Last night, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings lost his battle with cancer. When the news broke, I was almost moved to tears. This wasn’t just the passing of perhaps one of the finest news anchors of his news generation (and perhaps one of the few that held high standards) this was the passing of the generation itself and a sign of decline for the major media.
I had heard Jennings interviewed a few years back by NPR interviewer Teri Gross (on Fresh Air), and he really impressed me. When asked who his hero was, the Canadian born Jennings responded by calling the whole concept of having a hero an American idea that is often overused, but if pressed for an answer he would choose his father. A fine answer I thought.
He was one of the few anchors to pull stunts like a prime-time news special on those annoying pharmaceutical ads and whether or not they were productive to the society at large. This was especially bold considering the nightly news is saturated with such ads. In an interview he referred to such a move as possibly “biting the hand that feeds you.” I never saw Brokaw or Rather ever come anywhere close to taking such a chance.
Jennings from what I have heard, seen and read was a decent human being who fought to report the truth as best he could. Yet as the media industry was bought up by corporate America and his age began to bring on questions of his inevitable retirement, the vultures began to circle. Now this is purely speculation but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there are younger anchors waiting in the wings, nor does it take that same genius to discover that the expanding media corporation wouldn’t “mind” having a more compliant news anchor at the helm, sanitizing the news in the interest of his employers, for whom he/she is so grateful for the job.
Why? Because when the FCC lifted the rules on media ownership, allowing ABC owners Disney to become richer and more powerful, stories like that can now more easily be shelved (and even with Jennings in there, how often did you hear about it?). But more importantly, and this is where people like Jennings really count, when the President is involved in pre-conceived plots to start a war that will increase the pocket-books of Halliburton and even smear the identities of people who descent by outing their CIA agent wife (which is highly illegal), it takes a trust-worthy and active investigative reporting agency to expose people like the President for the crimes that they have committed. The network executives are usually too busy enjoying their handouts from the White House to notice such an obvious crime. When Jennings was in command of ABC, I was assured that someone up there was at the very least fighting to get the truth out on the air, even if those efforts were often in vain. With someone like that in charge of the network news, it guarantees the floodgates will burst when a smaller news agency finally does break the story. It isn’t always the networks that break the hard-hitting stories; Watergate was cracked by the less-respected (in those days) Washington Post. With people like Jennings now out of the loop, it is a sad day for a public in desperate need of serious journalism.
At this point Dan Rather is gone (perhaps set up by Karl Rove?), Tom Brokaw is too, even Nightline is in different hands, and now, Peter Jennings. American’s already didn’t trust the media by an almost 3 to 1 margin. Now we have a whole new cast of characters like NBC’s Brian Williams to get to know, or CBS or ABC’s surprise interim replacements. It is highly likely that the age of the first name anchor is at an end, and the replaceable manikins of FOX and CNN, which all talk and look as if they had been manufactured from the same mediocre plastic factory (Knowing FOX, I’ll bet they’re made in China.)
Network news itself is in a state of crisis. The networks want to see profit, not public service (it’s just like the movie network, and I’m as MAD AS HELL!!!), and to make matters worse; the networks are beginning to see the FOX model (which is a sensationalized rip-off of CNN) to be the future of news. Cable is where they want to spoon feed us our news, and they want to do it in a way that makes us feel good about watching it (meaning they tell us what we want to hear), so that we watch more of it.
FOX has learned that there is enough news stories in a day to create an inconsistent truth in the headlines. For instance today, I went to FOX news and learned that their top stories were about the Space Shuttle, and the “Ongoing U.N. for Oil “Scandal”” (which is fluff, a meaningless heap of meaninglessness, just Republicans trying to justify their hatred of the U.N.). If you avoid FOX like you should, you would have no inkling this story is remotely important, on FOX it’s a headline. They play politics with everything they do. No mention of anything that could seriously hurt Bush, which means they are talking about a whole lot of nothing these days!
The point is to beware of spoon-fed news from either side. The truth isn’t always glamorous. In fact, it’s usually dull, ugly and simple. As an example, what is the real truth why Rupert Murdoch started his FOX news agency? Well all roads point to one very simple and dull response: money. It has nothing to do with his belief in Bush or Republicans or the moral right or any of that meaningless slop. If you look at his history, he is a man that acts on one simple guidance: money. (Just look at this story from today, where FOX is now giving money to Democrats) Not Christianity, not ideology, not some deep rooted personal crusade, just: anything that helps strengthen his company which in turn makes him… money.
Rupert’s unethical contributions to the destruction of the news industry have been far-reaching and infectious. I fear it is a cancer growing on the industry, slowly claiming ethics, decency and the truth itself! Reversing these trends will take decades. The first step is realizing it exists.
I can’t help but feel we are staring into the great unknown. Our news system needs to get better not worse. Our media did a poor job of informing this country about the CIA involvements around the globe (everywhere from Brazil to Indonesia), the Reagan “interventions” in Central and South America, Death Squads, Iran-Contra, Chilean women and children murdered because they were accused (wrongly) of being communist. The media failed to inform us of how Bush the 1st just up and left Afghanistan, leaving the Mujahadeen who later became the Taliban with Stinger missiles, which are still unaccounted for. Don’t even get me started on Iraq, which has been in my opinion, the largest exploitation of the U.S. media ever including the Spanish-American War.
The above-mentioned situations are at the core of hatred that is exploited by the enemies of the United States and used to recruit and carry out missions of terror. In other words: people want to kill you because we’ve been supporting unspeakable crimes abroad! This stuff DOES affect you! The folks that control the media just know it’s easier to sell crap to you when you’re not scared into staying home. They just want you depressed enough to bury you’re fears in consumerism!
Today, as we mourn the loss of one of the last true decent network news anchors, I fear that we are losing and have quite possibly already lost any hope in salvaging our news media. While the hour is very late, the technology you are using to view this very document could be the media’s saving grace. Blogs cannot save the future, however they have opened a door to something remarkably high tech that resembles the old broadside pamphleteering of the American Revolution (you remember in history class Mr. Thomas Paine don’t you?). Perhaps it can help break the strangle hold the corporations have on the media. A democracy cannot function without a press free from governmental control and perhaps, as we realize that our government should be free from the control of corporations, we should realize that our media should also be free from corporations. There is no need for General Electric, which makes plastic, weapons, light bulbs and crap to also control NBC. If the White House had any spine, they would consider this a vertical monopoly and try them under the Sherman Anti-Trust law (which was signed 100 years ago!).
Until we stand up, and begin to take back OUR government from these wolves in sheep’s clothing, we will continue to listen to THEIR news, get laid-off from THEIR jobs, and continue to die in THEIR wars.