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[...] The dangerous domination and control of mainstream journalism by the Bush White House, its Pentagon, and its military, is easily the greatest threat that has been foisted upon the American people.

Referring once again to the Clinton/Broadderick affair, recall Clintons response when asked if a rape took place: "Talk to my lawyer!" Any doubts here as to guilt versus innocence?

Silence is always vigorously pursued by wrongdoers recall Clintons advice to Monica and Al Gore as regards threatening inquisitiveness. Now, after no "weapons of mass destruction," after no traces of "yellowcake," after no ties to either terrorism, Al Quida, 9-11, or Osama, we continue to kill, maim and torture the very people we are supposed to be bringing democracy to after having freed them from the horrors of Saddam.

Where is the journalistic curiosity involving the suppression and spiking of the AIPAC spy scandal? Where are The New York Times headlines as concerns the Israel to China arms deal behind Americas back, providing enlightenment to the nation of taxpayers that have sent trillions of our tax dollars in support of Israel?

Why isnt more being written as regards the Gosch/Gannon scandal? And while speaking of Gosch/Gannon, what about such a blockbuster headline if released by the mainstream media? Wouldnt it render the Bill and Monica story, as well as the Gary and Chandra story, completely irrelevant? What a way for the "liberal-left" to retaliate against Ken Starr, George and Jeb Bush, and the entire herd of Republican elephants!

A ring of pedophilic kidnappers run by the highest elements in the Republican Party, and our so-called "liberal" mainstream media wont touch it with a 50-foot pole!

What other possible conclusion can any reasonably prudent, intelligent person come to other than the fact that ALL the allegations against the Bush regime are true?

And what greater corroboration can possible exist reflecting upon all these charges than John Pilgers observation on the Western medias "Law of Silence?" Scroll down to the rape of Fallujah [fourth paragraph from the bottom] to sample the Western medias greatest spike in recent times.

Was 9-11 a planned inside job by the highest levels of American government in cooperation with Israeli intelligence, Mossad? What have you heard lately?

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Weapons of Mass Deception

By Christian Henderson
Monday 25 April 2005, 19:43 Makka Time, 16:43 GMT

At the time of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, 70% of Americans told pollsters they believed Saddam Hussein's government was partly responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

In the prelude to the war, the Bush administration hinted at the existence of a link between Iraq and the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

However, intelligence investigations commissioned by the White House and Congress have since determined the suggested links were false.

According to Danny Schechter, a media veteran of almost 40 years who nicknamed himself the News Dissector, the 70% figure suggests US media failed their public and led them to believe a baseless claim.

As the invasion played out on television screens around the world, Schechter "self-embedded" in his living room and examined US media coverage of the war.

He turned his conclusions into Weapons of Mass Deception www.wmdthefilm.com, a documentary film that examines how the media covered the war.

In the post-September 11 nationalistic ardour, the film concludes the US mainstream media failed to challenge Washington over its reasons for going to war, shut out anti-war voices and blurred the lines between commentary and journalism.

Aljazeera.net spoke to Schechter on the sidelines of last week's Aljazeera Television Productions Festival in the Qatari capital, Doha, where Weapons of Mass Deception was shown.

Aljazeera.net: Why did you make this film?

Danny Schechter: I have been a journalist since the 1960s. And in some ways, this project grew out of a lifetime of work. I worked in radio; I worked in local television; I worked in cable news; I worked in ABC; I worked in mainstream and I worked in independent [media] so I think I had a wide range of experience.

I have also written six books about media issues, so I have had a chance to think about it more deeply; I think all that uniquely qualified me to take on this project.

What are you trying to do in this film?

I try to offer some fresh insights. I also try to speak to journalists about what this means in terms of our responsibilities to challenge and what this means in terms of democracy.

In the film, I make the suggestion that the Bush administration practices deception as part of its strategy and military strategy.

We know that everything they were saying about WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction)and the link with Usama [bin Laden] were not true and many of us knew it then and we said so, but everyone was saying something different.

Now, with study after study they say it was "group think" in the intelligence community. That's why they screwed up.

If there was group think in the intelligence community, what about the journalistic community? There was group think there, too.

Are you influenced by Noam Chomsky and his theory of manufacturing consent?

Noam Chomsky doesn't watch television; he is more of an analyst of the New York Times and elite journalism so I didn't go to him for an interview.

I was more interested in journalists who covered the war and how they were debating it. So I feel that Chomsky had a brilliant analysis of media, but more of it is oriented toward print. It doesn't always take into account the techniques of the media.

