David Gregory Wants Me Arrested for Writing This
24 June 13
f reporters who report on leaked government secrets are going to be labeled as criminals by the corporate-owned media, then why have reporters at all?
Even though the media died a long time ago, when the news department's purpose of reporting on content was merged with the sales department's needs to sell ads, this week was a historic moment in the downfall of the media. When David Gregory of NBC's "Meet the Press" interviewed Glenn Greenwald on scooping the NSA surveillance story, he implied that Greenwald was a criminal for aiding and abetting NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and then challenged his credentials as a journalist while hiding under the oft-heard "some others have said..." cover. You can see the exchange here.
The corporate media is only following cues from its owners. "Meet the Press" is sponsored by Boeing, the same corporation that owns NSA contractor Narus, an Israeli company that makes the rapid interception technology used by the NSA. Boeing is also part of the corporate coalition for "Fix the Debt," a sham organization funded by Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson that aims to frame government debt as a Very Serious Problem, and Social Security and Medicare as the chief causes of that Very Serious Problem. This likely explains why Gregory was so eager to frame Social Security and Medicare as necessary sacrifices to deal with our debt, while completely ignoring the fact that companies like Boeing (and many other companies whose CEOs are in the Fix the Debt "fiscal leadership council") pay NEGATIVE federal income tax rates due to a preferential tax code that their lobbyists helped write in the first place. But David Gregory is merely a propagandist for the inside-the-DC-beltway elite, not the main problem.
Since the Obama administration charged Edward Snowden with espionage (at the end of the day on a Friday, doing their best to bury the news as much as possible), the DC beltway elite have been chomping at the bit to extradite Snowden to the US, where he would likely be put in solitary confinement and tortured like Bradley Manning. As much as President Obama likes giving speeches defending his decisions on immigration and gun violence prevention, he's been silent on his decision to label Edward Snowden's leaks as tantamount to treason. Even though Snowden didn't work with a foreign government or sell the secrets of the PRISM program for millions of dollars to hostile entities, he's being given the same treatment as someone who did.
Politicians of both parties who vociferously defended the NSA's massive secret surveillance programs that treated everyday Americans as terror suspects are now lining up to call for Snowden's head. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blew up at Russia for letting Snowden fly to Moscow from Hong Kong. Representative Peter King (R-Ia.), chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, said Snowden had "betrayed his country." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) was booed for calling Snowden a criminal at Netroots Nation in San Jose, an annual gathering of progressive activists who are usually sympathetic to the Obama administration and top congressional Democrats. Andy Borowitz rightly pointed out the irony of a government that got caught spying on ordinary Americans prosecuting one of its citizens to the fullest extent of the law for spying.
Greenwald is right in that the US government is waging a war on investigative journalism. He quoted New York magazine's Jane Meyer, perhaps best known for her exhaustive report on the billionaire Koch Brothers' financing of Tea Party organizations, as saying investigative journalism has been brought to a "standstill" under the Obama administration. This can be plainly seen in the Obama Department of Justice's seizing the phone records of AP reporters without their knowledge to try totrack down one of their sources. The lack of substantive journalism in the world of mainstream journalism can be directly attributed to government intimidation of journalists through acts like those described above, and to government apologists in the media like David Gregory. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the corporate-owned media is supporting a corporate-owned government's narrative in an important story sparking international debate.
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