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Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Laurie Garrett: "When
You See News As a Product...It's Impossible To Really Serve
Democracy"
State Propaganda: How Government Agencies Produce Hundreds
of Pre-Packaged TV Segments the Media Runs as News
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Laurie Garrett:
"When You See News As a Product...It's Impossible To
Really Serve Democracy"
We speak with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Laurie Garrett,
who resigned from Newsday and ripped the paper's parent company,
the Tribune Company, for putting profit over quality journalism.
Garrett says, “If you trim back your staff, if you trim
back your costs, and you put out a lower quality product,
your stock value goes up. All across the news industry, we
have seen this same phenomenon."
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Laurie Garrett made headlines
last week when she resigned from New York Newsday - where
she had worked since 1988.
In a blistering memo to her colleagues at the paper, she
ripped Newsday's parent company - the Tribune Company - for
putting profit over quality journalism. In the memo announcing
that she is going to work full time at the Council on Foreign
Relations, she wrote that "All across America news organizations
have been devoured by massive corporations - and allegiance
to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push
for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts
in the newsrooms consider their missions." She went on
to write, "This is terrible for democracy. I have been
in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the
horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on
the national psyche. I have found America a place of great
and confused fearfulness."
She continues: "It would be easy to descend into despair,
not only about the state of journalism, but the future of
American democracy. But giving up is not an option. There
is too much at stake."
Laurie Garrett joins us today in our studio. She is the author
of "The Coming Plague and Betrayal of Trust." She
won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for her reporting on the Ebola
virus. She's also won a Polk Award and a Peabody and was finalist
for another Pulitzer in 1998.
State Propaganda: How Government Agencies Produce
Hundreds of Pre-Packaged TV Segments the Media Runs as News
From the State Department to Agriculture to the Transportation
Security Administration, federal agencies under the Bush administration
have been producing hundreds of pre-packaged TV segments that
have been broadcast on local stations as real news. We speak
with John Stauber of PR Watch, which has been tracking the
rise of government and corporate-produced news for years.
A new report by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security
has found that al Qaeda may have already discussed plans to
hijack charter planes, helicopters and other general aviation
aircraft because they are less guarded than commercial airliners.
The internal report - obtained by The New York Times - detailed
particular vulnerabilities in what it called "the largely
unregulated" area of general aviation. The report makes
clear that counterterrorism officials still consider the aviation
industry to be a prime target for major attacks.
While the news grabbed headlines this past weekend, the Transportation
Security Administration has been spinning a very different
story. The TSA has been putting out video news releases that
have been broadcast on local news stations as real news. This
is an example.
- Video News Release produced by the Transportation Security
Administration.
That was a video news release featuring a "reporter"
who is actually a public-relations professional working under
a false name for the Transportation Security Administration.
Yesterday, The New York Times featured an extensive front-page
investigation detailing the extent that pre-packaged news
releases - produced by the federal government - are being
used by television stations all across the country.
The article reports that at least 20 federal agencies - including
the Defense Department and the Census Bureau - have distributed
hundreds of television news segments in the past four years.
Many were then broadcast on local stations without crediting
the government as the source of the information.
The article goes on to state that "the administration's
efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably
more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records
and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence
by television stations." Later the article says that
"some reports were produced to support the administration's
most cherished policy objectives like regime change in Iraq
and Medicare reform...They often feature quote, unquote "interviews"
with senior administration officials in which questions are
scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics are excluded as are
any hints of controversy, waste or mismanagement."
This is another example of a video news release produced
by the State Department.
- Video News Release produced by the State Department.
We go to Madison, Wisconsin to speak with John Stauber -
whose organization PR Watch has been tracking the rise of
government and corporate-produced news for years.
- John Stauber, Executive Director of the Center for Media
and Democracy, publishers of PR Watch.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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