Is the Bush Administration silencing the media?!

Shhh! Or else...

Buried on page ten of Saturday's New York Times is a piece that should give pause to all who live in free societies. Actually, it should do more than give pause. It should freak us out a little.

It concerns the Cleveland Plain Dealer and their decision to not publish two articles for fear of legal retribution by the government. Robert D. McFadden of the Times writes "...the newspaper, acting on the advice of its lawyers, was withholding publication of two major investigative articles because they were based on illegally leaked documents and could lead to penalties against the paper and the jailing of reporters."

Illegally leaked? Hmmm...like the Pentagon Papers?

McFadden quoted the Plain Dealer editor, Doug Clifton, as saying the articles were "profoundly important" and of "significant interest to the public".

So here is where we are now: a major American newspaper has been spooked into silence by a government that fears an informed citizenry. Meanwhle, the Plain Dealer is so jumpy about the situation in which they find themselves, no one there has even mentioned what the articles are about.

I don't want to get into a not-since-Nixon rant but this is deeply alarming. The Miller/Cooper situation is casting a very long shadow.

What are the stories the Plain Dealer has spiked? How will we find out what's going on? Why did the leaker contact the Plain Dealer instead of Robert Novak? Nothing ever seems to happen to him

Very scary stuff. What if there are other cases where the media is holding stories about potential scandals out of fear of retribution? The American people deserve the truth.

[edit on 11-7-2005 by Delta 38]

If the information was illegally leaked then the paper should in fact not report it. It could put the lives of Americans at danger. The American public does not have the right to know everything that the government does, it has ALWAYS been that way since the time of George Washington!

This is nothing to worry about, if the public knew everything about our government then so would other countrys around the world, i'm sure you can see the wisdom in keeping some things out of papers that not only American citzens can read but the rest of the world as well...

Originally posted by Delta 38
What if there are other cases where the media is holding stories about potential scandals out of fear of retribution?

What if? I'll answer that question in the same manner as I answer the thread title, "Is the Bush Administration silencing the media?"

Does a bear poop in the woods?

I pretty much stopped watching the TV news (cnn) when I started getting my news from the Internet. At times, I like to go back and see what cnn is reporting. There are some critical stories that never even make it to televised new. Cnn is the new Entertainment channel. But if you want to know if Angelina's pregnant with Brad's child or how Tom Cruise feels about anti-depressants or the latest on the month-old missing girl in Aruba, check out cnn...

And it's not just for ratings. If they were reporting real news, they'd have more ratings than ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX news combined.

[edit on 11-7-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

i think the jailing of the journalist will stop any publication from publishing anything remotely damaging in the future. i think whistleblowers will have to look outside of the the US to leak their stories, as US journalists will probably be to scared to publish now and will rather sit on the info and do nothing.

sad really that rove's lawyer only confirmed it was him AFTER the journalist got jailed - kind of rubbing it in after she stuck her life and career on the line.

People,

See my post above, do you really think that all information about the government should be made public??!

That has never been the case and should never be!

Originally posted by Boatphone
If the information was illegally leaked then the paper should in fact not report it. It could put the lives of Americans at danger. The American public does not have the right to know everything that the government does, it has ALWAYS been that way since the time of George Washington!

This is nothing to worry about, if the public knew everything about our government then so would other countrys around the world, i'm sure you can see the wisdom in keeping some things out of papers that not only American citzens can read but the rest of the world as well...

But most whistle blowers have to release "illegal" information to the press in order for it to get to the public. If the Pentagon Papers had not been released we might have never known about Watergate. National security and things like that are of course imporatant but if the government has acted illegaly the American people have a right to know about it.

Originally posted by Boatphone
People,

See my post above, do you really think that all information about the government should be made public??!

That has never been the case and should never be!

I think you trust your government far too much.

Well, when you reference "miller/cooper" I must remind you that the stroy they released had nothing to do with any "watergate" type activies but instead was reviling the name of an undercover CIA agent to the world, putting U.S. lives in danger.

They should be put in jail for helping cover up a crime!!

Originally posted by Boatphone
do you really think that all information about the government should be made public??!

No, absolutely not. I don't even want to know everything. But we live in a time when the government hides information that should be made available to us. We live in a time when they lie, decieve and stonewall us. We are suspicious of our government and with very good reason. Their actions recently encourage us to be suspicious!

This information maybe top-secret and we shouldn't have access to it, but it's just as likely at this point that it's something we have a right to.

The government and the government's try to censor the media, however some of us wont be shut up. You see it is not so much about the fact of things to have to remain secret as it is that people that have something they have done criminal to hide and how far they will go to keep that something a secret is what you have to look at.

Over the years I have been doing what I have been doing I have been shot at threatend had rock's and other materials thrown at my former house before the house mysteriously had a house fire even though there was alot of evidence i uncovered to show that it was burned as a political retaliation.

And here's the key to the whole thing the government's / government "attempts" to keep things that they deam people dont need to know about. But that number one does not mean that information in one form or another isnt going to always get exposed.

