Let's firstly consider Gunnar's response to Putin's address. After applauding Putin's willingness to point to Washington's hypocrisy in key foreign policy areas and noting the seemingly irreversible loss of "respect and legitimacy" once commanded" by the U.S. in the international arena, Gunnar then cites as one of the main reasons the MSM's "utter failure to hold accountable, poor policy driven by corrupt, criminal special interests":
"Leaving it to Putin to point out the sorry state of American foreign policy grants Russia the respect and legitimacy the US would have otherwise held onto were it capable of putting its own house in order. The inability of America's media to serve public interests" is a symptom of America's greater malaise." [My Emphasis]
But the reality is even worse than that. The major U.S. media has not simply failed to hold Washington accountable for its destructive arrogance. The MSM chose to ridicule Putin for his undeniably accurate remarks. For instance, The Washington Post published an editorial entitled (in print editions), "Putinoia on full display," which said, about Putin's Valdai remarks, "out poured a poisonous mix of lies, conspiracy theories, thinly veiled threats of further aggression and, above all, seething resentment toward the United States."
The Post editors then cited examples of Putin's "Putinoia" such as his statements that the U.S. had "declared itself the winner of the Cold War" and promoted a "unipolar world [that] is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries."
Other examples of Putin's "madness", according to the Post, included his observations that Washington's interventions have created chaos around the world and that the overthrow of Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych was a "coup d'etat." In other words, Putin made observations that were either obviously true or certainly arguably true but the Post insisted on its own reality, one that grossly misleads its readers and implicitly sets the boundaries of MSM-approved debate.
As an exemplary case study, we again might look at the recently released Kill the Messenger, a film treatment of the life and times of investigative journalist Gary Webb. Webb attempted in 1996 to shed light on the CIA's connections to, and knowledge of, cocaine distribution by the Nicaraguan contras and their associates, and the consequent crack epidemic that spread across America throughout the eighties.
Ultimately his career was destroyed by a concerted, relentless character assassination and disinformation campaign by the Big Three of the U.S. print media -- The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times -- each one of which variously, yet ruthlessly distorted, and then refuted, Webb's claims. In 2004, his career and marriage over, and financially destitute, Webb - for several long years the MSM's favourite whipping boy - committed suicide.
If Webb's fate resulted from a rare manifestation of an unholy mix of journalistic nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance in the history of reportage and public opinion making, we might be able to cut the MSM a bit of slack. But sadly it is not, and we can't, not by a long shot from the Grassy Knoll. If its own "malfeasance" etc., did not amount to a bona fide conspiracy by the MSM to cover up criminal "nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance" at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it will do until the real one gets here.
That is was also designed to camouflage its own venality and incompetence is something we might also ponder. It is notable that it was not one, but three, of the so-called newspapers of record in established MSM circles that led the attack against one of their own. Taking into account the extraordinary significance of Webb's reportage, along with the fact it is now generally accepted he largely got his story right (and by some accounts may have understated the complicity or awareness of higher powers into what was happening), his own personal and professional odyssey is a savage, wholly justifiable indictment on all things MSM in the Home of the Brave.
Yet insofar as we can gather, none of them has openly or unequivocally acknowledged its complicity in covering up the details of Webb's revelations and/or for what they did in destroying his career, his family and ultimately his life. No-one has been held to account, and no-one has apologised.
The fact that at least one of these papers -- again we're talking the redoubtable Washington Post -- is still trying to defend the indefensible is surely another nail in the coffin of the ancien regime of the corporate controlled media, information and news industry. It seems though the Post may only be rubbing salt into its own wounds, as any number of more independent media folk seem determined to set the record straight on Webb's behalf.
Weapons of Mass Disinformation
As for the rest of the MSM cohort who jumped onto the Big Three's "Get Gary Webb" bandwagon, it would appear they are letting sleeping dogs lie in the wake of the film's release. It's unknown if they are doing this to preserve whatever integrity they might have left over their own attacks on Webb and/or failure to undertake their own investigations, or whether it is because they really don't care one way or another. Webb may just have been collateral damage -- an 'expendable' -- in the perennial War on Truth in MSM circles.
If Watergate was a high-water mark then in investigative reportage and political news coverage in the U.S., the example of which might be held up to demonstrate the establishment could always be counted on to demand transparency and hold, without fear or favour, those in power at the highest levels of government to account for their behaviour -- and by some accounts there are compelling reasons after all these years to view this assessment with some scepticism -- then the Webb affair would have to qualify as a suitable case study at the other end of the spectrum.
As significant as Webb's story is in its implications for a free, fair and fearless mainstream press in America, as indicated, this is the norm, not the exception. With this in mind, we can hardly expect that we are going to get the kind of news and information we need to remain "alert and knowledgeable", in an age where being so has possibly never been more important in homo sap's sorry ass history on the Big Blue Ball.
As indicated there are numerous examples past and present of that Unholy Trinity of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance in mainstream journalistic reportage, from Pearl Harbor to JFK; from Vietnam to the Iran-Contra Scandal; from the first Gulf War, the Balkans War to the events of 9/11; from Iraq's WMDs, and the War on Terror; from the GFC to Benghazi up until the present day. And these only skim the surface. If these bastions of fair and fearless reportage are the newspapers of record, the record is patchy indeed.
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