and Frontera Resources.
These business relationships persist despite evidence that members of the two Saudi families - headed by patriarchs Khalid bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi - have had ties to Islamic charities and companies linked financially to bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. So far, bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi, who have denied any involvement with bin Laden, have been left untouched by the U. S. Treasury Department, which has frozen the assets of 150 individuals, companies and charities suspected of financing terrorism.
According to a May 1999 report by the U. S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Delta Oil was created by 50 prominent Saudi investors in the early 1990s. <snip> Meanwhile, information continues to circulate in intelligence circles in the United States and Europe suggesting wealthy Saudi businessmen have provided financial support to bin Laden.
Much of it revolves around a 1999 audit conducted by the Saudi government that reportedly discovered that the bin Mahfouz family's National Commercial Bank had transferred at least $ 3 million to charitable organizations believed to be fronts for bin Laden's terror network.
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q4c.html

But that audit supposedly never happenned and the story was supposedly a lie, quickly retracted two years earlier in 1999 (censorship and Saudi protection at work): http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-04-12-correction_x.ht ... The claim was that the discredited Christian Kookoo reporter http://mccarthy.vg/articles/04/03/21/1752236.shtml wrote this story, ergo it is false. Yet there it is again two years later in the Boston Paper. Why? Because these guys know something about middle east banking, having covered local Seantor John Kerry's lengthy & successful attempt to bring down the criminal Bank of Credit and Commerce International. This is a bank whose subsidary loaned money to George W. Bush for one of his early oil failures. A bank his brother Jeb, then the Florida Secretary of State and of course son of the Vice President, went to openings for in Florida and again in Atlanta, lending Bush prestige to the new institutions. Abank found to be involved in money laundering, drug trafficking and terror funding. An institution that enjoyed the commerical affections of the aforementioned guilding moral light of Republican foreign policy, one Henry Kissinger. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/20kiss.ht ...

The whole BCCI thing is fascinating, especially since catching them is one of John Kerry's signature achievements and an early strike at the heart of Islamic terror.
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/06200 ...
The BCCI Affair A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci /
United States Senate bySenator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown December 1992 102d Congress 2d Session Senate Print 102-140
or check out a more polemical reference I particularly enjoyed for weaving in the Facts about Bush family ties to this most-crooked-of-all crooked bank: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sir ... .
Anwayz....Back to the commission...

Here's a letter from fired FBI translator and whistlebower and 9/11 commission witness Sibel Edmonds http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Sibel_Edmo ... to the chairman: You are now asking us to pledge our support for this report, its recommendations, and implementation of these recommendations, with our trust and backing, our tax money, our security, and our lives. Unfortunately, I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations. Considering what is at stake, our national security, we are entitled to demand answers to unanswered questions, and to ask for clarification of issues that were ignored and/or omitted from the report. I, Sibel Edmonds, a concerned American Citizen, a former FBI translator, a whistleblower, a witness for a United States Congressional investigation, a witness and a plaintiff for the Department of Justice Inspector General investigation, and a witness for your own 9/11 Commission investigation, request your answers to, and your public acknowledgement of, the following questions and issues: http://www.911truth.org/readingroom/whole_document.php ?...

Here is the background on this mostly unknown but critical witness http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds.htm, so much so in fact that the government has retroactively classified letters from Senators who are asking the commission to further investigate Ms. Edmonds' claims http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/edmonds_letters.htm .

This astonishing story AGAIN has to do with protecting the Arab OILigarchy http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=gra ... (and their traitor friends http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=sib ... in the intel comunity) also. I found this purely speculative piece interesting in light of the hard cold facts linked above http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/073104Mejia/073 ... and this story I then recalled from a New York Times article http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorintelligence/ciagiven.htm ... .

