The Red and Black

Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Opinions

Phillip Brettschneider

It turns out that many ­- most - of the military analysts for ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and Fox (in short, every major television news outlet) are not the independent voices we have been led to believe.

It's not terribly surprising. The talking heads we've seen on TV analyzing the war, many of them retired generals, rather than objective judges of the situation, are mouthpieces for Pentagon spin. Not only that, many of them are on the payroll of military contractors who benefit from increased arms spending.

One even testified before Congress, saying that we need to buy more armored vehicles - coincidentally, the same ones that his clandestine employer manufactures and sells.

Yes - they're convincing us to escalate the conflict, to put more tanks on the ground and choppers in the air, so they can line their own pockets. But then again, that's hardly surprising.

(Am I the only one who thinks it's terribly sad that I'm no longer surprised to hear that media outlets are on military payrolls?)

David Barstow, a New York Times reporter, won a Pulitzer on April 20 for reporting on this flagrant corruption. When the story first appeared, there were Congressional inquiries, condemnatory responses from the at-the-time Democratic presidential candidates, allegations that the Pentagon was producing illegal domestic propaganda, and, and and...

Wait. I don't remember hearing a thing about this. Why didn't I hear about it in the news?

That's right - it's because none of the media outlets involved reported won it. Not a single word. CNN even ran a story on the Pulitzers, mentioning a little about each winner and what they won for - except, curiously, David Barstow. Not a single word.

Even during election season, when every small hand gesture deserved an hour's analysis, the candidates' comments on media corruption and Pentagon propaganda were deemed too minor to report and discuss.

How many of us heard about the propaganda we were swallowing and the corruption in our media? We've grown too reliant on the 24-hour cable news cycle, and so that which it does not wish to tell us, we simply will not hear.

This seems to be an ongoing theme that we have yet to fully grasp: do not trust the mainstream media. Dan Savage said that Fox and CNN acting as opposing sides of a coin could be a good thing, but because both were implicated in this case, neither reported on it.

Every major broadcast news network was implicated, so not a single one of them could be bothered to report on it. When we look only at the conservative or liberal label, we fail to remember the problems of the underlying structure.

If you rely on corporate news networks for your information, you will hear only what their owners want you to.

It is time to diversify, and find new, smaller more independent news sources.

People say print news is dying. Perhaps it is time for broadcast news to die as well. The reins of broadcast news are held in the hands of a few select companies. It is a corporate oligarchy, and that which its masters and sponsors do not want you to hear, you will not.

Does it scare you? Yeah, me too.

- Phillip Brettschneider is a sophomore from Marietta majoring in anthropology and English.

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