The Myth of a Free Press

[Guest guest]

Into the Buzzsaw

Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press. The following are excerpts

from the fascinating accounts of 18 award-winning journalists in the book INTO

THE BUZZSAW, edited by Kristina Borjesson. All of these writers were prevented

by

corporate media ownership from reporting major, incredibly revealing news! Some

were even fired or laid off! These journalists have won numerous awards,

including several Emmies and a Pulitzer Award. If we want to make our world a

better place, it's vitally important that we spread this news across the land.

 

Jane Akrehas -- Fox News reporter.

After our struggle to air an honest report, Fox fired the general manager [of

our

station]. The new GM explained that if we didn't agree to changes that the

lawyers were insisting upon, we'd be fired for insubordination within 48 hours!

We pleaded with [him] to look at the facts we'd uncovered. His reply: " We paid

$3

billion dollars for these TV stations! We'll tell you what the news is! The news

is what we say it is! " [After we refused,] Fox's general manager presented us

an

agreement that would give us a full year of our salaries, and benefits worth

close to $200,000 in " consulting jobs " , but with strings attached: no mention of

how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever expose the facts! [After

declining] we were fired.

P. 43-45, 49

 

Kristina Borjesson -- CBS reporter, Emmy award winner.

Pierre Salinger announced to the world on Nov. 8, 1996, that he'd received

documents proving that a US Navy missile had accidentally downed [TWA flight

800]. That same day, FBI's Jim Kallstrom called a press conference. A man raised

his hand and asked why the navy was involved in the recovery and investigation

while a possible suspect. " Remove him! " [Kallstrom] yelled. Two men leapt over

to

the questioner and grabbed him by the arm! There was a momentary chill in the

air

after the guy had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and entourage acted as

if nothing had happened.

P. 110, 111

 

Philip Weiss -- writer for New York Times Magazine.

James Kallstrom, then of the FBI, said vehemently at a press conference that

every boat in the area of the [TWA flight 800] crash had been identified.

Subsequently, government radar data was released showing that the boat closest

to

the crash had never been identified and sped away at more than thirty knots an

hour.

Kallstrom was later hired by CBS!

P. 186

 

April Oliver -- CNN reporter. CNN was a willing accomplice in [the] campaign to

crush the [Tailwind] story. CNN management ran at the first sign of heat. The

heat included everyone from Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell to Special Forces

veterans! My co-producer and I were fired. We were branded journalistic felons!

CNN's goal, in the words of one manager, " kill this thing, drive a stake through

its heart and bury it. "

P. 217, 218

 

Greg Palast -- Reporter for BBC. In the months leading up to the November [2000]

balloting, Governor Jeb Bush ordered elections supervisors to purge 58,000

voters

on the grounds they were felons not entitled to vote. As it turns out, only a

handful of these voters were felon! This extraordinary news ran on page one of

the country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country:

Britain.

In the USA, it was not covered. The office of the governor [also] illegally

ordered the removal of felons from the voter rolls -- real felons -- but with

the

right to vote under Florida law. As a result, 50,000 of these voters could not

vote. The fact that 90% of these voters were Democrats should have made it news

because this alone more than accounted for Bush's victory.

P. 65, 66

 

Monika Jensen-Stevenson -- Emmy-winning producer for 60 minutes!

Robert R. Garwood -- 14 years a prisoner of the Vietnamese, was found guilty in

the longest court-martial in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there

seemed no question that Garwood was a monstrous traitor. In 1985, Garwood was

speaking publicly about something that had never made the news during his

court-martial. He knew of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the war

was over. He was supported by Vietnam veterans whose war records were

impeccable.

My sources included outstanding experts like former head of the Defense

Intelligence Agency General Tighe and Captain McDaniel, who held the Navy's top

award for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to consider the

possibility that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese

as hostages to make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war

reparations! [After the war] American POWs had become worthless pawns! The US

had

not paid the promised monies and had no intention of paying in the future.

P. 225, 226, 233

 

Michael Levine -- 25-year veteran of DEA, writer for New York Times, Los Angeles

Times, and USA Today.

