https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/20/hold-the-front-page-the-reporters-are-missing/
SEPTEMBER 20, 2018Hold the Front Page, the Reporters are Missing <https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/20/hold-the-front-page-the-reporters-are-missing/> by JOHN PILGER <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/jp/> Facebook <https://www.counterpunch.org/#facebook>Twitter <https://www.counterpunch.org/#twitter>Google+ <https://www.counterpunch.org/#google_plus>Reddit <https://www.counterpunch.org/#reddit>Email <https://www.counterpunch.org/#email> <https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/20/hold-the-front-page-the-reporters-are-missing/print/> Photo Source Lisa Abitbol/Nieman Foundation for Journalism | CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/> The death of Robert Parry earlier this year felt like a farewell to the age of the reporter. Parry was “a trailblazer for independent journalism”, wrote Seymour Hersh, with whom he shared much in common. Hersh revealed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia, Parry exposed Iran-Contra, a drugs and gun-running conspiracy that led to the White House. In 2016, they separately produced compelling evidence that the Assad government in Syria had not used chemical weapons. They were not forgiven. Driven from the “mainstream”, Hersh must publish his work outside the United States. Parry set up his own independent news website Consortium News, where, in a final piece following a stroke, he referred to journalism’s veneration of “approved opinions” while “unapproved evidence is brushed aside or disparaged regardless of its quality.” Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has changed in recent years. Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the 1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of corporate dictatorship. This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new “groupthink”, as Parry called it, dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies. *snip>* Witness the witch-hunts against refugees and immigrants, the willful abandonment by the “MeToo” zealots of our oldest freedom, presumption of innocence, the anti-Russia racism and anti-Brexit hysteria, the growing anti-China campaign and the suppression of a warning of world war. With many if not most independent journalists barred or ejected from the “mainstream”, a corner of the Internet has become a vital source of disclosure and evidence-based analysis: true journalism. Sites such as Wikileaks <http://wikileaks.org/>, Consortium News <http://consortiumnews.com/>, WSWS.org <http://wsws.org/>, Truthdig, <http://truthdig.com/>, Global Research <http://globalresearch.org/>, CounterPunch <http://counterpunch.org/> and Information Clearinghouse <http://informationclearinghouse.com/> are required reading for those trying to make sense of a world in which science and technology advance wondrously while political and economic life in the fearful “democracies” regress behind a media facade of narcissistic spectacle. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. If you'd like to donate to News From Underground, please visit http://markcrispinmiller.com/donate - we appreciate your ongoing support. Ways to unsubscribe, 1) send a blank email to [email protected]. PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed; 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com
