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January
28, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Group Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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January
28, 2002
Liberal? Media?
By John Chuckman
One the silliest expressions used in America is
"liberal media." The word "liberal" itself
has been so abused and twisted in the last few decades, you'd
think the Ministry of Truth had decreed its meaning must be changed.
"Liberal" has become a contemptuous epithet for opposition
to economic liberty, Constitutional principles, and even religious
expression.
This is a parody of the word. "Liberal"
has to do with open-mindedness, dedication to principles of intellectual
liberty, and a strong regard for human rights. Over the last
two and a half centuries, expanding the franchise, achieving
religious liberty, defending human rights, and concern for the
environment were all liberal causes. Not a bad record, that.
How was this fine word reduced to shabbiness?
The answer is through endless repetition of the parody in magazines,
newspapers, and on television. That's not exactly prima facie
evidence for liberal bias in the media.
Nothing has changed to erode the truth
of that wonderful remark about freedom of the press existing
for those who own one. In fact, with massively increased concentration
in the ownership of American corporations, including the news
business, the remark is more pertinent than ever.
Just reeling off the names of some major
owners of America's press and broadcasting tells a story. Rupert
Murdoch (Australian billionaire newspaper magnate), Disney Corporation,
Dow-Jones, Tribune Corporation, Knight-Ridder, Hearst Corporation,
and General Electric. In what possible sense are any of these
liberal?
Even the New York Times, often regarded
as the liberal paper in America, a paper whose very name causes
sagebrush politicians to curl their lips in contempt, is actually
a very cautious one, as befits the flagship publication of a
multi-billion dollar enterprise.
The Times always defends the establishment.
It becomes positively hot and bothered about supporting often-abusive
institutions like the FBI over the rights of individuals, as
in its hideous, long-term attack on Wen Ho Lee.
Where's the liberal bias? In pompous
editorials that read like press releases for the American Imperium?
In a slick magazine whose mostly-vapid stories float in a thick
ooze of advertising for expensive clothes, perfumes, and furniture?
In a letters column whose writers often use two lines to give
their titles? Try finding a tough op-ed piece in the New York
Times. They're as common as farts in a church service.
Ah, there's public broadcasting, isn't
there? But America's public broadcasting is the most sanitized,
politically correct that I'm aware of. Public television is hopelessly
fluffy, featuring gorilla pictures narrated by authorities like
Martin Sheen and puff-piece investigative reports.
Its evening news specializes in pseudo-debate,
invariably with dependents of the two parties exchanging slogans.
The program focuses on Beltway babble rather than investigation.
Holders of think-tank sinecures are regular seat-fillers. American
public radio, which does a better job than television, still
lacks breadth of view, lacks bite, and, for the most part, contains
precious little not found in mainstream media.
America's public-broadcast officials
collapsed in a heap when Newt Gingrich and his band of Texas
Visagoths attacked them about running a sandbox for yuppies,
and they haven't recovered yet. Public broadcasting has lost
much of its government financing over the years, and it lives
under constant threat of losing more. After all, the party in
power doesn't even pay its UN dues. What's support for public
broadcasting compared to international-treaty obligations?
"Is Dan Rather a Republican? Peter
Jennings? Tom Brokaw?" ask readers who think they have a
definitive point, but the point they make is quite different
to the one they think they're making.
Who cares what these gentlemen are as
long as they do their jobs? What is it about the right-wing ("conservative"
is really too gentle a word) that insists on knowing the details
of one's political ties and bedroom habits? Isn't this a little
like what you would expect in the old Soviet Union? And who has
more influence on the overall character of a news organization,
a paid news reader or the guys paying the bills? Anyone with
a very good job doesn't have to be told not to seriously irritate
the boss.
Reflect on events over some decades and
ask yourself about the American press's "liberal" role
in them. Did the press ever tell us what happened in the Gulf
War? Has it given us much more than Pentagon press releases on
Afghanistan? Does the gloss on the Middle East ever go beyond
what you'd expect from the State Department?
Did the press ever reveal to the American
people what a manipulative monster J. Edgar Hoover was? Did the
press tell people, while he was destroying people's lives, that
Joe McCarthy was a desperate drunk trying to revive a failing
political career? Such questions are endless, and the answer
to virtually all of them is "no."
John Chuckman
lives in Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie. He is a columnist
for YellowTimes. Chuckman
encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.ORG.
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