What you say is true and exciting. And while I think it is growing by
leaps and bounds, it is still only a quiver compared to the
conservative mass media. I have to hunt out the people I want to
read, while the Establishment hammers its message over and over every
day.
I am having some quirks with my new computer. I noticed that several
emails I've written just disappeared.
Oh well, it's dinner time out here in the wilds of the great Olympic
Peninsula.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/4/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There is a change in the media which isn't apparent unless you have been
listening to podcasts and reading articles by people who have separated
themselves from the legacy media and the media like The Intercept and
Democracy Now that are funded by billionaires. Most of the people who are
listening to this new stuff are between 25 and 50 years old. It's a
fascinating phenomenon, but unless one is especially interested in social
change and how news production and consumption has changed, one wouldn't
notice. It's a coincidence that I was listening to a podcast this morning in
which an example was described. There's been a very popular program on You
Tube called Rising, produced by The Hill. The female host is left of center,
politically. The male host is centrist or somehwat right of center, I
suppose. They were covering the news from what they would describe as left
populist and right populist prospectives. Like so many young journalists,
they are leaving The Hill and are going to do their program independently
with listener sponsorship on You Tube. It will be called Breaking Points.
They say that they are doing this so that they can function independently,
without the constraints and arbitrary rules placed on them by Big Media.
They described what they perceive some of these to be and they went on to
say that people who function independently, have closer relationships with
members of the audience. There are many examples of other people who have
been doing this lately. Matt Taibbi used to write for Rolling Stone and he
and Katie Halper have a podcast called Useful Idiots that was produced by
Rolling Stone. Taibbi now writes independently on Substack and Useful Idiots
is now an independent podcast. The change was caused by something that
happened at Rolling Stone, but they have never disclosed what it was. Robert
Scheer used to run a website called Truthdig. The publisher of Truthdig had
a disagreement with him. Some of the contributors to the website, like Chris
Hedges, supported him and went on strike and the website shut down. Scheer
started his own website called Scheerpost, with his own money and fewer
contributors. Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill started The Intercept but
with original funding from a billionaire. It grew and more quickly than
Democracy Now, became politically cautious. Scahill is still associated with
it, but almost never writes anything for it and seems to have stopped
hosting its podcasts. The editor censored Greenwald's proposed news story
regarding Biden before the election and as a result, Greenwald resigned and
started writing independently at Substack. The Grayzone Project used to be
part of Alternet. But Alternet was bought by a media company with a
different view of journalism than it originally had. I'm not sure that it
even exists now. Several years ago, before it had become evident to me how
much Alternet had changed, Max Blumenthal knew what was happening and made
The Grayzone Project an independent journalistic venture. Mint Press News
was not in my awareness until about two years ago. It is so threatening to
the establishment that it keeps being hacked and can barely even send out
its digest now.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, June 4, 2021 12:00 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Nicaragua
Well, if you are speaking of the style of the news reporting, I agree.
But if you are referring to the source of the news we receive, then from my
way of thinking, our news is still controlled by the Ruling Class, the
Establishment.
We, all of us are held up to a standard of which few of us can ever hope to
measure up to.
But we have been brainwashed into believing that if we just pull a little
harder on our bootstraps we'll somehow make the transition.
As long as we live under the heel of the Capitalist Boot, our lives will be
determined by the Capitalist's bottom line, profit and control. The Media
is one place where Capitalism has got it right.
They seized the mass media and have hung on to it, promoting themselves as
the "Free Press". And of course the very statement itself is a lie. Daily
papers, radio, TV and now the Internet are owned by the Ruling Class. And
we pay our money and read, or listen or watch the Free News, as allowed by
the Establishment.
I'd ramble on, but it's time I folded my laundry and watch a bit of Thom
Hartmann. And as I watch, I will do my best to question his sources.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/3/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I pick and choose what I read and listen to. But the way certain news
sources have changed, is a message about our society and power and
corruption. It's a warning about what we can believe. It also
explains why people think so differently about reality. I read in 2
articles that 35,000 were at a pro Palestinian demonstration in
Washington DC. My daughter, who gets all sorts of news alerts and
headlines on her phone, never saw anything about that demonstration on
Saturday in Washington. Perhaps it was last week that I read about
various demonstrations in different cities. There was a
50,000 people's demonstration opposing Israel's actions in Gaza in
Brooklyn.
Melanie saw nothing. When she searched, she found a news story that
said that there was a demonstration of "a large number of people". On
the other hand, there was a story all over the media about a Chinese
imprisonment and genocide of the Uyghurs. But the Grayzone had several
investigative articles which indicated that the story wasn't true. The
history of Muslims in that part of China was revealed and the story
about the imprisonment and genocide came from one source, an
Evangelical Christian man who is a member of an anti-China
organization. Democracy Now carried the story, told by a woman who is
a member of a US group of Uyghurs backed by the National Endowment for
Democracy which is a creation of the CIA.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, June 3, 2021 1:41 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Nicaragua
My personal feeling is that none of the sources I go to for obtaining
"the real news" is 100% honest. But I know how I've felt over the
years as I saw NPR and BBC change their focus. Still, I do have more
contacts than I ever have time to read.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/3/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yesterday, I posted a long article by Ben Norton about US
interference in Nicaraguan politics. It included some details that I
hadn't read previously.
Coincidentally, this morning on Democracy Now, one of the headline
stories was in reference to Nicaragua. Its content was identical to
the US propaganda described in Norton's article. I know that I keep
dwelling on this subject, but that's because it is really upsetting
to me to watch a news source that I once learned so much from, slowly
change. The only international news story about which the program has
remained constant and honest, is Israel/Palestine. But from 2011 on,
all of the other international news coverage has changed. The program
now focuses on identity politics, predominantly racial relations. I
haven't had a problem with its coverage of that subject, but I do
think that it uses a focus on black/white dysfunction to avoid
covering equally important issues like this administration's current
handling of immigration issues, the lack of truly meaningful
legislation regarding economic inequality and climate change, the
government's use of any possible excuse to increase mass
surveillance, and the ignoring of the government's war on press
freedom and whistle blowers.
Do you remember when Amy interviewed Julian Assange or Glenn Greenwald?
Each
of these individuals have disappeared from view on her program.
Miriam