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Journalism and its discontents »

Posted by: Aidenag 2 years, 2 months ago

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Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was the most influential American journalist of the 20th century. Ninety years after he first railed against the complicity of the media in wartime propaganda, we're back at ground zero.

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Aidenag

Photographer by day, news junkie by night. My main areas of interest are politics and the environment.

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Comments: 7

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deathray
Oct. 25, 2007, 8:33 a.m.
I thought this was a great piece; the fact is that we need much more skepticism from the press on the information released from the government, in general, and about wartime activities, in particular.
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tehranchik
Oct. 25, 2007, 10:49 a.m.
Lippmann wrote: "Incompetence and aimlessness, corruption and disloyalty, panic and ultimate disaster, must come to any people which is denied an assured access to the facts."
Bush and the whole middle east are incompetent and aimless. The whole administration is corrupt---the dems have become disloyal and I'd say we the people are ready to panic over the next disaster out of the white house.
I'm so happy to have the interenet and be able to see what's printed in the foreign news and blogs. They might all be biased but at least you get a balanced bias---huh?
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Grrr
Oct. 25, 2007, 4:39 p.m.
"For in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis of journalism." -- Walter Lippmann
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spkguy
Oct. 25, 2007, 4:51 p.m.
Good post deathray!
Many things stood out for me,but this was bang on!
"Lippmann had witnessed firsthand how the "manufacture of consent" had deranged democracy. But he did not hold those in government solely responsible. He also described how the press corps was carried away on the wave of patriotism and became self-censors, enforcers, and sheer propagandists. Their careerism, cynicism, and error made them destroyers of "liberty of opinion" and agents of intolerance, who subverted the American constitutional system of self-government."
Does that not describe FAUX NEWS and most of it's programing
past and present?
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1-2-Oscar
Oct. 25, 2007, 5:02 p.m.
Lippmann is rightly recognized as an iconic figure among journalists. Sidney Blumenthal, however, is hardly the person to crusade for unbiased and critical journalism. Blumenthal is not a journalist, but a lawyer. He was for many years the personal lawyer for Hillary Clinton and only left her service when called upon to join the team defending Bill Clinton during the impeachment trial.
His close (and continuing) association with the current presidential candidate makes one wonder--where are they going with this?