Monthly Archives: March 2013
ANTI-BIGOTRY: “Imagine a World Without Hate” / Anti-Defamation League
h/t: Planet Atheism
h/t: toomanytribbles.blogspot.com
CENSORSHIP: “The Freedom to Criticize Ideas” / Rowan Atkinson
AMURIKAN PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: “American Prisons Facts” / Stephen Fry
CHRISTIAN SATIRE: “Fatal Beatings” / Rowan Atkinson
h/t: unreasonable faith
CHRISTIAN PEDOPHILIA: “The Story of Salvation”
CHRISTIAN BIGOTRY: “Everybody Must Get Stoned” / Mr Fish
h/t: Truthdig.com
CATHOLIC SATIRE: “Bill Maher Vs. The Pope” / Bill Maher
“What other business could you be in where your company gets caught running a child sex ring since forever and you still keep your customers?”
EVOLUTION: “I Don’t Get Creationist . . .”
CORPORATE MEDIA: “The Day That TV News Died” / Chris Hedges
I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual—a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.
Donahue and Bill Moyers, the last honest men on national television, were the only two major TV news personalities who presented the viewpoints of those of us who challenged the rush to war in Iraq. General Electric and Microsoft—MSNBC’s founders and defense contractors that went on to make tremendous profits from the war—were not about to tolerate a dissenting voice. Donahue was fired, and at PBS Moyers was subjected to tremendous pressure. An internal MSNBC memo leaked to the press stated that Donahue was hurting the image of the network. He would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” the memo read. Donahue never returned to the airwaves.
[…]
Television news celebrities are in the business of sales, not journalism. They peddle the ideology of the corporate state. And too many of us are buying.
The lie of omission is still a lie.
Related articles
- Phil Donahue on His 2003 Firing from MSNBC, When Liberal Network Couldn’t Tolerate Antiwar Voices (aislec.wordpress.com)
- Phil Donahue: Chris Matthews Was ‘Threatened’ By Me (huffingtonpost.com)