The number one thing all goverments fear more then anything is the people they are surpose to serve. Because there are more of us here on ats for instance that have a good general idea of how real conspiracy works as well as how goverment works that one of the reason's why the news media in some cases has been forced to address what some of us know.

Has ats not been mentioned and or talked about in one form or another at some point in the news? Yes it has but when you are right about a given issue or subject people that are in power that have something to lose by the exposer of what is being exposed, people for instance on ats being right or elsewhere the people that are in power will go to the extreme to label people as radicals or extremist's for instance.

This however does not mean that information no matter what is is will eventully come out.

Government's only control people when the people have fear of the goverment / government's. If government fears the people then it has no control over the people.

And one of the key reason's as to why some of the things are happening in the news today and what not is exactly for website's and people like the ones here at ats.

Think about it, did you ever expect to see any national news media talk or even mention something for instance about a website like ats?

If most people answered that question honestly they would be able to conclude the answer is of chorse no. Because no one here or else where could have predicted that website's like this one or other's could actually have a effect on government.

I have been a member of ats for a long time a long long time. And I can remember 5 / 6 years ago or so when this website was just a very small message board with little more then about 50 people. And I also remember back when people that were talking about conspiracys back then it would take sometimes month's maybe a few years before information that was covered here on ats would then be covered in national news.

Not everything we cover here and elsewhere is going to be covered in the national press. But for those that have been doing this kind of thing for as long as we have, we know how much just this website abovetopsecret has grown.

When ever the truth comes out and the person / person's that have exposed that truth get attacked for putting out the truth, that causes more people to ask question's as to why that person / person's were attacked in the first place.

Thus causing debate and thus we become more aware of things when there is discloser about that given issue or subject.

And that is the whole purpose of website's like ats in the first place. It is for discloser but more so then discloser it is about debate and a place for people to talk, listen and hopefully learn a little more about who and what really control's there lives.

I can assure you all of this and mark my word's on it.

I will not shut my mouth.

After all the years of being attacked for what I do, I have seen things change as people come to a consensis about given issues over a period of time.

If we continue to expose the kind's of things we do on ats and elsewhere and talk about them and cause debate this lead's to change and exposer. People that are going to be whistleblowers in the future are not going to shut up either because not everyone is corrupt some people have morals and standards and not all people are evil.

My underlining point to all of this is the following.

If you have fear, the people that want you to have that fear will continue to keep you under control and tell you thing's like you cant win you cant do anything.

If you show people that would put fear into other's that you are to be feared then you are in control and more so other's will see they dont have anything to fear but fear.

And fear why it may be a emotion it is still a word so is freedom.

Which are you going to have. And a better question is what are you going to do to make sure you have a word like freedom.

Some of us wont shut our mouths when faced with the so called idea of fear.

More scandles and document's coming to a ATS near you stay tuned.

Falcon

I think the incumbent administration is more prone to feeding "the media" propaganda and knowing lies, than it is to silencing "the media". But "the media" is such an amorphous concept.

Some media owners are obviously complicit in the administration's agenda.
Other media owners value the truth above any false sense of nationalism or Bush-branded "truth, justice and the American way, and bring it on."

You can usually pick the second category. None of them brand their reporting as "fair and balanced", they just deliver in practice.

And, fortunately, media outside the USA are generally not subject to as much "silencing" or manipulation on issues of American and global interest.

In a bigger issue, if youre wondering why you ddidnt hear that much dissant
about Bush or the Iraq war on mainstream tv and cable news outlets...realize that 5 corporations control more than 50% of the media.

You sure arent going to hear much critical news from NBC or NBC affiliates.
GE, who brought you such fun time devices as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, as well as an endless death parade of death technology owns NBC.
Disney, the 3rd world slave labor workhorse, owns ABC and quite a lot of stations. Then ya got ultra right wing Rupert Murdoch who owns everything from Fox to Sky One UK.

Yes, you'll hear some vaguely Bush critical pieces here and there, but its all done very carefully as to not come off like total cheerleaders...just enough to make ya think they are all being fair and balanced.

Im surprised Doonesbury is allowed to flourish in print tho...that little comic strip remains one of the most definant things in print.

Originally posted by 8bitagent
...realize that 5 corporations control more than 50% of the media.

Now think of the fact that it used to be illegal to own several media outlets...
then a certain administration started sofening the rules, to allow mega conglomerates to form...
makes for some very interesting favors owed... and less people to call when you need that favor...

Originally posted by 8bitagent
In a bigger issue, if youre wondering why you ddidnt hear that much dissant
about Bush or the Iraq war on mainstream tv and cable news outlets...realize that 5 corporations control more than 50% of the media.

Ahhhh.......Your forgetting one major detail. Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports. Lots of government investments.

Then ya got ultra right wing Rupert Murdoch who owns everything from Fox to Sky One UK.

Ummmmm.......Rupert murdoch owns alot more than that. He literally owns The Sky company and more.

May I point out this little gem I found,
Rich text file

A small extract,

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA….
“There is no such thing.. as an independent press.. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.. they pull the strings and we dance. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
John Swinton, a chief of staff to the New York Times at the time of the American Civil War, addressing the New York Press Club some years later.

