De Commerciele Massamedia 7

De Amerikaanse auteur Norman Solomon schrijft: 'Media Memorial Day.
People who are concerned about the state of the US news media in 2006 might pause to consider those who have lost their lives in the midst of journalistic neglect, avoidance and bias.
We remember that while TV and radio news reports tell the latest about corporate fortunes, vast numbers of real people are struggling to make ends meet - and many are in a position of choosing between such necessities as medicine, adequate food and paying the rent.
We remember that many Americans have lost their limbs or their lives in on-the-job accidents that might have been prevented if overall media coverage had been anywhere near as transfixed with job safety as with, say, marital splits among Hollywood celebrities.
We remember that the national and deadly problem of widespread obesity is in part attributable to constant advertising for products with empty calories and plenty of fat.
We remember that despite public claims by tobacco companies, the ads that keep trying to glamorize smoking continue to lure millions of young people onto a long journey of addiction to cancer-causing cigarettes.
We remember that superficial news reports and commentaries, routinely describing war in flat phony antiseptic terms, are helpful to the US war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq - where the deaths of American troops, while horrific, are small in number compared to the civilian deaths as a result of daily slaughter catalyzed by US military activities.
We remember that each war death takes a precious life, and media outlets rarely convey more than surface accounts of the actual grief of loved ones left behind.
We remember that massive amounts of front-page space and unchallenged air time on television and radio are used by the president and other top administration officials, who speak glibly about patriotism and sacrifice while their long records of deception continue to underlie insistence that sacrificed lives must be honored by sacrificing more lives.
We remember that lies from the White House, widely parroted and commonly touted as credible by news media, have preceded every major US military action in the last five decades, including invasions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq... We remember that standard journalism fails to do much to put us in touch with human realities of war.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906X.shtml