Stephen Lendman

This writer's November 2009 article titled "Paid Lying: What Passes for Major Media Journalism" also discussed it in detail, accessed through THIS link.

It called major media journalism biased, irresponsible, and sensationalist - misreporting, distorting, exaggerating, misstating, or suppressing vital truths - serving state and corporate interests over the common good, including bankers controlling the nation's money, unpunished corruption at the highest levels, democracy for the select few, sham elections, a de facto one party state, imperial wars, occupation, and torture.

Harvard Report on Waterboarding

Prepared by Neal Desai, Andre Pineda, Majken Runquist and Mark Fusunyan, Harvard's JFK School of Government published their April 2010 Harvard Student Paper titled, "Torture at Times: Waterboarding in the Media," [.pdf] documenting how the practice was covered by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years - The New York Times (established in 1851), Los Angeles Times (established 1881), Wall Street Journal established 1889), and USA Today (established 1982, America's most widely circulated newspaper, why it was chosen for the study).

Waterboarding Defined

By any definition, it's torture, strictly prohibited under US and international law at all times, under all circumstances, with no allowed exceptions.

Yet the Bush administration defended it, saying it's used to train US service members to resist torture, when, in fact, training involves a cloth placed over their face one time (perhaps twice) for about 20 seconds, a love tap compared to detainee torture, using so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

It involves six or more 40-second "applications" in each two hour session, multiple ones daily, forcing water in detainees' mouths and noses for 12 minutes, repeated daily, sometimes for weeks.

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Stephen Lendman

Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.

As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls "junk food news," and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the "propaganda model" that controls the public message by "filter(ing)" disturbing truths, "leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print" or air.

Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 - 1995) called "prostitutes of the press."

As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly. America is always called "beautiful." Beneficial social change is considered heresy. The market works best, we're told, so let it, and patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping till we drop.

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