Credibility of journalists will suffer if there is the perception among
the people that journalists are not willing to report without fear or
favor on issues which affect their own or their sponsors' interests.
Who owns the broadcast spectrum?
What has the News Hour or any of the major media reported regarding the
practice of government granting licenses to broadcasters to use the
broadcast spectrum? Does the practice of granting and renewing broadcast
licenses amount to a givaway of public resources worth billions of dollars
to highly profitable corporations? How often does the FCC revoke or
decline to renew a license in response to a broadcaster's failure to
operate 'in the public interest'? What does this requirement mean in
reality? How do broadcasters and the FCC determine what is or is not in
the public interest? What role do members of the public play in deciding
how 'public interest' is defined? The broadcast spectrum is a public
resource worth billions of dollars. Is the practice of granting free use
of it to corporations an example of corporate welfare? Can the government
justifiably sell permits to use portions of the spectrum in perpetuity
without the consent of the citizens of the future? Is this what is now
begining to happen? Are current projections of federal budget surpluses
based on the theft of a valuable public resource from future citizens, for
the benefit of politicians today?
Are corporate lawyers better judges of what is news than journalists
and editors?
What is the story behind Monsanto,
aspartame, dead rats, the revolving door between aspartame producers
and regulators, the 92 symptoms of aspartame disease, on file at FDA...?
What is the story behind Monsanto, BGH, Fox network, Roger Ailes, WTVT in
Tampa, lawyers deciding what constitutes good journalistic ethics, (as
opposed to editors)...?
What about that secret war in Cambodia? And Laos. Was that legal?
Why are the atrocities practiced by the Nazis during World War II, in
which millions of innocent people were killed, so thoroughly reported,
while the millions of people killed by the United States since World War
II are scarcely mentioned at all? How many people were killed by U.S.
bombers in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam? Which of these countries had ever
attempted to wage war on us? Which of them had we actually declared war
on? How is it that Hitler is considered a war criminal, while Kissinger,
(the architect of the plan whereby the United States Air Force dropped
millions of bombs on people in Cambodia and neighboring
countries, as I understand), is considered a person worthy of a Nobel
Peace Prize?
Killing of millions of people by the Nazis during WWII, horrendous as it
was, does not appear qualitatively different from the killing of millions
of people in Indochina by the United States. Or am I missing something?
In both cases, the governments perpetrating the violence wished to keep
their acts secret from their own citizens. In both cases, the victims
were not attacking the nations doing the killing.
Walter Cronkite said that the Germans were not excused from blame for
the crimes of their government by the fact that they did not know what
was going on, because the German citizens had cheered when the Nazis
closed and censored the press. But what of a people and press that are
ostensibly free, but who choose not to see and hear and report? Oh, there
was some scant reporting, but was it anywhere near equal to the story to
be told? I think not.
