Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

UG#682 - The Commercially Controlled Media (Shadows Of Liberty)

Robin Upton | 11.05.2014 02:09 | Analysis | History | Social Struggles | Sheffield | World

This week, a look at the CCM, how the corporate media is commercially controlled - how large money successfully shapes its output. We adapt Jean-Phillipe Lemay's Shadows of Liberty, followed by an excerpted speech by Jeremy Scahill on war crimes carried out by the US but unreported in USA by the large media corporations.

ug682-hour1mix.mp3 - mp3 27M

ug682-hour2mix.mp3 - mp3 27M


We begin this week with a radio adaptation of Jean-Phillipe Lemay's film on the degeneration of the US ma$$ media, from the selling off of the radio spectrum to the highest bidder, the dogma that large corporations would somehow be more efficient at serving the public interest, the relaxation of cross ownership rules to Obama's abandonment of net neutrality. The film is more of a retrospective than anything else, and alongside a brief summary of the historical importance of the free press in the development of America, it presents a number of illustrative episodes that characterize the reality and history of the CCM in the last century. It opens with CBS chief correspondent Roberta Baskin's investigations into abusive labor practices at Nike sweatshops in Vietnam. She tells how after her first investigation sparked controversy and opposition to the company, her subsequent efforts were buried amid massive sponsorship by Nike of the CBS Olympic coverage.

A Wiki For Unwelcome Guests Listeners: - www.WikiSpooks.org

An Add-in For Firefox Users: - www.WikipediaPlus.org

To illustrate the concept of media "black holes", we examine the case of TWA Flight 800, which fell out of the sky at the same time as unexplained live fire exercises were being carried out by the US Navy in the sea below. We hear how at the first press conference when it was announced that the navy were in charge of the clean up process, when a man asked why a possible suspect had been given such a responsibility, the speaker simply pointed and said "Remove him!" and he was hustled away by a team of men. Kristina Burjesson tells how she was quickly prohibited from investigating what happened and her career was rapidly terminated when it became known that she disbelieved the government's claim it was an accident.

The film looks in detail that the case of Gary Webb, whose Dark Alliance reporting was the first by a local paper to effectively use the WWW to set the national news agenda. As we hear, the truth of Webb's reporting was eclipsed by a tangle of other factors, and his newspaper backed away from it and caved under pressure from the establishment.

Most of the speakers are new to the show, but some are regular speakers on the show such as whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds who speaks on how the CCM failed to report her evidence that a US government official was selling nuclear secrets to Turkey & Chris Hedges who speaks on the especially cozy relationship between the media and the government in times of war, and deconstructs how his paper sold the war to the US public.

We conclude with Jeremy Scahill on the murderous ways in which the US military enriches the elite who control it. Scahill tears back the curtain behind the stage managed infotainment conflict to reveal not just individual murder by US troops on the ground, but systemic abuse and corruption and complicity at the highest level.

Thanks to Kenneth Dowst for pointing me to the film, Shadows of Liberty

Robin Upton
- e-mail: unwelcome [At] unwelcome Guests [d0t] net
- Homepage: www.unwelcomeguests.net/682

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech