[Vision2020] Bob Herbert's last NYT column

[Ted Moffett]

Speaking of "corporate power" and a "reversal of fortune that should
send a shudder through everyone" the documentary "Orwell Rolls in His
Grave" that will show on LINKTV (Directtv 375, DISH 9410) Tues. March
29, 4 PM, and Sat.  April 2, 4 AM, 12 PM, 10 PM, that showed today
Sat., was so depressing I could not watch the whole presentation...
The following website should explain why...

http://www.linktv.org/programs/special_orwellrolls

>From website above:

Over the last several years, the media landscape has changed
dramatically. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin pushed through a radical new
change in the rules:  For the first time in 32 years, television
broadcasters in the top 20 markets can also own a newspaper and a
radio station in the same area. Michael Copps, one of two FCC
Commissioners to vote against the rule, called it “a decision that
would make Orwell proud." It allows even greater media consolidation,
and makes independent media even rarer.

Can a media system controlled by just a few corporations really
deliver on the promise of the First Amendment?  Or is this just the
beginning of an Orwellian nightmare where lies can become truth?

In this special Link TV presentation we take a look at the
consequences of unchecked media consolidation with the essential
documentary Orwell Rolls in His Grave. Director Robert Kane Pappas’
Orwell Rolls in His Grave is the consummate critical examination of
the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking
whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where
outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media
doesn’t like to talk about: itself. Meticulously tracing the process
by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events,
Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and
leading intellectual voices on the media.

>From the very size of the media monopolies and how they got that way
to who decides what gets on the air and what doesn’t, Orwell Rolls in
His Grave moves through a troubling list of questions and news stories
that go unanswered and unreported in the mainstream media. Are
Americans being given the information a democracy needs to survive or
have they been electronically lobotomized? Has the frenzy for media
consolidation led to a dangerous irony where in an era of more news
sources the majority of the population has actually become less
informed? Orwell Rolls in His Grave reminds us that 1984 is no longer
a date in the future.

LEARN MORE:

To learn more about this film, visit Orwell Rolls in His Grave

To Age or Not to Age - New film from Director Robert Kane Pappas

The Center for Investigative Reporting - Journalism dedicated to
revealing injustice

The Center for Public Integrity - Investigative journalism in the
public interest
Free Press: Media reform through education, organizing and advocacy

FAIR - Fairness and accuracy in reporting
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 3/26/11, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here's an excerpt:
>
>
> "Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that
> the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago.
> Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction
> to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic
> decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will
> be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should
> send a shudder through everyone.
>
>
> The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful
> country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the
> horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its
> people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely."
> Link to the whole column:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/opinion/26herbert.html?_r=3&hp
> Sunil
>
>
>
>
>