Some other Bush adminsitration officials are in on the venture that should've disqualified Kean: Former Bush Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady and a former Bush assistant, Edith E. Holiday, are both on the board of directors of Amerada Hess , an American petroleum firm currently teaming up with several powerful Saudi families to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan.
"Another company that has done business with wealthy Saudis is international energy firm Frontera Resources Corp. based in Houston. Until recently, Frontera was a 30 percent investor in a $900 million project to develop oilfields in Azerbajian. Also investing in the project were Azerbaijan's state-run oil company and Delta-Hess, a joint-venture created by the Saudis' Delta Oil** and Amerada Hess.

Besides the hue and cry over Tom Kean's business dealings, 9/11 victims' family members http://www.911independentcommission.org / made quite a stink http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorintelligence/gpscall.html about the selection of Commission Director Phil Zelikow. No one in the mainstream press seemed to care much though. Much as their questions about why the Bin Ladens got to fly around while the rest of the country was grounded http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http:/www.tam ... have also gone unanswered http://www.wanttoknow.info/010930nytimes .
___________________

Now of course this just a cascade of coincidences, I know.

Could be nothing at all after all.

Except these coincidences lead to a certain day, a certain set of events three years ago today when the laws of physics were suspended http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires .... and the first and only steel framed buildings ever to collapse from fire went down. But the illegal destruction of the scene of the fire precludes explaining this unprecedented situation. Look what the firemen had to say on the matter as the site was being cleaned up: http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Sect ...
Planes apparently don't make special fires, at least not the one that flew into the Empire State Building http://www.evesmag.com/empirestatecrash.htm .

Senator Dayton's remarks on NORAD at http://911sb.org/911.wmv - innocent mistakes, just another coincidence of unbelievable negligence happening for the first and only time on this one particular morning?

Happy Anniversary - it's the third birthday of the most coincidence-riddled day in history.

In related news...

Molding public opinion here are this week's disappearing news stories. They wouldn't want ya to get the wrong idea about the Israelis, the other half of the religous wars our friendly leaders have been creating for us...

Everyone knows we funded Bin Laden & the mujahadeen. Everyone does.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1994/afghan_war_vetrans.htm ...

But almost no one knows Israel grew & popularized Hamas, finding the secular PLO in need of replacement, either as a partner or an enemy. I think it was to make it a religious war. That's my take only though. Still, the FACT IS that Israel directly funded Hamas. There seems to be a database error on the host, but here is the Google cache of the UPI story: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:UisiAM8xJTkJ:www.upi ...
This disappearing UPI page ~could be getting censored since the AIPAC pentagon spy scandal is going on now http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=aipac+spy&bt ... . It would not be the only instance of censorship I have recently come across. Here is a story that did not last two weeks on the Houston Chronicle's website because it made the Israelis look like the NAZIS they are: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:VCgMPCjfx5wJ:www.chr ...
We never listen to voices of reason...it's not as profitable as running drugs http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.h ... and fomenting wars.
Ike had no trouble believing in the conspiratorial threats http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/news/20010430 / of the military industrial complex, taking the occasion of his last speech in 1961 to warn us about it. http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/%7Ehst306/documents/indu ...
The Best Defense is No Offense http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-306.html

[illiteratepresident]

20. The Policy Makers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2234142

[HopeIsNowHere]

12. There are over 50,000 of us here!

Is that enough to become a powerful PAC for democrats?

[Piperay]

24. Well, the repigs would

find it enough if it was ONE person with $50,000.

[Dem_Loyalist]

42. I'm sorry if this is a silly question

But I'm new around here. Is there really 50,000 people here? Wow, I had no idea this place was so huge. I guess that explains why I always seem to be lost wandering from one forum here to another, lol.

[Piperay]

43. Yes

actually as of now there are 50,638 registered :-) You will see the number of registered users on the right side of the Forum Lobby page.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Dem_Loyalist]

44. Thank you!

Thank you very much! I'm very impressed. I think the people are right who said that if we all just work together theres so very much we could accomplish!

[DaveofCali]

13. Imagine what we could do with 50,000 of us being highly coordinated....

You bet if all of us in here were to work together and be highly coordinated, we'd be able to get a HUGE amount of influence!!!

