Krokodil was a humor magazine, and those guys got away with almost everything, because the bureaucracy didn’t take it seriously.
Today in the US, the “journalists” believe the propaganda, they want to be known as “heroes of the People’s Labor” and “Stakhanovites” [and receive regular paychecks, so don’t rock the boat.]
]]>Sadly, the only thing I can read between the lines of most U.S. “reporting” nowadays is “I’m reporting what they pay me to report, my paycheck didn’t bounce, all is well.”
— Badtux the Journalistic Penguin
]]>I didn’t have that one, Badtux, but the self-censorship that goes on the US is disgusting after the time I spent in Spain under Franco and Greece under the Colonels, as well as a few other places I never was and can prove that I never was there with official government paperwork. You have people dying to print the truth around the world, but it will never get printed in the US.
]]>Was it you who had the story about the Soviet official who was given a tour of Washington D.C., was proudly presented with copies of the NYT and Washington Post, and then upon reading them excitedly asked his hosts, “How do you get them to print only the officially sanctioned news without secret policemen to enforce it”?
– Badtux the News Penguin
]]>They have a lot of good talent because of the policies of the repressive regimes, which has created a very large pool of well-educated, under=employed university graduates. Many of their reporters know exactly what the young people on the street are thinking, because that’s where they came from.
Steve, the nepotism and “old boy network” in the US media has made it “safe” and arthritic. No one will take chances, and who you know is more important than what you can do. The media isn’t going to challenge the government, they sit on the same boards and are members of the same PTAs. Getting combative could cost you your country club membership.
]]>Our media has violated all our individual rights to be informed citizens IMHO.
I watch as our wars wage on and I am reminded quite frequently how families sat silent, perched on the edges of sofas and chairs or knelt on bended knee before the TV watching news reels for the faces and listening for the voices of friends and loved ones serving in Vietnam. Somber. Saddened. Respectful. Now, the loss of lives in war zones is acknowledged on a silent scrolling text at the end of a program, if at all.
]]>I’ve been watching the feed on and off for days. They are shifting things around and adapting as best they can, which is still better than anything in the US media.
It is sad that younger Americans have no idea how really good US news reporting once was, and I’m talking about newspapers and broadcast news before CNN was launched. We were once an informed nation.
]]>Yeah, they were quick enough to “encourage” cable companies not to carry the feed. There was a time, long ago, when CNN did reporting like this, but no longer.
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