Have things changed since Swinton’s time? Yes, but maybe not for the better. Polly Toynbee, writing in the Independent several years ago said: “Journalism is grubbier, nastier and more trivial than ever before...” She has a point - look at the tabloids and a host of other publications, and see what a mass of trivial irrelevant material now passes for so called news, distracting us from thinking for ourselves about what really matters to us. The same applies to television - more and more channels turning out more and more soaps, quiz shows, comedy shows, chat shows, pop shows - an ever increasing diet of trivialisation, interspersed on commercial stations, with adverts that endlessly sell us all the things they tell us we have to have to make us happy - the dolly bird images that all women must live up to, and the macho images that all men must live up to. How miserable we can become if we don’t measure up to these smooth cultivated images, or can’t afford all the paraphernalia that goes with them. (And aren’t we always being persuaded to go more and more into debt by borrowing more and more money to get it, by “listening” banks and “action” banks who join in this orgy of advertising.)

Ms. Toynbee went on to imply that broad-sheets such as the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times were highly reliable and informative. However newspapers like these and mainstream radio and T.V. networks cannot possibly give us a full picture, or a comprehensive analysis, of what is going on in the world. Look at the big corporate interests that own them and advertise in them. And even if they don’t actually own the BBC, look how these interests and their friends in government make and influence appointments to senior posts, and dominate the Board of Governors, ensuring that it is no more independent than any of the others.

In the old Soviet Union and its satellite states in eastern Europe, government controlled the media. Nothing of substance could be published without the prior approval of the Communist party commissars. Yet today, in the United States in particular, the situation is broadly similar although most people are blissfully unaware of it. In the US, for example, it is a select handful of super-rich and tightly knit financial interests who own the big media outlets. ABC, CBS, NBC, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune along with numerous regional newspapers, radio and television outlets. The big names include David Rockefeller, Edgar Bronfman, Rupert Murdoch, and Conrad Black. Big media can effectively control government by deciding who and what it will or won’t support. In the UK, Murdoch owns the Times and the Sun and Black the Daily Telegraph.

peace

I would tend to agree with the initial mention by MaskedAvatar, but add, that I do not feel the media is being silenced. IMHO, most of the media in the US is definately not his 'friend' and one little slip or even a White House threat to silence would most probably be immediately put to press and utilized to further dent Bush's image and presidential tenure.

Thats just my take, anyhow.





seekerof

[edit on 11-7-2005 by Seekerof]

IMHFO, I think in some way all medias from just about all countries have some sort of "persuasion" from thier government. It's not just the US, it's Britain, Japan, Canada, China, Iceland hell even Burundi and Belarus etc..etc...

sporty

Originally posted by Boatphone
Well, when you reference "miller/cooper" I must remind you that the stroy they released had nothing to do with any "watergate" type activies
but instead was reviling the name of an undercover CIA agent to the world,
putting U.S. lives in danger.

They should be put in jail for helping cover up a crime!!

maybe i'm interpeting it incorrectly...because i thought i read that
Mr. Rove in his conversations was the one who outed the CIA assets name
& the reporter only detailed the verbage.

So, who's guilty in the 1st place??
The administration is protecting one-of-its-own, but in the process is
attacking the long held standard of 'confidentiality' extended to the press/media...
there is a 180" turnaround happening here it seems.

i also heard that she was a very-above-board asset or whatever, for the
CIA, and openly drove up to the offices, and did not in any way act in a covert manner- -
it was a 'open secret' in DC & Capitol Hill
so what's the real harm...none!
...its just a maneuver by the administration., to deflect scrutiny
and to further 'strongarm' the media into being an obedient 'organ' for
the administration of neocons & born-again dominionists.

of course, all this is way too convoluted for me to actually understand,

is there a project of silencing the press, or just muting it
for ?national security reasons?
heck, i'm still confused between the right to know vs. the need to know

my .02


[edit on 11-7-2005 by St Udio]

The media is an absolute anomaly. The media went gaga for abu girabe but never questioned why the US got into Iraq in the first place.

The media went gaga for Clinton's sex scandal, as well as Clarence Thomas and Tailhook...but failed to report on the biggest sex scandal of all: the Franklin coverup in the 80's.

The government, media and companies want you to be distracted with whom J-lo and Affleck are sleeping with, which contestant will win on American Idol and the Michael Jackson thing...in order to distract the people from what is really going on.

Originally posted by 8bitagent
The media is an absolute anomaly. The media went gaga for abu girabe but never questioned why the US got into Iraq in the first place.

The media went gaga for Clinton's sex scandal, as well as Clarence Thomas and Tailhook...but failed to report on the biggest sex scandal of all: the Franklin coverup in the 80's.

The government, media and companies want you to be distracted with whom J-lo and Affleck are sleeping with, which contestant will win on American Idol and the Michael Jackson thing...in order to distract the people from what is really going on.

yep.

If only people could see.

The government would like to silence the media, but it's really the pro republican advertisers
who threaten to pull their ads that they fear the most.