De Commerciele Massamedia 5

Men kan veel over de Amerikaanse democratie zeggen, maar toch once in a while staat er iemand op en zegt de waarheid tegen de politieke macht en de macht van de masamedia. Was er maar in Nederland een humorist of satiricus die de misselijk makende serviliteit van veel Nederlandse journalisten belachelijk maakte. Sydney Blumenthal schrijft: 'Ridicule and contempt. An imperial president is smothering the system of checks and balances, imperiling free speech. The most scathing public critique of the Bush presidency and the complicity of a craven press corps was delivered at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday by a comedian. Bush was reported afterwards to be seething, while the press corps responded with stone-cold silence. In many of their reports of the event they airbrushed out the joker. Stephen Colbert performed within 10 yards of Bush's hostile stare and before 2,600 members of the press and their guests. After his mock praise of Bush as a rock against reality, Colbert censured the press by flattering its misfeasance. "Over the last five years you people were so good - over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out ... Here's how it works: the president makes decisions ... The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spellcheck and go home ... Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!".' Lees verder:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1766835,00.html Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050406K.shtml