TAXES PAID JOURNALISTS good idea!

TAXES PAID JOURNALISTS good idea!

Book accuses corporate media of acting as propagandists for capitalist states

I have just started reading Dan Hind's book, The return of the public.* According to a quote by Rod Liddle carried in the accompanying publishers' blurb, it is "fine, lucid and sharp... worth reading before the next wave of western tanks crosses a border, somewhere in the Middle East."

I have read enough of Hind's polemic to note his assault on the corporate media for having acted on behalf of political and economic elites (examples: backing the invasion of Iraq and a failure to raise alarms ahead of the 2007 financial crash).

His argument, echoing that of Noam Chomsky, is that the media have both withheld information from the public and acted as propagandists for capitalist (and imperialist) states.

Key quote about the media: "Their failure to challenge state mendacity is as predictable as the mendacity itself."

I hope to come back to this when I've finished, but ahead of that I suggest you read two reviews from this weekend, the first by Boyd Tonkin in The Independent and the other by John Lloyd in the Financial Times.

Pointing out that Hind's solution to the media's failures is to call for the "public commissioning" of investigative journalism, Tonkin writes:

    "After the near-theological splendour of his opprobrium, it all sounds rather technical – although the prospect of 3,000 extra investigators working on "matters of interest and concern to the general population" ought to excite any profession as close to the abyss as serious journalism in Britain today.

    Those who find his proposals fanciful or utopian – which, in a harsh light, they undoubtedly are – should still sit up and pay heed. Intellectually, far more than just financially, the major media have fumbled too often at pivotal moments in the recent past to hide behind a fraying status quo."

Lloyd picks up on a similar point, noting Hind's argument that "the news media can only fulfil their democratic boast – that they hold power to account – by being put under an owner who is not a baron, a corporation or a state. They must work for the public."

Lloyd, though unconvinced by Hind's idealistic proposal for a public commissioning of investigative journalism, argues that he has raised important questions about the parlous state of modern journalism. He writes:

    "There is something large-hearted in the view that the facts will not just set us free, but allow us to be fuller citizens. Journalism should be about discovering the truth...

    Those who write and broadcast have a high duty: and must have in mind, always, that it consists of educating a citizenry. We must just try harder."


TAXES PAID JOURNALISTS good idea!

Book accuses corporate media of acting as propagandists for capitalist states

I have just started reading Dan Hind's book, The return of the public.* According to a quote by Rod Liddle carried in the accompanying publishers' blurb, it is "fine, lucid and sharp... worth reading before the next wave of western tanks crosses a border, somewhere in the Middle East."

I have read enough of Hind's polemic to note his assault on the corporate media for having acted on behalf of political and economic elites (examples: backing the invasion of Iraq and a failure to raise alarms ahead of the 2007 financial crash).

His argument, echoing that of Noam Chomsky, is that the media have both withheld information from the public and acted as propagandists for capitalist (and imperialist) states.

Key quote about the media: "Their failure to challenge state mendacity is as predictable as the mendacity itself."

I hope to come back to this when I've finished, but ahead of that I suggest you read two reviews from this weekend, the first by Boyd Tonkin in The Independent and the other by John Lloyd in the Financial Times.

Pointing out that Hind's solution to the media's failures is to call for the "public commissioning" of investigative journalism, Tonkin writes:

    "After the near-theological splendour of his opprobrium, it all sounds rather technical – although the prospect of 3,000 extra investigators working on "matters of interest and concern to the general population" ought to excite any profession as close to the abyss as serious journalism in Britain today.

    Those who find his proposals fanciful or utopian – which, in a harsh light, they undoubtedly are – should still sit up and pay heed. Intellectually, far more than just financially, the major media have fumbled too often at pivotal moments in the recent past to hide behind a fraying status quo."

Lloyd picks up on a similar point, noting Hind's argument that "the news media can only fulfil their democratic boast – that they hold power to account – by being put under an owner who is not a baron, a corporation or a state. They must work for the public."

Lloyd, though unconvinced by Hind's idealistic proposal for a public commissioning of investigative journalism, argues that he has raised important questions about the parlous state of modern journalism. He writes:

    "There is something large-hearted in the view that the facts will not just set us free, but allow us to be fuller citizens. Journalism should be about discovering the truth...

    Those who write and broadcast have a high duty: and must have in mind, always, that it consists of educating a citizenry. We must just try harder."



free journalists would investigate 911 and refuse to call this a collapse.

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