Media Putz of the Week Award goes to: "Corporate Mainstream Media" 12/6/2007
For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.
We had to be convinced that the entire mainstream media (with some exceptions, such as the McClatchy Newspaper company) merits being named Media Putz of the Week. After all, BuzzFlash intended the "honor" to be bestowed on individuals.
However, BuzzFlash reader Carl Totton of Burbank, California, made such a compelling case, we had to agree with him.
Here is what Carl had to say:
"I love the Putz of the Week column. All of these are truly (un)deserving. I think that the caption called Honorees should more accurately be labeled (un)honorees, for these putzes surely have no sense of honor and only shame themselves to get big bucks.
"I would like to nominate the Mainstream National Media as a whole for the Media Putz of the Week. On a daily basis, the national media avoids serious inquiry, passes along White House and GOP talking points as gospel truth, and refuses to pursue through proper investigative journalism the real news and the malfeasance of the administration and their cronies.
"That is the only reason Bush and Cheney are still in office and have not been removed through investigation, impeachment, and imprisonment as the war criminals that they really are. Both would likely be on trial in The Hague by now if the national media were doing their job properly. If the national media were really doing their job, it is unlikely that the country would have let the Supreme Court install Bush and Cheney by stealing the election of 2000 in the first place. That was where the media first demonstrated that they were pawns of the corporate world and not willing to stand up for democracy and the rule of law.
"So, for all of these reasons and many more, the U.S. National News Media richly deserve the Media Putz of the Week distinction, if not of the decade. They are working on a lifetime achievement award for dissimulation and dishonesty. Shame on them, some Fourth Estate!"
In fact, the corporate mainstream media has set a frame for at least 20 years that generally mirrors the message points of the national Republican Party. Yes, media in the large urban areas may reflect so-called liberal social values, but they frame the political news in the terms that the GOP generally sets out.
That is because the mainstream media shares the Republican interest in corporate tax breaks, media deregulation, and the loosening of anti-trust enforcement, among other mutually beneficial economic interests.
Rarely does one find "the story behind the story" in the mainstream media. For example, when the NIE was released on Monday indicating that the Bush Administration had been duping us about Iran working on a nuclear bomb at this time, we could only find Seymour Hersh discussing why it had been held up for nearly a year -- and why it might have been suddenly released on Monday. If Cheney and Bush had suppressed the NIE findings for months -- which they did -- that would be quite a story wouldn't it? So where is it emphasized in the mainstream media?
Reporters in the corporate press know that they are on a short leash and not to dig too far, otherwise they might upset the White House -- and that would mean likely financial retribution against their corporate parents. It's just something that is wired into the corporate culture of the modern media.
So, BuzzFlash reader Carl Totton, we couldn't agree with you more. The December 6 BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week Award goes to the entire corporate mainstream media, because big journalism is now just big business with a pencil and a stenographer's pad -- or make that a laptop that knows how to download White House news releases and print them out as the truth, without any effort to get the story behind the story.
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