Diane Rehms The State of the Newspaper Industry

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Permalink Reply by Amy Moreno on March 11, 2009 at 10:41pm

I believe Russia today is even better. I doubt the BBC would interview Norman Finkelstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIr4lEIqTkM

I don't know where this film clip came from, but it's pretty interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8

-- Jewish Brittish MP Sr. Gerald Kaufman. During a Commons debate on the fighting in Gaza, he urged the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel.

Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."


We just never hear anyone talk about stuff like this in the US. I wonder if this clip came from the BBC. I kind of doubt it.

I find a lot of stuff on Digg and Reddit feeds. I like these sites because they have news articles people submit from all over the world. This site has news feeds from both http://alternativeconservative.com/news-feeds or you can go directly to the web sites.

This is how I found out about http://counterpunch.org

Permalink Reply by SlumburbiaResident on March 12, 2009 at 8:42am

Erin Sarah Cannan said:

I can't wait to see the New York Times go belly up. What a wonderful day in America this will be !

Your revelry may have to wait, as long as there are wealthy sugar daddies out there to keep the NYT flush with cash:

“Can Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim Save The New York Times?,” MediaMemo by Peter Kafka, 1/17/09

“Mexican Billionaire Invests in Times Company,” New York Times, 1/19/09

Permalink Reply by SlumburbiaResident on March 12, 2009 at 10:00am

Amy Moreno said:

....  See they are non biased. They take excellent articles from people on the right and the left. If the mainstream media came out with articles like these, I don't think they would be in the financial trouble they are in. People would actually want to read their material.  ....

Amy, I agree to a very great extent.  By their very nature, Establishment media sources do not relay too many stories and opinions that question conventional wisdom or otherwise subvert the status quo.

Many of us increasingly feel that the mainstream media Establishment helps perpetuate destructive misperceptions that help lure the American public into disastrous situations (such as wars waged on misleading pretenses or sudden economic crises that were long in the making).

However, some of us independent news junkies would concede that we still need some of these larger, stable, relatively well-financed media institutions out there, in some form or another.


Amy Moreno said:

I believe Russia [T]oday [television] is even better. I doubt the BBC would interview Norman Finkelstein

How does Russia Today (tv) cover Russia today? (Wordplay intended.)

Does this state-sanctioned media outlet perform thorough investigative coverage of the murders of journalists, dissidents, political activists, and other Свобода-loving Russians, for instance?

Among these murder victims are the following men and women:

Paul Khlebnikov, journalist, editor of Forbes Russia  (Khlebnikov was actually an American citizen who was the son of Russian émigrés)
Dmitry Kholodov, investigative journalist
Andrei Kozlov, banker and reformer
Anna Politkovskaya, investigative journalist

These people were murdered just this past January:
Stanislav Markelov, human rights lawyer & journalist
Anastasiya Baburova, journalist & activist

If you’re going to turn to alternative media outlets to supplement more traditional and mainstream news/views purveyors, that’s commendable.

But be advised that one should always check out the source and keep in mind its potential shortcomings and biases.

There really is no such thing as a “non-biased” media outlet or commentator.

Permalink Reply by wonkguy on March 12, 2009 at 11:04am

not sure when but this conversation thread went off a cliff somewhere back

Permalink Reply by SlumburbiaResident on March 12, 2009 at 11:41am

econ622 said:

not sure when but this conversation thread went off a cliff somewhere back

You mean when it started?  The topic heading is ostensibly about American newspapers but the original poster focuses mostly on independent/alternative media sources.

econ622, thanks for the tut-tutting & tsk-tsking reminding us children to “stay on topic.”


SlumburbiaResident said:

Many of us increasingly feel that the mainstream media Establishment helps perpetuate destructive misperceptions that help lure the American public into disastrous situations (such as wars waged on misleading pretenses or sudden economic crises that were long in the making).

A grammatical adjustment:
“…wars waged [based] on misleading pretenses[,] or sudden economic crises that were long in the making…”

More of us be should waging wars against misleading pretenses, imho.

We’re already valiantly waging wars against sudden economic crises, aren’t we?

“sudden economic crises that were long in the making…”:

econ622—Discuss, dissect, and/or devise a thesis.

Permalink Reply by wonkguy on March 12, 2009 at 12:54pm

First, let me say that my comment wasn't intended to 'tisk-tisk' the participants in this thread, only to kind of point out that it was difficult to tell exactly what people wanted to talk about here.

Now let me confess that I don't have a problem per se with the NY Times. I just don't think there is a better newspaper in the country right now. Not that there aren't things they could do better, but the quality of the journalists and the journalism is far above what other newspapers produce.

As for the future of the news paper industry, I don't know. I tend to find that when people use terms such as main stream media, what they are refering to is their differences with the opinion sections of the newspaper - which is fine, but that is different from the news operations.

Permalink Reply by Amy Moreno on March 13, 2009 at 9:14am

How does Russia Today (tv) cover Russia today? (Wordplay intended.) Does this state-sanctioned media outlet perform thorough investigative coverage of the murders of journalists, dissidents, political activists, and other Свобода-loving Russians, for instance?
Among these murder victims are the following men and women:

Paul Khlebnikov, journalist, editor of Forbes Russia  (Khlebnikov was actually an American citizen who was the son of Russian émigrés)
Dmitry Kholodov, investigative journalist
Andrei Kozlov, banker and reformer
Anna Politkovskaya, investigative journalist

These people were murdered just this past January

I have heard of these cases. They don't cover themselves I'm sure. In Paul Craig Roberts article he is talking specifically about the Middle East and the wars the US is waging http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/010909Roberts2.shtml

Now let me confess that I don't have a problem per se with the NY Times. I just don't think there is a better newspaper in the country right now. Not that there aren't things they could do better, but the quality of the journalists and the journalism is far above what other newspapers produce.

Counter Punch is better. I doubt the New York Times would report on this

Zbigniew Brzezinski:
How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen
http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html

"Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."

The Cooperative Model: How Credit Unions Survived the Crash
By Ralpher Nader
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader02232009.html

Has the NY Times talked about how Credit Unions are flourishing right now and why?

The People Be Damned: President of Special Interests

By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader02232009.html

Senators Grassley and Sanders tried to block H!B Visas for companies receiving bail out money, but then the corporate lobby like General Electric tried to stop it.

Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade: How the Economy was Lost
By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02242009.html

Paul Craig Roberts was an economist in the Reagan Administration who is said to be the "Father of Reagaonics." The above article is on how outsourcing has wiped out the economy, but the corporate media isn't going to tell anyone this. Their advertisers would get all ticked off. You take a station like MSNBC and it's 50% owned by Microsoft, and 50% owned by General Electric the two of the worst companies for outsourcing in the country

The top 10 companies who own the media http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html