Mass Media
What You Can Do
We now have the opportunity to powerfully work together to
strengthen democracy and to build a better world by spreading the news on
the mass media cover-up far and wide. As we develop a critical mass of concerned citizens who demand to know the
truth, the mass media will be forced to cover these issues more thoroughly. Then
we will begin to see powerful, positive changes in the world.
We invite you to
join in spreading this news in several ways. You can copy and paste the
media cover-up message below to any Internet message boards or discussion
groups in which you are involved. To contact your political representatives and the media, click here. To post to Wikipedia, click here. If you have a website, we invite you
to set up a link to our concise two-page summary at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacorruption. You can also print
our two-page and ten-page summaries directly from the website and share them
widely.
Help
spread the news on the mass media cover-up around the world by sending emails
to your friends and colleagues and inviting them to pass the message on.
You can copy and paste
the message below to your email. Feel free to adapt or modify this message
in any way. For other ways that you can help, click
here. By taking advantage of the powerful tools of email and the Internet,
we are building a better world.
Leading Journalists
Expose Major News Cover-ups by Media Corporations
Below are some
astounding statements from a summary of the book Into
the Buzzsaw on the informative website
http://www.WantToKnow.info. In this eye-opening book, 20 award-winning journalists
describe in detail how they were prevented by corporate media ownership from
reporting major, revealing news stories. These courageous journalists have
won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer.
This message is sent with the hope of strengthening democracy and
building a brighter future for all of us.
Kristina Borjesson—CBS, Emmy award winner.
Pierre Salinger announced on Nov. 8, 1996, that he'd received documents proving
that a US Navy missile had accidentally downed TWA flight 800. That same day,
FBI's Jim Kallstrom called a press conference. At one point, a man raised
his hand and asked why the Navy was involved in the investigation while a
possible suspect. "Remove him!" Kallstrom yelled. Two men leapt over
to the questioner and grabbed him by the arms. There was a momentary chill
in the air after the guy had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and entourage
acted as if nothing had happened. Jim Kallstrom was later hired by CBS.
(pp. 290, 291)
Jane
Akre—Fox News. After our struggle to air an honest report on hormones
in your milk, Fox fired the general manager of our station. The new GM said
that if we didn't agree to changes the lawyers were insisting upon, we'd be
fired for insubordination. We pleaded with him to look at the facts we'd uncovered.
His reply: "We paid $3 billion dollars for these TV stations. We'll tell you
what the news is. The news is what we say it is!" After we refused,
Fox's general manager presented an agreement that would give us a full year
of salary, and benefits worth close to $200,000 in "consulting jobs," but
with strings attached: no mention of how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity
to ever expose the facts. After declining, we were fired. (pp. 213 - 219)
Monika
Jensen-Stevenson—Emmy-winning producer for 60 minutes. Robert Garwood—14
years a prisoner of the Vietnamese—was found guilty in the longest court-martial
in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question that
he was a monstrous traitor. In 1985, Garwood was speaking publicly about something
that had never made the news during his court-martial. He knew of other American
prisoners in Vietnam long after the war was over. My sources included outstanding
experts like former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Tighe
and returned POWs like Captain McDaniel, who held the Navy's top award for
bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to consider the possibility
that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages
to make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war reparations.
(pp. 255, 256)
Gary
Webb—San Jose Mercury News, Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I wrote
a series of stories that began this way: A Bay Area drug ring sold tons of
cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug
profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped
spark a crack explosion in urban America. The story developed a momentum all
of its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the major media. Ultimately,
it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray.
The Washington Post, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times
published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA's activities. Instead,
my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable that
the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the series could
not find a single significant factual error. A few months later, the Mercury
News, under intense CIA pressure, backed away from the story, publishing
a long column apologizing for "shortcomings" in the series. The New York
Times splashed the apology on their front page, the first time the series
had ever been mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News after that.
(pp. 143 - 153)
For
more on these and the eye-opening stories of other leading journalists, go
to the two-page summary of Into the Buzzsaw at http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacorruption
Or even better, go straight to http://www.WantToKnow.info/massmedia
for the information-packed 10-page summary. For other reliable resources
on the media cover-up, visit our Media
Information Center. If these stories were reported in headline news where
they belong, caring citizens would be astounded and demand to know more. This
has not happened, which is why we feel compelled to provide them here.
To
understand more about the impact of all this, go to http://www.WantToKnow.info The entire
website is dedicated both to providing a concise, reliable introduction
to incredibly important information that is being hidden from us, and
to inspiring us to work together to strengthen democracy and to build a better
world. You can help to build a brighter future now by educating
yourself on these vital issues, and by forwarding this message to your friends
and colleagues and asking them to do the same. Thank you for caring. Together
we can and will build a better world for ourselves and our children.
The WantToKnow.info team is a group
of dedicated researchers from around the world who compile and summarize important,
verifiable facts and information being hidden from the public. You can reach
us by visiting http://www.WantToKnow.info/contactus.php.
Mass Media
