{"id":1351,"date":"2008-06-03T14:59:16","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T19:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1351"},"modified":"2008-06-03T14:59:16","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T19:59:16","slug":"pissing-on-edward-r-murrows-gravecontinued-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1351","title":{"rendered":"Pissing On Edward R. Murrow’s Grave…(continued)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the years that follow the Bush Administration, you’ll be seeing a lot of people pointing the finger at Bush and his cronies for all the lies that got us into, and have kept us in Iraq.  And a lot of that finger pointing will be done, never doubt it, by the people most responsible<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\n

FAIR studied all on-camera sources on the nightly ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS newscasts: Less than 1 percent – 3 out of 393 sources – were antiwar. Only 6 percent were skeptical sources.<\/p>\n

This at a time when 60 percent of Americans in polls wanted more time for diplomacy and inspections.<\/p>\n

I worked 10-hour days inside MSNBC’s newsroom during this period as senior producer of Phil Donahue’s primetime show (cancelled three weeks before the war while the network’s most-watched program).<\/p>\n

Trust me: too much skepticism over war claims was a punishable offense. I and all other Donahue<\/em> producers were repeatedly ordered by top management to book panels that favored the pro-invasion side.<\/p>\n

I watched a fellow producer get chewed out for booking a 50-50 show.<\/p>\n

At MSNBC, I heard Scott Ritter smeared – on-air and off – as a paid mouthpiece of Saddam Hussein. After we had war skeptic and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark on the show, we learned he was on some sort of network blacklist.  <\/p>\n

When MSNBC terminated Donahue<\/em>, it was expected that we’d be replaced by a nightly show hosted by Jesse Ventura. But that show never really launched.<\/p>\n

Ventura says it was because he, like Donahue, opposed the Iraq invasion; he was paid millions for not appearing.<\/p>\n

Another MSNBC star, Ashleigh Banfield, was demoted and then lost her job after criticizing the first weeks of “very sanitized” war coverage. With every muzzling, self-censorship tended to proliferate. <\/p>\n

I’m no defender of Scott McClellan.  Some may say he has blood on his hands – and that he hasn’t earned any kind of redemption.<\/p>\n

But as someone who still burns with anger over what I witnessed inside TV news during that crucial historical moment, I’m trying my best to enjoy this falling out among thieves and liars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thieves and liars.  Yes.  That about sums up the miserable lot of them.  I was walking through the concourse of Washington National Airport the other day and noticed a CNBC News Store<\/em> in passing.  A Store<\/em>, mind you…like a Disney store or a Nicktoons store, or one of those As Seen On TV<\/em> stores.  You could buy a CNBC coffee mug, or a T-shirt, and books by various CNBC personalities.  I am living in a day and age when network news organizations have their own shopping boutiques.  You could get everything but the latest news there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the years that follow the Bush Administration, you’ll be seeing a lot of people pointing the finger at Bush and his cronies for all the lies that got us into, and have kept us in Iraq.  And a lot of that finger pointing will be done, never doubt it, by the people most responsible… […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,21,60],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-our-feckless-news-media","tag-the-abyss","tag-the-noise-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}