AFFLICTING THE POWERFUL
The Difference Between Media Elites And True Journalists
HERE’S OCCUPY WALL STREET’S GREATEST SUPPORTER GLENN GREENWALD dropping a dime on America’s top journalists for being elitists. He takes particular aim at the New York Times former executive editor Bill Keller, the son of a former Chevron CEO, and CNN talker Erin Burnett, fiance to a Citigroup executive, for being “scornful of Wall Street protesters.”
“This is who our media class is,” Greenwald said during a conversation with Salon founder David Talbot. “They are integrated fully into the political class and are dependent upon and eager to serve those in power rather, um, than serve as watchdogs over them. And that’s why they lead the way in demanding that there be no investigations, demanding that there be no accountability because these are their friends,… these are the people they admire.”
Greenwald points out that journalists historically were working class scribes who were “dispositionally” outsiders: “somebody who wanted to subvert those in power and elites. They were not at all part of the elite class.” But something’s changed over the last few decades and now America’s media is filled with the entitled who know nothing about crippling mortgages or health care bills, who benefit financially and spiritually from the lavish entitlements of being well-off.
As we deconstruct how we’ve arrived this time in our nation when a major Republican presidential candidate can claim straight-faced that he’s no lobbyist despite collecting millions from corporations to join his “consulting company,” and when supposed Democratic champion of the people Nancy Pelosi profits off insider information, we’d be well-served to note how the U.S. media’s been co-opted by elites.
“[Gingrich’s] view of himself (Churchillian, ”transformational,” “historian”) doesn’t match his own track record, which is a history of milking the Washington lobbyist-legislator connection for great personal wealth.
”Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post
And reminding us just what a real journalist looks like — and the sacrifice real truth-telling takes — check out Julian Assange’s statement below as he collected Australia’s most prestigious award for “most outstanding contribution to journalism.” The Walkley Foundation honored WikiLeaks‘s founder for his “courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency.”
WikiLeaks’ “revelations from the way the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact. This innovation could just as easily have been developed and nurtured by any of the world’s major publishers – but it wasn’t….WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange took a brave, determined and independent stand for freedom of speech and transparency that has empowered people all over the world.”
If you want to see how scary real journalism is, consider that Assange remains under house arrest in England awaiting possible extradition to Sweden for questioning for suspiciously timed alleged sex offenses, and his prize-winning journalistic outfit is near dormant as it fights “extralegal assault” by U.S. conglomerates that cut off funding. And if you care deeply about the truth, consider donating to one of the the greatest truth-telling outfits ever conceived.
