Showing posts with label Main Stream Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Main Stream Media. Show all posts

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Judy Woodruff and the Betrayal of America by the Main Stream and Liberal Media

A brief five second statement, really almost an side comment in the midst of a larger discussion, illustrated the nearly complete bankruptcy of our Main Stream Media and our beloved Liberal Media in the face of major scandal in the Obama Administration.

The side comment was made by Judy Woodruff, the co-anchor of Public Broadcasting's PBS Newshour.  She is one of the leading luminaries at PBS and a highly respected journalist.  Her candid comment tells us everything that is going wrong in main stream Journalism today.

The discussion took place today on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday.  The complete transcript of the hour long program is available here: Kevin McCarthy talks Iraq, future of the GOP; latest on IRS scandal.  

As Wallace's panel on pundits discussed the stunning disappearance of two years of Lois Lerner's emails and the highly improbable instantaneous failure of not just one but six individual computer hard drives (on six different computers) all happening exactly ten days after Congress began questioning the IRS about the targeting of Conservative Groups.  Any (and I do mean ANY) computer expert or engineer will tell you this is simply impossible.

Worse, the hard drives were not repaired of reclaimed, but destroyed.  Destroyed, ten days after Congress began asking questions.  Stunning, in fact it's frightening.

This scandal is much worse than Watergate in both the facts and implications.  Now I doubt the President is involved, but this is a conspiracy of huge proportions. We need a Special Prosecutor.

But what was upsetting this morning was not any of that.  What's upsetting was Woodruff's candid admission:   Well, what I can say, Chris, is I haven't reported this story. I haven't -- I don't know what happened inside the IRS.

What's tragic here is that PBS has willfully ignored the story and has spent not one second investigating or even exploring the implications of a massive, coordinated government cover-up.

Had this exact same situation occurred with a Republican President, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II, PBS would be tearing the very walls of the IRS down the ground.  And they should be doing it now.  We only survive as a free democracy with the aid and protection of a vibrant, active press.

FOX NEWS has few resources and limited access.  They cannot carry the ball alone.  Plus they might distort the story.  We need ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS on the case.

We cannot survive as a free nation if the main stream media only does it's job when a Republican is President. The press is either going to have to start doing their damned job or we can simply never elect a Democrat President again.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Why I'm Disappointed in the News Media

I listened to National Public Radio's Morning Edition this morning as I do every morning.  What a superb news organization!  The news stories presented are in depth, thoughtful and thorough.  I'm convinced there isn't a finer news organization working today.

However.......

Today and all this week there hasn't been a single story about the most important new event since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  I'm referring, of course, to the 9/11 Anniversary attack on the  Consulate in Benghazi, Libya including the rape, torture and murder of our Libyan Ambassador AND the subsequent bizarre cover-up of events by a White House in the middle of an Election Year Crisis. 

This is a news worthy story. In fact there isn't a single story that even approaches this in terms of importance.  Yet there is no coverage.  No one on NPR is asking the important questions. No one is asking any questions.

This isn't a news blackout.  The New York Post ran the story on their front page.  There have been stories on CBS and ABC News.  And FOX NEWS has it properly positioned as the single most important story of this decade.

FOX NEWS ratings are going through the roof.  The public recognizes the importance of this story.  When the story is completely ignored by MSNBC and only minimally covered by CNN, the audience goes where they must to learn the facts.

Of course FOX NEWS is presenting this story with a distinctly Republican spin.  That makes the FAILURE of NPR and other major news organizations even more disturbing.  The public needs an objective, dispassionate and in depth look at the facts and the White House Spin.  NPR could do that.  But someone, somewhere high up in their news organization is blockading the story.  WHY?

The cheerleader news groups (MSNBC and FOX) do their loyal viewers no good by eliminating news unfavorable to their candidates.  Better they should face the bad news head on and over it properly.  But the other news outlets who claim to be unbiased really betray us all by covering up a story that they will eventually be forced to cover.  All they do is lose credibility by being late to the scene.