http://smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=18409&mode=&order=0
Carla Binion: 'The media's civic obligation; the CIA 9/11 report cover-up' Posted on Monday, October 25 @ 10:07:14 EDT By Carla Binion The Gene Kelly character in the classic movie "Inherit the Wind" said the role of the reporter is "to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable." The role of the free press in a democracy is to mediate between government and the people, especially during an election season. When political corruption exists, the media should expose it, so the people can base their choices of candidates on knowledge of all the available information. Thomas Jefferson said that the only way for democracy to survive is for the public to remain fully informed. Media shouldn't be neutral but should serve as advocates for the people. Too often today the press serves to protect powerful political figures and keep their secrets. For example, the press has allowed George W. Bush to get away with a large number of false assertions and cover-ups. The issue isn't whether the media should take the side of Democrats against Republicans or vice versa. Instead, this is a question of the media's taking the side of the people versus the powerful any time anyone in power commits serious misdeeds. On the whole, the print media and alternative journalists have done a far better job of exposing Bush's deceptions than have the TV pundits. Here is one example: In the October 19 LA Times, journalist Robert Scheer writes, "the Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names." According to Scheer, some of those names include "very senior-level officials." He describes the cover-up as "shocking." Some members of the CIA disapprove of the Bush-appointed CIA director's decision to conceal the information. One CIA official told Scheer, "no previous director of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress." He also said, "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward." This is a critically important news story, and the media should report it often enough to make it known and well understood among the entire electorate - something they haven't done. To determine whether the primary media outlets have done a good job conveying all the public needs to know about any given news story, we should ask, "is that story fully understood by most Americans? Do most Americans know the story's meaning and significance?" TV pundits spent large quantities of time airing the deceptive claims of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and discussing whether John Kerry should have mentioned Mary Cheney's sexual orientation in the third presidential debate. Surely they can give equal time and energy to the monumental story of the CIA director's concealing the names of the individuals mentioned in the new CIA 9/11 report. The media should also join the public in pressuring the Bush administration to insist the CIA director release the report now. Hiding the new CIA 9/11 report may influence the election by helping the Bush administration, but it won't serve the public. Withholding the report prevents the people from being fully informed and from casting our votes based on accurate and complete information. If revealing the truth would hurt Bush's chance to win the election it logically follows that the public wouldn't be well served by his winning in the first place. In any case, the American people, especially the families of the 9/11 victims, deserve the truth, and they deserve to have it before the election. Three thousand people were killed in the September 11 attacks. Don't our elected officials and our intelligence agencies owe the families of the 9/11 victims the truth? Don't members of the news media owe them that much? Scheer says the Bush-appointed CIA management seems to think it can "engage in a cover-up [of the new 9/11 report] with impunity." He adds that the Bush administration and CIA management will get away with this cover-up unless the public insists on the report's timely release. However, unless the public hears enough about this story from the media, including (and especially) TV news, they won't likely know enough to push their elected officials or the CIA director to release the report. The press has a responsibility to sort facts from lies. In an article for the Village Voice, "The end of democracy," Rick Perlstein laments the fact that certain politicians and media pundits seem to think political lies during a campaign are like the weather - that they're something beyond our power to change. When Perlstein asked TV pundit Jeff Greenfield what he thought about Republicans making specific false statements, Greenfield said, "I just regard this as what happens in a campaign." As Perlstein points out, this is a defeatist attitude, and it prevents journalists from making an effort to improve the situation. Greenfield's lackadaisical attitude about the media's responsibility to correct lies in a political campaign is misguided. The press is obliged to edify and protect the public. Journalists need a stronger sense of civic obligation in order to help fulfill Thomas Jefferson's vision of maintaining democracy through a fully informed citizenry. The media's ethical obligation is to act as watchdog for the people and foe of political corruption. That's the function and very definition of a free press in a democracy. It's worth the effort. For more thoughts on the news media's obligation in a democracy, see my essay, "An open letter to the mainstream news media" ---------- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ----- / o o \ ===OO=====OO============================================= (4)Portals (2)News Wikis (2)Conferences - No More BuSHIT! Start here: http://pnews.org/ (On Internet since 1982) http://pnews.org/PhpWiki/ (West Coast News Wiki) http://g0lem.net/PhpWiki/ (East Coast News Wiki) ========================================================= Yahoo! 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