Leslie Griffith begins: "What we call something has everything to do with how we treat it. So, why do we as citizens continue to allow corporately-owned and government-sponsored media to be called 'Main Stream'? Those two words alone keep our country watching."
The New Face of the American 4th estate. (photo: Mat McDermott/flickr)
02 October 11
hat we call something has everything to do with how we treat it.
So, why do we as citizens continue to allow corporately-owned and government-sponsored media to be called "Main Stream"?
Those two words alone keep our country watching.
Why? Because we have been sold words that lack any real meaning. The "Main Stream" no longer speaks for Main Street, it speaks for Wall Street. But we buy into the lie when we buy into those words.
We must be more critical of what we see. For example, how many times did we see "reporters" like Brian Williams standing next to our Gulf Coast as the British Petroleum disaster unfolded? What did he tell us in the first days of that ecological disaster? "These are the smartest and most responsible oil workers on the planet." He gushed, just like the poison spilling into the Gulf. He is so deep into the Corporate-Government news business ... he doesn't seem to realize just how damaging his words can be and so often are.
And then there's Andrea Mitchell. She sleeps with and is married to Alan Greenspan, the man who helped get us in this economic debacle. Mitchell has her own "Main Stream" broadcast. She is sold as "middle of the road." But, of course, she delivers "Corporate-Government" controlled news.
The "Main Stream" now works for the same power brokers who seem to ignore the fact that we all breathe the same air, eat the same food, drink from the same water faucets and swim in the same sea.
When I was growing up in the extreme dysfunction-palooza of Texas it somehow occurred to me that the only ground worth standing on was the middle ground. If, as a reporter, it was possible to show all the angles, then citizen-viewers would have the tools to come back to the middle. But ... when is the last time you saw a newscast show all sides of a story, unless it was two sides just yelling at each other? When was the last time you saw all the facts, rather than only the opinions? Where is the middle ground?
Once upon a time, "the middle ground" was news from Main Street. But the middle has been abandoned. Now, we get affirmation news, whether it comes from FOX or MSNBC. Affirmation of hardened opinions is the status quo in Corporate-Government news.
If you do not believe this ... ask yourself: When is the last time the "Main Stream" news actually uncovered a story about a corporation - any corporation - ignoring the law and harming you? Or exposed just one of the lies our own government expects us to swallow?
Just look at the world we are living in today. Next to San Francisco Bay there are warning signs telling us not to eat the fish. Why? Unsafe levels of mercury in the fish. "Main Stream" reporters might show you pictures of the sign, but never question where that mercury is coming from in the first place. That is Corporate-Government news. That is not benign neglect ... that neglect is malicious.
Look up at the cell phone tower receivers allowed on church steeples and even elementary schools. The "Main Stream" might write about parental or parishioner complaints, but it will never question how it is that the cell phone receivers are multiplying like gerbils or why there are so few regulations governing their intrusion. We might ask why Corporate-Government media, the "Main Stream" media, just allows us to live in this neurologically destructive-Petri dish of a nation. You know the answer to that - it's not benign neglect ... it's malicious. "Main Stream" does not question those who buy hours of mobile phone commercial time and, therefore, pay their "reporters" salaries.
Opening the lens wider would only cause problems for Corporate-Government news.
When is the last time you or your family drank tap water? When did it become acceptable to live in a country with three-dollar bottled water ... instead of citizens insisting upon the basic right to have clean water?
Again, silence from the Corporate-Government news.
Allergies, cancer, autism and asthma are off the charts. Why don't we ask ourselves "why?" In today's Main Stream news the reporters who ask "why" get fired for doing it.
Just take a moment and look who owns the Corporate-Government mega-media conglomerates. It could be a corporation that makes nuclear bombs, military hardware and drone bombers. Can they be anything other than Pentagon propagandists? Don't they need to sell their products with mind-molesting slogans such as "We bring good things to life." Give me a break.
It is time to call the Main Stream by its proper name, because what we call things determines how we treat them. The Main Stream is now Corporate-Government news ... controlled, contrived and delivered to the unwitting consumer. It's the kind of news American leaders used to criticize in communist countries.
Leslie Griffith has been a television anchor, foreign correspondent and an investigative reporter in newspaper, radio and television for over 25 years. Among her many achievements are two Edward R Murrow Awards, nine Emmies, 37 Emmy Nominations, a National Emmy nomination for writing, and more than a dozen other awards for journalism. She is currently working on a documentary, giving speeches on "Reforming the Media," and writing for many on-line publications, as well as writing a book called "Shut Up and Read." She hopes the book, her speeches, and her articles on the media will help remind the nation that journalism was once about public service ... not profit. To contact Leslie, go to lesliegriffithproductions.com.