We could also get the influence of limousine liberals to fund us in making alternate news networks for one :D

[OctOct1]

14. I have been wondering too.

New here...
I am use to the John Kerry forum.
Same ID, different place.

People here seem more down to earth.
anyways, I have been thinking lately.
How can the news media record a stump speech that has to be 45 min to 1 hour long and come up with these one liners.


Mostly republican bent and we never hear Edwards at all. I know he is out there everyday.

1st was Cheney's vote for us or die

and now Bush's --If Kerry had his way Sadam would be free.

Is it the AP that picks out these lines and everyone repeats them??
Or is everyone repeating Fox??

[LunaC]

19. Welcome to DU!

Make yourself right at home....there's an incredible bunch of folks around here!

[liberalcanuck]

29. Welcome OctOct1!

:hi:

It is incredibly difficult for Kerry to get through the corporate controlled media filter. They keep saying that Kerry's message is muddled or that he doesn't have one -- duh! He's not even being heard! And when there is a rare mention of a Kerry speech the frickin' bias is so damn obvious. I'm so grateful for DU. I worry about Joe and Mary America who truly think faux news is 'fair and balanced'.

[Redleg]

17. It does when some troll posts some flamebait making us look like loonies.

EOM

[Deja Q]

27. It's a valid question. And the valid answer is obvious:

The corporate-controlled mass media decides what to air and how it is to be aired.

Then consider you can flip channels at 10PM and see the same report being said, nearly word for word.

Also, prestigious and known 'net news sites have even talked of peak oil and walmart. I'd NEVER seen anything on the tv.

[0rganism]

28. Oh, but it does! It *definitely* does!

Just ask the DUer who had her account of a negative canvassing experience quoted on the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages a couple weeks ago. Post anything significantly negative about Democrats, such that it might demoralize the base, and our good lurker friends will ensure that it reaches the desk of the people most suited to apply it.

These people play dirty, but they also play thorough. Respect it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

30. Because rich RW corporations OWN the media.

The media corporations lobby congress and bribe them with trips around the world, campaign contributions and airtime. Guess who gets the most airtime? Riiight. The repukes... who have accepted the money and trips....Michael Powell FCC is one of the WORSE offenders and has the most POWER over our media. The corporate heads decide what is seen. Rupert Murdoch, GE, Viacom and AOL/Time Warner own the airwaves.

We are finished. They have the money. They have the power. They have the government in their pockets. It's over people. Don't bother writing emails. They don't CARE what you think. They must laugh their asses off every time DU bombards them with emails. THEY DON'T CARE! THEY HAVE THE POWER. They OWN us. They AIN"T gonna listen to what WE have to say.

BUY "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." Buy it. Watch it. You will see what has happened to our media. You will see how they did it. You will understand that what I say HAS happened and will only get worse.

Remember when the FCC was going to open the regulations, change the rules to let the Murdochs of the world buy MORE radio stations, newspapers, networks, ect...? That was June 2, 2003. REMEMBER when we wrote 750,000 emails, letters and made phone calls??? Remember when congress SUPPOSEDLY stood WITH us to stop it??? On Sept. 16, 2003, by a vote of 55 to 40 the Senate repealed all of the FCC's new rules. Hahahaha! We were DUPED! THEN, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, THE CONGRESS SUBSEQUENTLY ATTACHED A RIDER TO AN UNRELATED SPENDING BILL, THUS ALLOWING THE NETWORKS TO INCREASE THEIR HOLDINGS OF TV STATIONS DESPITE THE PUBLIC OUTCRY. Did ANY of you know the people who work for US did that??? I didn't. We are screwed people. WE, the people, have NO power anymore. NONE.

Thomas Jefferson, 1787

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

THE INTERNET IS NEXT, PEOPLE! PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR NO MORE DU. IT WILL HAPPEN. THEY ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO LIMIT THE INFORMATION ON THE WEB. THEY ARE WORKING ON IT AND IT WILL HAPPEN.

