Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Rally For Media Reform

The Blog | Josh Silver: More than 3,500 Rally in Memphis for Media Reform: Why It Matters | The Huffington Post: "If you're frustrated with the mainstream media's failure to provide critical journalism that informs democracy and holds government accountable, then you need pay attention to what happened in Memphis last weekend. Opening the National Conference for Media Reform, legendary journalist Bill Moyers proclaimed:

As we saw in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the plantation mentality that governs Washington turned the press corps into sitting ducks for the war party, for government, and neoconservative propaganda and manipulation.
There were notable exceptions ... but on the whole, all high-ranking officials had to do was say it, and the press repeated it until it became gospel. The height of myopia came with the admission (or was it bragging?) by one of the Beltway's most prominent anchors that his responsibility is to provide officials a forum to be heard, that what they say is more newsworthy than what they do.

Thousands came to Memphis because they understand that we must create an alternative to the dysfunction that Moyers describes. His words resonated at an event that was part conference and part rallying cry. An event in which the disparate players were more unified than ever before; coming together in one of the fastest-growing movements in a generation..."

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