Michael Harris has watched Steven Spielberg's new movie, The Post, the story of The Washington Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers. He writes:
When the Washington Post printed the story of the Pentagon Papers, it was still owned by the Graham family. One person, Katherine Graham, ultimately decided to press the red button to start the printing presses. No small decision, since it could have meant the end of The Post, the loss of hundreds of jobs, and a trip to jail for the newspaper’s senior editors and publisher. It was an existential encounter the outcome of which was uncertain.
It is worth remembering that Graham made her decision without knowing how the courts, (ultimately the US Supreme Court) would rule on what she had done. Would they see the Post’s decision to call out the federal government for industrial scale lying as a patriotic exercise of First Amendment rights, or denounce it as treason?
Time -- and things -- have changed:
Those who want to manage information, from corporate news empires to the press offices of politicians which are often larger than newsrooms, are winning the battle against those who want to gather and disseminate it.
That old world of newspapering that rocked the planet with a gigantic truth that was dangerous to tell doesn’t seem to resonate with the Vid Generation, except, perhaps, as an interesting period piece. And that may explain why they fail to see the danger facing free speech and journalism today.
How far away those daring deeds seem today. Society has traded the printing press for a smart phone. Google is now the king of reliable sources — except we know in our hearts that it isn’t.
And politicians like Donald Trump -- who doesn't read anyway -- know how to play into that void:
If there is one politician who hates leaks and the media more than Richard Nixon did, it is Donald Trump. No wonder. From paying off porn-stars before the 2016 election, to playing political footsie with Moscow, Trump has so much to hide.
That’s why he has threatened to take away the broadcast licenses of TV networks, toughen up libel laws, and declared the press to be “the enemy of the people.” As Stephen Harper once did in Canada, Trump aims at subverting every independent source of information that he can in order to clear the tracks for his own agenda.
And that's why we must fight to keep print -- newsprint or electronic print -- alive. Democracy depends on it.
Image: allocine.fr
12 comments:
The news is lost. Fox News has one reality and CNN another. Most of the time both are false.
One thing they agree on if fighting them over there, so we dont have to fight them here.
The news is nothing but a corporate mouthpiece.
There are still some reliable sources, Steve. The Washington Post is still one of them. So is the Toronto Star. But you have to choose your sources carefully.
The WaPo's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers was a no-brainer, since they'd already been scooped on the story. A WaPo article that begins with "the New York Times reported today that..." is unlikely to result in prosecution.
By publishing the Papers, the NYT revealed that the Johnson Administration had been lying to the public and to Congress about the scope of the Vietnam war. It also revealed the craven nature of the American press, since the main news outlets failed to report what they knew to be happening on the ground in that war.
Other than that, the publication of the Pentagon Papers contributed little to democracy. None of the liars in government were prosecuted and the press continues to suppress information about US government activities, see e.g. how the NYT sat on an article about the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping of Americans for over a year so it wouldn't affect his re-election prospects.
The American media is easily manipulated, avoids asking hard questions, and conceals blatant government wrongdoing from the public by reporting partisan jibber-jabber without identify who is being truthful and who is lying. In other words, not much had changed.
Cap
As you know Owen, I spent more than 5 years writing about Hapers attacks upon our democracy and would like to think that I had some small impact on the change of government but I have to say that Trump makes Harper look like a benign leader.
History should teach us a lesson, perhaps some of our readers who support the Orange Oaf should read where it led us at https://democracyunderfire.blogspot.ca/2015/09/harper-history-conclusion-index.html
You have done yeoman's service, Rural. As you wrote:
Democracy is much more than having the ability to select your dictator every few years, let us take care to elect individuals who do not subscribe to that view.
We live under the shadow of the New Authoritarins. That makes this a dangerous time.
Newspapers are the last bastion of informed democracy but governments, ours included, have done little if anything to prevent their decline. We had the Davey Report and the Kent Commission that explored in meticulous detail how toxic corporatism would be to a free press in Canada. Two of the greatest threats they revealed were concentration of ownership and media cross-ownership. How did we respond to that? PostMedia, the Sun Group, CanWest, Bell GlobeMedia and more.
In the era of the Corporate Voice, newsrooms have been shuttered; journalists, some of them quite good, laid off; papers closed; all supposedly because of a lack of advertising revenue, a doubtful claim once the books are scrutinized.
