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No Longer Watchdog, Mainstream Media is Guardian of the System
BUZZFLASH
READER COMMENTARY
by S. S. Pratt
The aftermath of the Iraq war is shaping up much like the aftermath of the 2000 elections: The mainstream media seem to consider it more important to protect the credibility of the system than to report the facts.
In the wake of the 2000 elections, allegedly "liberal" news outlets like The New York Times felt it was more essential to ensure a "smooth transition" of power, than to rock the boat with the truth. Namely, that a U.S. presidential election had been stolen.
Likewise, reports of the media consortium which examined the Florida ballots were slanted so as to reassure the public about the integrity of the electoral system; only those who read the fine print learned that Gore won.
Today, we're seeing much the same reluctance to report the intelligence failures -- or more accurately, the intelligence frauds -- which provided justification for the Iraq war. Only the 5% of Americans who read foreign newspapers and the alternative press online know about the growing storm of outrage about the Bush-Blair deception about WMDs. (40% of Americans think the U.S. actually has found WMDs.)
While everyone from the British public to professional spooks in Virginia knows the truth about the false pretext for the war, the American mainstream media evidently considers this knowledge too dangerous for the public to fully realize.
With a scandal as bad or worse than Watergate on its hands, our media now -- as in 2000 -- considers itself the guardian of the system, rather than its watchdog.
S. S. Pratt
Hudson, NY
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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