What do you think of Chomsky's critics who accuse him of overestimating the sophistication of media control, and that - in reality - it is more to do with day-to-day decisions and market forces?

I don't buy the conspiracy theories of media. I remember a group of Syrians came to our office and they said: 'We agree with you because we really know the Jews run everything.' This was their analysis. I said, excuse me, Rupert Murdoch is not Jewish the last time I looked.

You know the problem is corporate media and corporate-controlled media and how they operate within their framework.

What do you mean when you use the term post-journalism era?

Journalism is at a crossroads. There are many journalists today who still believe in the values of journalism but who are frustrated by the difficulty of practicing it because the companies they work for do not really respect journalistic principles. What they are there to do is satisfy their bottom line concerns, they have closed bureau after bureau.

There has been a pattern of dumbing down, and by dumbing it down it means people inside media are dumbing themselves down. They are not asking good questions, they are not challenging official narratives the way they should be.

If you look at Fox News, there is very little journalism, very little reporting. Mostly it is talk shows posing as news programmes and [they are] opinion driven, you have three times more pundits on air as opposed to journalists. That's another sign of the post-journalism era.

Are blogs an alternative to mainstream media sources?

There are now 10 million blogs. Of those, maybe 10% claim to be journalistic. Some of the bloggers are very responsible, really challenging and doing investigative digging that mainstream media are not.

Some are motivated just by ideological concerns. Recently, for example, Eason Jordan, the former chief of news at CNN - when he said at Davos 12 journalists had been killed by US soldiers there was a big shock and he was forced to resign. In that case, a blogger took an off-the-record meeting and just blasted it out there with out having a full record of what was said.

I think a lot of blogging can be very irresponsible and some of it is sponsored by political forces by the Republican party or the Democrat party and the like, so it has a political and ideological not a journalistic function.

But in my blog www.mediachannel.org what I try to do every day is take the top stories and report what is not being reported by comparing and contrasting.

You credit American journalists who helped you make this film. Do you think many in the US media are sympathetic to your message?

Whenever I talk to people in the media off the record, including anchormen, people are very supportive, people slip me footage from various networks. People are very helpful, but a lot of them are living in a lot of fear. Everybody feels vulnerable, people have mortgages; they have families - it's difficult to be courageous.

Many American media people feel vulnerable and as if they are being bullied, they feel totally insecure. In the culture of the newsroom, if you put your head up, it will get chopped off. Everybody is getting along by going along and that's a dangerous kind of conformity.

If the US is involved in another war, how do you think it will be reported in the US media? Do you think the media have learned from some of the mistakes of the Iraq war.

The institutional practices have not changed. I feel like the coverage of the elections was very similar to the coverage of the war. The same templates are being used, the same approach, the lack of political scrutiny, the lack of other voices, the way things are being framed, the lack of investigative checking.

The American media reported the Iraqi elections as a great victory for democracy. Everyone else reported them and asked Iraqis why they were voting and they said to get the Americans out and to end the occupation. Their reasons are very different from the way it was presented on American televisions. So we still have this propaganda system, in effect, but its credibility is starting to be questioned. And I hope my film will contribute to that.

What I want to see is more journalists taking more responsibility for what they do and showing more solidarity when other journalists are shot and killed.

How many people in the American media protested the killing of Tariq Ayub [Aljazeera's correspondent slain in Baghdad by US fire on 8 April 2003]? That was blatant, a completely blatant assassination and yet nobody said a word. We need to challenge that and show more solidarity with other media workers.
Comment: People too scared to speak up. Sounds more like Germany under Hitler or the Soviet Union under Stalin. Recall Bush's comment from several years ago that things would be easier if he were dictator, and it all fits into place.

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Wiretaps in U.S. Jump 19 Percent in 2004
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer
April 28, 2005

WASHINGTON - The number of court-authorized wiretaps jumped 19 percent last year as investigators pursued drug and other cases against increasingly tech-savvy suspects. Every surveillance request made by authorities was granted.

Federal and state judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral or electronic communications last year, and four states - New York, California, New Jersey and Florida - accounted for three of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That agency is required to collect the figures and report them to Congress.

The numbers, released Thursday, do not include court orders for terror-related investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, which reached a record 1,754 warrants last year, according to the Justice Department.

In non-terrorist criminal investigations, federally approved wiretaps increased 26 percent in a year, to 730 applications, while state judges approved 980 wiretaps, an increase of 13 percent.

