I’m in the middle of an overnight shift at the woman’s and children’s shelter and I’m really wired on some hippie energy drink I bought at Newfronz. And I’m catching up on the news. Normally I leave much of the mainstream media, let alone Glenn Beck, out of any critical discussion of the media. But seriously. Glenn Beck. I can’t F’ing stand him. He’s a fear monger. He prays on insecurities. He has an answer and works backwards, which is the opposite of what journalists do. His analysis is propaganda. His logic is loony tunes.

I just watched this:

So he took every protest that occurred throughout the world from the last two years and put together this cookoo crazy pants story about how there is a coordinated conspiracy. Anyone paying attention to international news during the last two years knows that each of these instances throughout the world has little if anything to do with one another. France protested because of labor issues, others because of student tuition increases, inadequate wages…Irish citizens demonstrated in reaction to a massive bailout. Yet according to Beck it’s all a coordinated Islamo-fascist take over. He gives his audience no credit. Maybe they don’t deserve it. I’m so sick of this shit.

This guy is on television with his own show! There is zero accountability for his lies, accusations, and conspiracies.

And they’ll tell you the media is liberal. That tea-party favorite, Christine O’Donnell from Delaware, just launched a political action group aimed at fighting back against the liberal media. We hear it all the time.

Lets be honest. Today the Democrats in our country sound more and more like republicans and republicans sound more and more like crazy over-medicated, insecure creepy weirdo racists that are increasingly out of touch with physical reality.

Back to the media. First of all, we live in society with an election process that is for sale. As long as any corporation, even international and multi-national corporations, are free to contribute as much money to elections as they want, the integrity of the whole voting process is shot. Same thing with the media. We can’t expect any media to be objective if they have to answer to sponsors. How are we to react when we see an “investigative story” into big oil, then see an ad for Shell or BP? How are we supposed to react to news pieces about government bailouts just after an advertisement for Fannie Mae? It’s a joke. It’s news and information that is displayed through a particular lens – one that is sure not to be too critical of the many hands that feed it. Journalism needs to be above these interests.

Second of all, lets look at the major figures in popular media. Think of the most far-right conservative talking heads in media today. Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Pat Robertson… If these folks don’t have their own show, they have their own friggin’ network. These folks can often spout the most racist, sexist, close-minded conservatism our country can muster. For the most part, all this goes unchecked.

Now, think of their counterparts in the media. If these folks represent the far right, who in the media represents the far left?

Yeah, I can’t think of any either. Gross, Olbermann, Maddow? Give me a break! The far left is not represented in the media at all. Where are the critical and meaningful debates on environmental racism? The anti-war movement (I know, what anti-war movement)? Critical discussions on loss of species, peak oil, forced sterilization, preventable diseases, or acquaintance rape? When have you seen any critical discussions on the cultural and physical health of emerging technologies, biotechnologies, or pharmaceuticals? Of course there are not these discussions when the next commercial is from Monsanto or Dow Chemical. When have you ever seen the media speak with an indigenous person? When was the last time you’ve ever heard a critique of consumerism in the media? That’s right, there can’t be a critique of consumerism if the media is predicated on industrial capitalism. Again, journalism needs to be above all these interests.

Folks often point to the fact that most journalists happen to vote democratically, therefore the media is liberal. This predication assumes that individual journalists have any say or power in deciding exactly what will be reported, and perhaps more importantly, how it will be reported – how the news agency, loyal to it’s advertisers, will frame the issue.

There is an old propaganda tool at work here too. “Tell it like it ain’t.” The more folks say the media is liberal, the less we really know what liberal means and the more far-left views are marginalized. This works to the advantage of the far-right media in legitimizing their crazy cookoo pants ideologies.

It is no great secret that I am in love with Democracy Now!. Their recent coverage of the on-going protests in Egypt have been unparalleled. It has been the most honest, personal, and professional display of journalism I think I’ve ever seen. And of course, they have no advertisers. While the mainstream media often argues back and forth between two view points, DN!’s coverage reveals multiple perspectives that is completely beyond anything the mainstream media is even structurally capable of.

I don’t have much to say about Swine Flu except that everyone should relax. Here are the facts on cases and deaths:

Mexico: 101 suspected deaths – 16 confirmed
US: One death, 160 confirmed cases
New Zealand: 4 confirmed, 12 probable cases
Canada: 35 confirmed cases
UK, Spain: 15 confirmed cases
Germany: 4 confirmed cases
France, Israel, Costa Rica: 2 confirmed cases
Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Italy: 1 confirmed case

If you’ve ever had the flu before, you know that you feel crummy for two days. You puke and you drink a bunch of water. Then you’re fine. From what I understand, this is really no different.