Please. Buy "Orwell Rolls in his Grave" and you will understand where we stand. We are powerless now.

You can buy it from BUZZFLASH.

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/05/pre04014.html

[gulliver]

32. DU is op-ed, not news.

DU doesn't usually break news or make news. We are much more in the op-ed category than news. When it comes to news, DU generates ideas and questions. It highlights facts. These do reach the mainstream news, if not directly -- as with all op-ed material.

We are so highly opinionated that none of our stuff can be taken directly as news. That doesn't mean it won't be checked out and reported as news or released by campaigns to the press after vetting.

[suegeo]

34. The US media is worse than useless

The news we get fed is generated by a handful of rightwing, corporate toadies.

Why would rightwing toadies air anything that would put their corporate masters in a bad light?

They wouldn't.

And that is why info on DU never makes it into the babbling of the media elites.

[grasswire]

38. Hillary pegged it.

It's called the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

The right has invested thirty years and hundreds of millions of dollars building a network of news outlets and think tanks that can boomerang even a non-story into a story. Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh, Drudge, Newsmax, FOX, AM talk radio -- all of this is used to whip up their message of the day.

One of the most effective measures for them has been the deployment of trained chatterers to serve as pundits. Trained for television combat. We saw this on the first day of the Lewinsky saga. Their trained pundits were already deployed. Barbara Olsen, John Fund, Ben Ginsberg, Laura Ingraham, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Terry Jeffrey, and a whole bunch of others. Oh, I mustn't forget Joseph diGenova and his "lovely" wife Victoria Toensing. <spit>

[grasswire]

39. oh

....and the press is lazy and the Pugs spoonfeed them.

[Proud_Lefty]

41. Agreed

Emailed this letter to Leslie Blitzer this morning.

Dear Mr. Blitzer:

Along with millions of people, we have been following what's going on. Despite the fact you keep twisting everything around and falsifying polls to the benefit of the GOP, you aren't changing anything except our poor opinion of you and the main stream media today.

You keep asking your guests this question: "But aren't we better off without Saddam and his sons in power?" I thought that was a ridiculous question when I first heard it from George H.W. Bush, but you (and the rest of the main stream media) all keep asking it. I'd like to answer it.

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

We were lied to by this administration about an imminent threat. We were lied to about the connection between Al Quaida and Saddam, and Bush/Cheney are still lying about it today. They have changed the reasoning for this war several times since obtaining authority for it, and use whatever lame excuse they can that closest fits their position at the time, even if they don't fit at all. We are stuck in a quagmire and our troops and the future of our country are dying for a false cause.

Thousands of innocent Iraqi, British and American lives have been lost or maimed because of the "miscalculations" of this administration. They never answer to anyone for their failures and even brag about how they are accountable to nobody. Isn't this the United States of America?

If another country came here bombing us, killing us and occupying our country because of our arrogant president, would we be better off? Please answer that question, Mr. Blitzer.

And I'd love to hear Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice and Mr. Wolfowitz answer this question: "How much money have you or your family made off this war in Iraq?" When you ask them if we're better off without Saddam in power, do we all then understand why they so readily agree? You betcha! Financially, they're making a killing on this war and we, the Americans, are going to have to pay for it. In the meantime, can you tell us who we're borrowing all this money from, and who currently owns us?

Thank you for your time.

[in_cog_ni_to]

45. CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS,NBC and ABC

don't care what we think. They really don't. We will never get answers from the media. They are accountable to NO ONE. They own the government. THEY decide which politician gets airtime and it's all according to how much money they paid a particular candidate/party and what kind of favors THEY got for that money....in return, that particular candidate/party gets the coveted media coverage. See how it works? They don't give a shit what we think, want, feel.....they don't have to care and they don't.

I'm not wasting my time ANYMORE by writing letters to a bunch of Corporations who have bought our government. It truly is a waste of time.

"Orwell Rolls in his Grave." If you want to see how the media REALLY operates....watch this documentary.

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/05/pre04014.html