Department of Justice spokesman Kevin Madden said the numbers reflect "an increase in the resources geared toward targeting very serious federal and state offenses for which electronic surveillance is often the most, and sometimes the only, effective investigative method."

Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said traditional law enforcement work is catching up with increases in anti-terror wiretaps.

"We're still seeing a huge trend toward increased surveillance," said Edgar.

Evan Barr, a former federal prosecutor in New York City, now in private practice, said authorities are responding to changes in the ways criminal suspects use technology.

"Drug dealers now are making use not just of traditional cell phones but a variety of devices, including Blackberries, pagers, and Nextels. So most likely these increased wiretap numbers simply reflect law enforcement's continuing efforts to keep pace with both the tactics and technology that is being used on the street," said Barr. [...]

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Survey: U.S. Trusts the News but Sees Bias
By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press Writer
April 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - Most Americans believe news coverage is biased and negative, but they also say they respect journalists and trust what they hear and read.

Comment: Most Americans believe that news coverage in the US is biased, but they still trust the information?!

A national survey conducted by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research found 62 percent consider journalism credible and more than half rated newspapers and television news as trustworthy.

At the same time, 85 percent said they detect a bias in news reporting. Of those, 48 percent identified it as liberal, 30 percent as conservative, 12 percent as both, and 3 percent as other bias.

About two-thirds said journalists invade people's privacy too often, while roughly three-quarters said the news is too negative.

"The consumers of American journalism respect, value and need it, but they're also skeptical about whether journalists really live up to the standards of accuracy, fairness and respect for others that we profess," said George Kennedy, a Missouri journalism professor and co-author of a study that incorporates the survey results.

The survey found that Americans strongly support the investigative or watchdog role of the press, with 83 percent saying it is important for journalists to press for access to information even when government officials would like to keep it quiet.

But there was also plenty of criticism. Among the poll's findings:

- 58 percent said journalists have too much influence over what happens in the world.

- 74 percent said reporters tend to favor one side over the other when covering political and social issues.

- About half said the news media tend to exaggerate problems or are too sensational in their coverage.

- 77 percent said they think a news story is sometimes killed or buried if it is embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization.

The survey polled 495 adults during June-July 2004 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

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Bush warns of US pensions crisis
BBC
Mr Bush's approval ratings have taken a tumble on domestic issues
The US pensions system is heading towards bankruptcy, President George W Bush has said in a news conference carried on prime-time television.

Mr Bush said pensions had to be reformed to provide the elderly with a financial safety net after retirement.

He proposed curbing the pension growth of wealthier Americans to protect the retirement income of low-wage workers.

On energy, Mr Bush said he would urge oil-producing nations to raise output to ease the strain on US consumers.

Mr Bush warned that social security would be insolvent by 2041 if it was not reformed.

"I propose a social security system in the future where benefits for low income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off," he told a news conference at the White House.

"This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing social security."

Central to his social security reform programme is the introduction of private stock market accounts into the US pension system.

However, some members of the president's own Republican party share the Democrats' concerns about his plans, while opinion polls show many Americans remain unconvinced about the need for reform.

'Affordable'

On energy policy, Mr Bush announced several measures to reduce US reliance on overseas production, including using domestic resources more efficiently and helping growing economies such as China and India reduce their demand for fossil fuels.

"Millions of American families and small businesses are hurting because of higher gasoline prices," he said.

"My administration is doing everything we can to make gasoline more affordable.

"In the near term we will continue to encourage oil producing nations to maximise their production."

Correspondents say the energy bill going through Congress has a stronger chance of getting through this year than in previous ones, because high energy prices are more of a political issue now and because the Republicans have more members since last year's election.

The president also renewed his support for his choice for US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, whose nomination has drawn objections from the Senate.

"John Bolton is a blunt guy," he said. "Sometimes people say I'm a little too blunt. John Bolton can get the job done at the United Nations."

Comment: What exactly is Bush sending Bolton to the UN to do? You don't need to answer that.

As for the part of his speech about social security, Josh Marshall has this to say:

Song Lyrics:

Just sit down and rest your weary head
dont you worry about how many are dead
dont you worry about the lies
thats no good reason for you to rise from your chair

theres just a few things that we would like to know
like who you speak to and where you go
what your likes are and what you read
its for your own good are we agreed or not

you dont need to care
you dont need to worry
you dont need to vote no more
well do it for you