The Pentagon Caves: Why Citizen Activism Does Work
Posted by:
Kate Drazner
Date: 4/29/2008 11:48 am
Last week, we posted our Recent Outrage on the Pentagon's long-running (read: before September 11th) campaign to groom retired Army officers to appear as “military analysts” on the mainstream media and to promote administration-generated talking points on the war.
I ventured that the muffling of war atrocities by the media stemmed what I predicted should be an inevitable outcry against the unjust and corrupt war.
This week, in response to the Times article and the outrage generated amongst progressives and others who care about the truth the Pentagon announced it's suspending it's program.That's great news. Kudos to the Times for breaking the story. But history, very recent history as a matter of fact, shows that we can't rely on the mainstream media to regularly publish these stories . . .
The mainstream media is big business. It's focus on attracting advertisers (read: other big businesses) and maintaining the bottom line, rather than delivering unbiased reporting, is a blow to our security, livelihood and civic interests. For example, early in the primary race, a debate on CNN between the Democratic candidates was co-opted by the coal industry wherein no questions were asked on global climate change and advertising for the 'clean' energy alternative was omnipresent. Fox News continues to be a broadcast platform for the administration's conservative and religiously intolerant policies.
However, we can take stock of victories like the suspension of the Pentagon's analyst briefing program and realize that any instance of citizen advocacy will make a difference, because it keeps the media in check. Some have said that the media is our fourth branch of government. If this is true, I say let the public be the fifth, using our personal prerogative to always look to alternative sources to find the true story as our method of checks and balances. I would ask those of you who haven't yet signed the Petition for an Open Media to do so, and together we can begin chipping away at the system of corporate dominance.
