Media Lies and Crimes of Omission

[JRSWRITER]

From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton



“Right now, many media outlets are reinforcing the idea that a recovery is underway pointing to a rise in the stock market and some signs of improvement, even as joblessness continues to climb along with bankruptcies and foreclosures. The dissents of informed analysts like Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and George Soros are heard but marginalized. The signs of another collapse tired to an insolvent banking sector are discussed in the financial blogs but not yet on TV. And the crime angle that I investigate is still seen as minor, except in all the stories about Bernie Madoff or the corporate lawyer Marc Dreier just profiled by 60 Minutes which wanted to get him to be more “emotional” (ie cry for the camera). These ‘poster boys’ for corporate crime get the visibility while reports on pervasive ‘epic’ fraud in our financial institutions are buried in trade outlets like Information Week which notes ‘Seventy percent of financial institutions in the past 12 months have had cases of insider fraud, new survey says.’” A Media Failure Compounds The Financial Failure: The Press Is Still Missing The Story Of Fraud and Economic Decline Ahead by Danny Schechter A Media Failure Compounds The Financial Failure:

When you turn on NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC PBS CNN and Fox it is important to keep in mind you are being targeted and subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to keep you dis-informed, distracted and grossly ignorant about what is really going on in the world; particularly regarding the US economy and the ongoing wars this government is waging in places like Columbia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Even the Negro press ignores the illegal occupation of Haiti and rarely reports on the resources wars plaguing the African continent. We have been brainwashed to believe the media is objective, fair and obligated to keep us informed, to ferret out the truth, uncover corruption and malfeasance in the marketplace and government. Not so. In fact the news today is basically barefaced propaganda, regurgitating government spin and lies; like the preposterous tale about 9-11 being engineered and executed from caves in Afghanistan. At no time did the mainstream media question the obvious silliness, improbability or the inconsistencies of the government narrative about 9-11. Nor have they challenged the governments account of the financial meltdown, why their so called solutions have not benefited average Americans, or why their actions haven't really improved Wall Street or Main Street?
We were told in grade school “freedom of the press” meant openness and transparency into society's workings so the people could be well informed about what was going on. Nowadays it seems the only way you can have true freedom of the press is to own your own. But even that is no guarantee since the media model in this country depends upon advertising; and the monied powers that be want to keep the masses ignorant. So they control the ad agencies and programming in the media. Several decades ago the notion of the relentless reporter sifting and digging to get the facts or the crusading editor fighting for a just cause were popular themes in Hollywood motion pictures. Not any more. But even while we were watching those flights of fantasy, we were unaware that following WWII the US CIA began executing Operation Mockingbird which was designed to suborn the media and turn them into propaganda organs for their fascist agenda. The quest for truth wasn’t totally snuffed out, during the Vietnam War a vibrant anti-war movement sprang up featuring alternative newspapers which caused the government warmongers and the military industrial complex major consternation and grief. Then unlike today, there were national politicians like Eugene McCarthy who were vocal in their opposition to the war and men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr who boldly opposed US imperialism in Southeast Asia. You rarely see or read about people like that today. Why? Because the mainstream media is owned by the warmongering fascists who run this country.
This country has devolved into a fascist police state under the pretext and guise of “national security”. Following 9-11 the US launched a series of wars and invasions supposedly to stop the spread of international terrorism but did nothing to protect our borders or sea ports. Doesn't that seem odd and backwards to you? Last year when Wall Street imploded, the Bu$h and Obama administrations bent over backwards to bail out the same people whose recklessness and hubris caused the problem yet they have done almost nothing for the little people. The media whose job, it seems, is to befuddle and obfuscate the issues paints Obama as a “Socialist” when in fact he like his predecessors is an ardent fascist, meaning he is in cahoots with the corporatocracy and banking elites who have corrupted the government. Most black radio stations no longer offer news or at least not any serious commentary and far too many black newspapers get their news for national feeds which are nothing more than stenographers, shills and PR agents for the government.
This is why the corporate media promotes the lie the economy is improving despite the fact almost all indications are we are in the throes of a protracted recession (depression?). Ninety- eight banks have failed thus far in 2009 and predictions are for hundreds more to fail in 2010. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas and they are not coming back. Domestically, banks aren’t lending money and as a result, businesses can’t get loans to purchase inventory, expand or hire workers. The corporate media is not focusing on this like they focused on the minutia of Michael Jackson's death, why not? Nor is it reporting such important stories as: US commercial real estate is collapsing (notice all the empty strip mall stores), skyrocketing unemployment, personal bankruptcies, loan defaults and foreclosures. Why are these stories and the why and how behind them not extensively reported?
I did see this on the Internet but it wasn’t reported on PBS, CNN or FOX . This story was in Bloomberg; but Bloomberg is not your every day blue collar working class publication so most of us won't have seen it or known about it. “Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Vacancies at U.S. shopping centers rose in the third quarter to a 17-year high as unemployment climbed, consumers cut spending and stores closed, real estate research company Reis Inc. said. Vacancies at neighborhood and community shopping centers increased to 10.3 percent, the highest level since 1992, from 8.4 percent a year earlier, New York-based Reis said today. Vacancies at regional and super-regional malls rose to 8.6 percent from 6.6 percent a year earlier, a high for this decade... U.S. payrolls dropped by 263,000 in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the highest since 1983, according to Labor Department data. Retail sales excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants fell 4.3 percent in August from a year earlier, according to the Washington-based National Retail Federation.” Top Financial News
Another extremely under reported story is, state and local governments are facing deep fiscal travail and are forced to put the squeeze on their taxpayers via increased taxes and indirect taxes like when they raise marriage license, hunting and fishing fees. It's not in the news but we are experiencing it. Perhaps that's one of the reasons newspaper sales are down and many papers are going out of business, they are no longer relevant. TV news viewing is down too, maybe for the same reason. Serves them right, no one likes a liar.