JB: Yes. I've noticed that people doggedly repeat memes that just don't make sense once you scratch below the surface. But they are wedded to them nevertheless. Sigh. What would you like to leave us with, Jeff, as we wrap this up?
JC: Amid so much bad news in US politics in recent years is some good news that I researched and taught in the journalism department at Ithaca College as founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media. Independent non-corporate media outlets have grown over the last 15 years. . . thanks to the Internet. Democracy Now! has grown and grown, with state of the art studios and a whole floor of a building in Manhattan. The Young Turks is influential. Thom Hartmann and Sonali Kolhatkar on radio and Free Speech TV. Community radio, and all the Pacifica affiliates. Well-funded nonprofit news sites like ProPublica and the Marshall Project. Put them all together with websites like yours [OpEdNews] and CommonDreams, Truthout, TruthDig, TheIntercept, CounterPunch, Reader Supported News. TheNation.com, InTheseTimes, etc etc. and we're talking about progressive journalistic outlets reaching millions of people every day. That's unprecedented in modern US history.
And there are dozens more! So that's what I'd like to leave people with: support indy media outlets.
Spread the word to your friends, relatives and neighbors. These outlets don't have big money for advertising outreach to new readers/listeners/viewers. Donate. They don't have commercial owners and sponsors. It's because they don't have corporate overlords THAT WE CAN MORE TRUST THE JOURNALISM THEY PRODUCE.
P.S. This growth in quality, indy journalistic outlets is largely attributable to an open Internet. But Internet Service Providers like Comcast and AT&T are working hand in glove with the Trump administration to end an open Internet -- by ending Net Neutrality. Who owns MSNBC? Comcast. Who owns CNN? AT&T. These are supposedly anti-Trump channels, right? Don't believe it. It's no accident you don't hear much on these channels about the biggest freedom of the press issue facing our country -- and that's saving Net Neutrality. In media coverage, corporate ownership (and corporate sponsorship) can have an undue influence over content, even if a subtle influence. I learned that when I was a mainstream TV news pundit at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. I wrote a book about it: Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKV7tT4OL1s
JB: Thanks for the shout out to OpEdNews and for talking with me, Jeff. It's been a pleasure. I hope we can do this some more as the primary season progresses.
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Here are 7 pressing questions for corporate media outlets about their blatantly anti-progressive biases 1.20.2020(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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