Leigh Meyers :
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"Nobody listens to Black conservatives. They say we have no audience," said Williams, "then all of a sudden they treat me as a major journalist in America. I was never invited to be a part of the clubs, to be a part of the membership because they don't consider us journalists. But now they've changed that."
^^^^^^^ CB: Hopefully, he's right that nobody listens to Black conservatives.
I'm a bit surprised. It's hard for me to believe that people give op-ed piece writers credit for being some kind of "independent" thinkers. All the one's that are paid "ethically" by the media corporations ( as opposed to the Bush admin) seem pretty hacky to me. Although it is getting a little dated, seems to me Parenti's theses in _Inventing Reality_ hold now more than ever for the monopoly media.
Of course, Armstrong Williams is paid to have conservative opinions. Why do you think he developed conservative opinions ?
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There may be some truth to that... I mean, after all, how many million people watch FauxNews daily and think that *it's* really journalism?
^^^^^^ CB: Is CBS "real journalism" ?
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A reasonably constructive critique from the same article: "One thing this episode does is ratchet up the cynicism about any kind of pundit in the media, and it sure doesn't help if you're trying to break from the pack - as Black conservatives are.
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CB: Hopefully, this _will_ increase cynicism about pundits in the media. They are part of the American mindcontrol apparatus.
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People already suspect that they're already speaking for Mr. Charley. When Mr. Charley is paying them, people say, 'I knew it.'
^^^^ CB: I hate to tell you this, Ms. Mathis , but they _are_ speaking for Mr. Charley. Mr. Charley owns the newspaper and television corporations too. See Parenti on how the control works from the publishers down. Journalists for monopoly corps are not independent thinkers or anything like that. Their job is to give the company line a fake veneer of "objectivity".
In particular, creativity and new ideas are abused by conservatives ? Their job is to use "new" ideas to defend the status quo.
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It hurts not only his credibility; it hurts the credibility of those who are trying to follow in his footsteps and those who are already in the business now."
^^^^^ CB: That would be the best we could hope to come out of this. Why would we want anybody to follow in Armstrong Williams' footsteps ? Hopefully , there will never be another one like him. Seems to me this episode is a win for our side. A rightwing pundit being discredited is one small step for humankind. Trouble is he's like an interchangeable part, eminently replaceable, especially since Mr. Charley got so much $$$$$.
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Assuming, of course, that he is a journalist and not just an "infomercial" face.
L
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Inventing Reality The Politics of News Media
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0-312-02013-9 (paper) Distributed by Wadsworth
How much of what the news media tell us is true, and how does it control our view of the world? In this illuminating, provocative critique of the news media, Michael Parenti examines the subtle but profound ways in which the media influence and manipulate the public's perception of reality. He attacks the widely held belief that the news media are controlled by liberals and liberal opinion--and he clearly depicts the news media as a controlling institution of the American capitalist system, an institution that serves the interests of the rich and powerful while appearing to serve the many.
In this thoroughly revised and updated edition, Parenti dissects news coverage of the most recent world events--including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Gulf War, the U.S. invasion of Panama, and the contra war in Nicaragua--and demonstrates how the media shape public awareness and attitudes through distortion or suppression of specific information. His argument will reeducate and enrage a public that has come to believe in an impartial, free press.
The Progressive magazine calls Inventing Reality "essential to a fuller understanding of what we read and see daily."
Contents
>From Cronkite's Complaint to Orwell's Oversight
"Freedom of the Press Belongs to the Man Who Owns One"
Who Controls the News?
Objectivity and Government Manipulation
The Big Sell
Giving Labor the Business
"Liberal" Media, Conservative Bias
The Media Fights the Red Menace
Doing the Third World
For the New World Order
Propaganda Themes
Methods of Misrepresentation
Culture, Control and Resistance
Appendix: A Guide to Alternative Media
Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media. 2nd edition. New York: St.Martin's Press, 1993. 274 pages. Michael Parenti earned a Ph.D. from Yale in 1962, and now lives in Berkeley, California. He has written a number of dissident books on U.S. culture and politics. Since the American left disappeared, Parenti is perhaps the only remaining scholar who a) takes the idea of interlocking power elites seriously, b) believes that conspiracies can happen in high places, c) hasn't burned all of his Marx, Engels, and Gramsci, d) writes lucidly, with numerous concrete examples and footnotes, and e) can still get published without using the Internet. This book is about the U.S. media, who controls the news, and how and why they do it. If you've been deeply tuned into American culture and world events since the 1960s, and are well-informed about media elites and their spin cycles, corporate power and propaganda, and the role of the CIA and other government agencies, then you don't need this book. If not, then it will introduce a phenomenon that continues to emerge as one of the most significant political forces of our era. (Of the 274 pages, only three or four seem ill-advised -- a section on class, race, and gender in the first chapter. These pages read like an obligatory sop to political correctness, and they lack any sense of how of how race and gender can be used by elites and the media to deflect and obscure class consciousness.)