MEDIA - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Mainstream Media to American Democracy: Drop Dead! |
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by Brad Friedman The Huffington Post Entered into the database on Friday, November 04th, 2005 @ 20:18:55 MST |
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It's been a full two weeks now since the non-partisan Government Accountability
Office (GAO came out with their 107-page
report [PDF] confirming what so many of us have been trying to ring
the bell about for so long: The Electronic Voting Machines which
are proliferating counties and states across America even as I type, are not
secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent, not accurate and
not adequately monitored or certified by anybody. To quote from the alarming landmark report: [C]oncerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and
have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount
of votes. The Mainstream Corporate Media couldn't care less. The report was requested by several high-ranking members of the U.S. House
of Representatives. It culminated a year-long investigation into the secret
Voting Machines and Software now being deployed to the tune of millions of tax-payer
dollars to privatize our American Democracy. The release of the report was accompanied by a bi-partisan
News Release which lauded its findings. That's right. Six high-ranking U.S. Congressmen (3 Dems and 3 Reps) issued
the incredibly rare joint News Release together. Two of those Congressmen were
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman and ranking
minority member, respectively, of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee respectively.
You do understand how rare it is that those two can agree on anything much less
issue a joint press release, right?! And yet, none of the above has been carried by even one wire service or one
major American Newspaper. Not one. News of the landmark non-partisan report and bi-partisan news release was carried
on a few Internet sites (here,
here
and here) in a
few tech journals (here,
here
and here) and a couple
of tiny independent newspapers (here
and here). But
there has not been a single wire-service (not AP, not UPI, not Reuters, not
AFP etc.) nor a single mainstream American print newspaper (not NYTimes, not
Washington Post, not any of them) to run even a paragraph on any of it. Not
one. While I'd expect the usual crappy coverage of something this important from
both the wires and the print media, I am completely without explanation as to
why none of them (Not one! Did I mention that?!) bothered to do even the usual
sub-par, unsatisfactory, wholly misinformed, shitty job that we've come to expect
from the Mainstream Corporate Media. But why should they bother to run even a paragraph on it? It's only about our
VOTE, the very heart of our democracy. I've tried to encourage the respected Editor
& Publisher to look into the matter. They cover the coverage of such
things and it'll be a hell of a lot more difficult for the media to ignore the
inquiries of E&P than it would be for them to simply disregard me. Perhaps
E&P can find out from the four major wire services and America's two most
important and influential newspapers why the GAO report and accompanying news
release confirming that those of they previously labeled as "conspiracy
theorists" are now confirmed as nothing of the kind. Perhaps they can find
out why those organizations, apparently, consider a report which rocks the very
foundation of our democracy to be less than "newsworthy". I'd encourage you to do so as well by dropping a polite request to E&P
that they inquire and report on the matter. Perhaps that'll help get some action.
And some coverage. Their address is: Letters@EditorAndPublisher.com I hope you'll help. This democracy ain't gonna save itself, ya know. I hope
you realize that. |