The truly insidious part, however, is the rise of messaging in place of information throughout the corporate media. Take facts, dress 'em up, spin them if you like and - voila - you have a commodity of exchange. This is where they dynamic shifted. The news media, once the watchdog of government and the powerful, shifted allegiance. Instead of representing the public it came to represent governments and the powerful, transforming from watch dog into lap dog. The barking hounds were kenneled and then quietly put down.
Harper was fine with this, even breaking the rules to allow American vulture capitalists to gain effective control of PostMedia. Trudeau has shown not the slightest interest in restoring a free press to Canada. I don't hear the NDP howling in outrage either. By and large we, the people, remain docile to this subversion of our democracy.
I would like to imagine that, some day, we will rise up, en masse, shake off our torpor and do what our governments have not done. That's probably wishful thinking. We're nowhere near the bottom yet but we're getting there faster with each passing year.
Like you, Mound, I hope for an uprising. But I don't see it coming.
The New York Times has it own problems, Cap. That said, print offers the potential for a thoroughly informed debate. The problem is that today's citizens are not thoroughly informed.
.. as a highly active pedestrian, cyclist, driver, roller blader.. with truly acute curiosity & powers of observation - I cannot miss the cultural change brought about by cel phones. I am all over the city by the lake - Toronto. Public places, public transit, retail, restaurants, schools, theatres, work related environments, homes, construction sites, hospitals, courtrooms.. you name it, I have probably been there, seen it, got the t-shirt.
I am almost thunderstruck to see someone reading a book in public. Much less a hardcover. Yes the odd newspaper spotted too.. but even the free one they hand you at subways stations & thoughfully pile on buses are becoming scarce sightings. its cel phone cel phone cel phone.. peeps playing games, watching tv, texting texting texting.. email email email.. and yak yak yakkity yak.
If video killed the radio star.. cel phones are killing journalism.. while Itunes is smothering the music industry.. has anyone seen a typesetter in the last 25 years? The desktop revolution made them extinct.. I could go on and on re the quicksand of technology & culture.. and the so called 'cutting edge'..
Certainly I can't speak for those who 'get their news' from Facebook or Fox.. or like the fake president of the US of A who simply does not read anyway. Some folks believe the conspiracy spew of Alex Jones, some that of Sean Hannity or Sara Huckabee Sanders.. but in any grocery store you will still see magazines of scandal, the evergrowing Kardashian family tree, or the latest 'trophy' of notable bwana Eric Trump. I myself remain fluid, embrace new school and revere old school.. insofar as the 'delivery' mode or technology.. try to spend 2-3 hours minimum on creative fiction 'writing' or being scathingly cynical plus an equal amount reading diverse opinionation, source documents, transcripts, fiction.. from the bounty of the internut.. all this via multiple devices made in China for Apple
These are crazy times
and like Hunter S Thompson
or George Carlin, or Tom Thompson..
one must be capably extreme just to
paddle out to navigate the torrent
much less to comprehend it
or explain it, ridicule it..
or avoid it and paint something wondrous
These are crazy times, sal. The modes of communication are changing. I delivered the Montreal Star as a kid. And, as a teenager, I visited the press room and the presses. There was something wonderous and thunderous about metal type and those presses.
The Star went bankrupt long ago, the victim of a shrinking English population in Quebec. We can't go back. We have to adapt. But that does not mean we have to become stupid.
I'd like to think Saint Barack Obama should get a shout-out from Krugman. If it's Donald Trump who hates leakers the most, then Obama (who prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined) must be a close second.
With regards to the Post's decision. It WAS historic. As much as Kathleen Graham was a member of the ruling class, certain socio-cultural forces had aligned to make even corporate news sources aspire to integrity. And even Washington DC thought it had to appeal to public opinion.
Now of course, with the triumph of neo-liberalism, with the system's digestion of the trauma of the "Vietnam Syndrome," continued sophistication of the public relations/propaganda system, and the realization on the part of the ruling class that leftists as a whole will NEVER do anything untoward, no matter how much they're abused, ... it's full steam ahead for illegal wars of aggression, openly practicing torture, coddling of bankster criminals, and general rape and pillage of all the Earth.
It took courage for Graham to publish the Pentagon Papers, thwap. These days, there are very few Profiles in Courage.
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