Egypt went ahead and killed 300,000 pigs as a precaution despite the fact that you can’t get swine flu from eating pork.

There is one issue that should be obvious: Factory Farming and industrial meat production.

Swine flu. Bird flu. Mad cow disease. SARS. These diseases have all spread from animals to humans in one form or another. But animals aren’t to blame for outbreaks of animal-borne diseases — humans are.

Our demand for meat means pigs, turkeys, chickens, cows and other animals must be mass produced in crowded, feces-ridden factory farms like the one in Mexico that is suspected of starting the current swine flu outbreak. These farms are incubators for disease.

Pork producers and other U.S. officials are calling for a name change, saying “swine” flu is hurting their businesses.

U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.

At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the “H1N1 virus.”

Bullshit, it’s already swine flu and the public isn’t going to change it now. If we are going to change the name, lets call it what it is: Factory Farm Flu. We can even call it “F-Squared” as long as people know that the origin of these illnesses do not come from Mexico and they do not come from pigs or other animals; they are created in the conditions of industrial meat production.

Lets take all the hysteria and all the energy geared toward this virus and direct it toward the real underlying problems.

this is sooooo good. Even if the pbs guy is a little goofy, his questions are good.

First of all, when I speak of the news media here, I’m referring specifically to mainstream (corporate and politically owned media). I’m referring to cable television news, the mainstream press, and yes, even
NPR.

When there is a debate in the news, each station will moderate a conversation between two people who supposedly represent each side of a given issue. One person takes the “conservative” viewpoint and one takes the “liberal” viewpoint. The trouble is, the conservative position is usually far to the right, while the so-called liberal side is, in fact, closer to the center. This helps to create more of a resolve at the end of the debate. The truth is, the far left is not represented anywhere in mainstream news.

Here is my explanation. Think of the people who represent the most extreme right point of view, the conservative of the conservatives. People like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell come to mind for me. Now, think of the people that represent the other side of the spectrum. I’m not referring simply to democrats or self-described spineless liberals; I’m talking about the far left. The question is, do they have the same access to mainstream media as the far right?

Bill O’Reilly says “The Daily Kos is the absolute worse, routinely printing defamation and hatred at a level never before seen in the United States.” Juan Williams, a Fox News Analyst claims “Daily Kos has become — has come to some way be the voice of the far left in the country.”

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is founder and publisher of Daily Kos, the largest progressive community blog in the United States. Named “the single most successful entrepreneur of the progressive movement.” While I respect his work and his accomplishments on and off the Internet, he does not represent the far left in this country. Further, popular “liberal” bloggers like him are not popular because of their stance on political, social, and environmental issues, rather they are popular because of what they have to say about the other side. Besides, the only time I’ve ever seen him on television is on the O’Reilly Factor.

MSNBC has recently countered Fox’s obnoxious punditry with Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. The station just dropped them because they are “too liberal.” Being liberal has become synonymous with Bush-bashing and being a democrat. And democrats are not the far left of this country. With a 30% approval rating, it’s pretty damn safe to be a Bush-basher.

As long as bitter, spineless, all criticism/no substance “journalists” like Olbermann and Matthews are painted as “too liberal,” the far left will never be represented in the media. In this way, those fragmented quotes from the far left that do make it into the media are considered crazy and “out of step with Americans” and the insanity of the far right is more accepted.

It is the corporate owned media that is out of step. If racist, sexist, senile assholes like Pat Robertson get a prime-time television show, who is on television from the left to counter it? Olbermann? Give me a break! If pill-popping, far-right (who is also racist and sexist) radio voices like Rush Limbaugh are broadcasted coast to coast, who will counter it on the left? Terri Gross? Once again, give me a break! As long as people like Olbermann and Gross are represented as “too liberal,” Sarah Palin can go on television and tell us that constructing a gas and oil pipeline through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is “God’s will” and nobody seems to bat an eye. Nevermind the fact that when members of other religions refer to “God’s will,” our media calls them “terrorists” and “fundamentalists.”

The next time you turn on the television, look for interviews with RNC protestors who were arrested. Look for animal rights activists. Look not for people who want to drill sparingly in Alaska or offshore here and there, but those who think we should stop drilling all together. Look for words like patriarchy, institutional racism, exploitation of third world communities, theft of resources, and corporate responsibility. Look for anyone critiquing our foreign policy without being accused of “hating America.” Look for any talk of dismantling fundamentally unsustainable systems and I guarantee you won’t find it. One of the central rules of propaganda is if you want a group of people to think of an issue in a particular way, your premises need to reflect the opposite of reality. So when the corporate-owned media describes itself as “too liberal,” this is done to make radically conservative points of view appear more credible. More of this in the video below.