The Chang Mai " factory " that the CIA prevented me from destroying was the source

of massive amounts of heroin being smuggled into the US in the bodies and body

bags of GIs killed in Vietnam. Case after case was killed by CIA and State

Department intervention and there wasn't a thing we could do about it. In 1980,

CIA-recruited mercenaries and drug traffickers unseated Bolivia's democratically

elected president. Bolivia [was] the source of virtually 100% of the cocaine

entering the US.

 

Immediately after the coup, cocaine production increased massively. This was the

beginning of the crack " plague " . The CIA along with State and Justice

departments

had to protect their drug-dealing assets by destroying a DEA investigation.

 

How do I know? I was the inside source!. I sat down at my desk in the embassy

and

wrote evidence of my charge! I addressed it to Newsweek. Three weeks later DEA's

internal security [called] to notify me that I was under investigation!

 

The highlight of the 60 Minutes piece is when the administrator of the DEA

Federal Judge Robert Bonner, tells Mike Wallace, " There is no other way to put

it, Mike, [what the CIA did] is drug smuggling. It's illegal. "

P. 264-268, 271, 289

 

Gary Webb -- San Jose Mercury News writer, Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I

wrote a series of stories that began this way: For the better part of a decade,

a

Bay Area duug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA and

funneled millions in drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA.

 

The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America! The

story was developing a momentum all of its own despite a virtual news blackout

from the major media.

 

Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the

fray. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times

published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA's activities!

Instead,

my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable

[Mercury

News editor] Ceppos wrote, that the four Post reporters assigned to debunk the

series " could not find a single significant factual error. " The Mercury News

[due

to intense CIA pressure eventually] backed away from the story, publishing a

long

column by Ceppos apologizing for " shortcomings " in the series! The New York

Times

hailed Ceppos and splashed his apology on their front page, the first time the

series had ever been mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News not long after

that! Do we have a free press today? Sure. It's free to report all the sex

scandals, all the stock market news, [and] every new health fad that comes down

the pike. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff -- such stories are

not even open for discussion.

P. 297, 303-310

 

John Kelly -- author, ABC producer.

ABC hired me to help produce a story about an investment firm that was heavily

involved with the CIA. Part of the ABC report charged that the CIA had plotted

to

assassinate an American, Ron Rewald, the president of [the investment firm].

Scott Barnes said on camera that the CIA had asked him to kill Rewald. After the

show aired, CIA officials met with ABC executive David Burke, [who] was

sufficiently impressed " by the vigor with which they made their case " to order

an

on-air " clarification. " But that was not enough. [CIA Director] Casey called ABC

Chairman Goldenson. [Thus] despite all the documented evidence presented in the

program, Peter Jennings reported that ABC could no longer substantiate the

charges! That same day, the CIA filed a formal complaint with the FCC charging

that ABC had " deliberately distorted " the news! In the complaint, Casey asked

that ABC be stripped of its TV and radio licenses! During this time, Capital

Cities Communications was maneuvering to buy ABC. [CIA Director] Casey was one

of

the founders of Cap Cities! Cap Cities bought ABC.

Within months, the entire investigative unit was dispersed.

P. 326-329

 

Robert McChesney -- 500 radio & TV appearances. [There has been] striking

consolidation of the media from hundreds of firms to an industry dominated by

less than ten enormous transnational conglomerates! The largest ten media firms

own all US TV networks, most TV stations, all major film studios, all major

music

companies, nearly all cable TV channels, much of the book and magazine

publishing

[industry], and much, much more. Expensive investigative journalism --

especially

that which goes after powerful corporate interests -- is discouraged. Largely

irrelevant human interest/tragedy stories get extensive coverage. A few weeks

after the war began in Afghanistan, CNN president Isaacson authorized CNN to

provide two different versions of the war: a more critical one for the global

audience and a sugarcoated one for Americans! It is nearly impossible to

conceive

of a better world without some changes in the media status quo. We have no time

to waste.

P. 371-373, 380, 381

 

 

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