No wonder very few in America seem aware of what's at stake here, the current magnitude of the tension, the potential for this crisis escalating into World War III, or the possibility of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S.
This is a frightening and dangerous breech of trust between the American people and its news sources. How are people supposed to make informed judgments about what their government is doing in their name without knowing what's going on?
Then again maybe the point is . . . they're not.
Of course, it's much worse than just sins of omission.
The other half of the story is the deception __ the gross distortions and outright lies that sometimes appear.
Sometimes the distortions are so profound, if you were to lay an article written for U.S. public consumption next to one on the exact same topic written by a correspondent from a non-NATO country, you would think they were about two completely different, unrelated matters. Often you get an entirely opposite rendering of what actually happened.
There is, of course, a pattern here. It's one I've seen unfolding and becoming increasingly obvious over the past few years.
At first it surfaced as journalists just respectfully aligning their perceptions and editorial perspectives to official government positions on any matters pertaining to international relations and formulation of foreign policy. Politeness and pandering discreetly replaced asking probing questions and conducting deep-source investigation.
That
morphed into advocating and cheer leading on behalf of the government.
We saw an abundance of this leading up to the second Iraq war. Press
conferences with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were like frat
parties before a home game.
American
media now only mimics the official government line. Rather than actually
cover the news, investigate it thoroughly and report it objectively, it
merely takes dictation from the official spokespersons for the White
House, State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland
Security, and other agencies, including the NSA and CIA. Doing original
research, challenging shoddy reasoning, objecting to spurious claims,
demanding proof and corroboration, all have faded into a hazy memory of
quaint bygone times.
I can only draw one conclusion.
There is indeed freedom of the press in America.
But it's not quite what I understood it to be.
Now it's the freedom to keep Americans in the dark.
It's the freedom cherry-pick from the vast array of newsworthy items and only publish those consistent with the preferred narrative of our government.
It's the freedom to suppress anything which official spokespersons find inconvenient or untimely in their ongoing effort to enforce their manufactured version world events.
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