Read the stories that TV news networks forget to report!
MEDIA MALPRACTICE 9/11
THE ABYSMAL VACUUM FILLED BY THE MIGHTY MICHAEL MOORE TvNewsLIES.org - July - 2004
Never before in history has journalism so blatantly abandoned its traditional role as the watchdog of government. Never before has a spirited film maker so brilliantly stepped in to fill the abhorrent vacuum created by the corporate media.
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 became the first documentary to top $100 million at the US box office. Today, people are still flocking to their local movie theaters to discover disturbing facts about their president and his personal interests in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But today, the stories unearthed in the Moore film continue to be ignored, unreported and uninvestigated by the news networks of the American corporate media.
Never before in history has journalism so blatantly abandoned its traditional role as the watchdog of government. Never before has a spirited film maker so brilliantly stepped in to fill the abhorrent vacuum created by the corporate media. And never before has such vital, incriminating, and shocking information about their leaders been revealed to the public on a motion picture screen. What a damning stain this leaves on the integrity of American news reporting. And what a shameful legacy it will leave in the historic annals of these times.
Some of us knew. We knew about the Bush family and the bin Ladens. We knew about Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. We knew about the pipeline negotiations with the Taliban, and we knew about the PNAC warmongers. And some of us knew about the terrible casualties, both military and civilian, of the Bush wars. But most Americans did not. They had no clue.
From the first days of the Bush administration, the Internet was rife with alternative news sources that raised the issues, documented the truth, and exposed the culprits. It was the corporate media that turned its back and cowered in deference to the Bush regime. It was the corporate media that withheld, distorted, manipulated and lied outright. It was the corporate media that cheered the push to war as they competed for its coverage and higher ratings. And it was the corporate media, tragically, to which most of the nation turned for its nightly news.
Is this the way of the future? Will we now regularly turn to Michael Moore or other courageous film makers to tell us what we have an inherent right to know about our government? Those people who have viewed Michael Moore’s documentary now know how they were lied to, over and over, on the road to a pre-planned war. That’s good, but it’s not great.
On the brink of the most crucial election in recent American history, the voting public is still being denied the answers to a whole slew of questionable policies and actions of this administration. Will we have to wait for the sequels to Fahrenheit 9/11 in order to get them? It seems that we have no other choice but to await other documentaries if we want to know the truth about these unreported and under-reported stories:
The Medicare Bill ruse and deceptive cost estimates
The effect on the states of tax breaks for the wealthy
The Influence of the Religious Right on domestic and foreign policy
The PNAC influence on foreign policy and the Bush Doctrine
The great increase in terrorist cells since the Iraq invasion
The danger of electronic voting machines that have no paper trails
The continuing morass in Iraq with no end game in sight
The full story about prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan
The full story about the sexual abuse of children in Abu Ghraib
The disappearance of prisoners from Guantanamo
The secret prisons operated by the CIA
The deterioration of respect for the US as a world leader
The rage and hatred throughout the world towards G W Bush
…and so much more. The information vacuum continues to increase as the electorate becomes incrementally less informed. Despite the success of Fahrenheit 9/11, much of the public is going into this crucial election wearing blinders provided by the media. The corporate networks will allow the public to hear nothing beyond a brief reference that might be damaging to the White House or might impede the election of George W. Bush in November
We owe Michael Moore our deepest gratitude for what he was able to accomplish. He stepped up to the plate when an entire news industry had thrown the game. But we cannot absolve the media for its betrayal of the public trust. And we cannot throw the responsibility of informing the public to Michael Moore or those who would follow in his footsteps.
During the next few months, the untold stories must be publicized. The questions must be raised, even if some of the answers remain elusive. You can help. You can direct people to alternative news sites where they can access information about these stories. You can download and distribute informative flyers and articles that provide the facts and reinforce the questions that must be asked. You can let people know that there is no real news on the corporate news networks. You can let people know there is so much they have not been told. Let people know. That’s a must.
These may be the most important three months in our lives. The fate of the nation must not rest in the hands of an uninformed electorate. At TVNL we believe that if they really knew what was going on, the public would be outraged. Michael Moore turned his outrage into the creation of a film that opened the eyes of so many Americans. We can learn from him and turn our outrage into outreach. Let’s go for it.
