DISQUS

John Bottorff · 2 months ago

I am so glad that you and Glenn take left & right labeled journalists to task for their lemming-like sleep reporting

tom · 2 months ago

Eloquently and passionately put, as always Jeremy. At the risk of seeming shallow, one (beside the point) point: I think a credible accurate argument like Greenwald's is taken more seriously if he wasn't wearing the headset in a room. Even amongst the politically savvy on the internet, it's a visual thing that registers as odd with people, perhaps subconsciously, making it hard for others to take them seriously. I certainly don't have that disconnect, but I'm sure if I showed this to my dad he'd ignore what he'd otherwise listen to and say "he looks like an astronaut on a spaceship!"

Sorry for the random advice, just my take on something that might matter.

cliffhammond · 2 months ago

Now that you mention it, Glenn sort of looks like one of those ham operators from the long-ago days when they were the only ones getting the truth out at personal risk. So I guess I disagree; the headset lends a degree of respectability IMHO.

Mark · 2 months ago

Excellent piece - this issue cannot be talked about too much - it's critical. Your courage to ask the difficult and and sometimes provocative questions is appreciated by so many of us, even inspirational, and is a vital force to safeguard democracy. This includes your "rambunctiousness", when you're expected to be silent.

I believe you are very correct in your assessment of mainstream media and its personalities, and the pressure they are starting to feel from independent journalists. They are wise to be concerned; I hear fewer and fewer friends and acquaintances simply espousing their lines.

The coalition you mentioned is a great idea. Already there is a lot of interplay going on between independent journalists, just organically, oddly well-balanced off each other's strengths and weaknesses. But I know how much time you, and others, devote to bringing things to light for us, and I know that it is, right now, tragically under-compensated financially. It would be a sight to see if you all were well-funded, allowing you to really dig into stories, from many angles, and tying them together from many places. Such a thing might just be the kick-starting fire we need to unite ourselves, as a people aware of their own true situations, for real change.

You deserve this. We all deserve this.

GRX100 · 2 months ago

Greenwald & Scahill -- the opposition doesn't stand a chance. You guys did great, and I look forward to that new media alliance you spoke of. I am a tv news junkie, and I'm so sick with the deplorable content on cable news, I'm seriously thinking of canceling my cable, something I wouldn't have dreamed of 5 years ago.

Keep up the great work!

cliffhammond · 2 months ago

Two of my favorite writers, two guys who know the founding principles of the 1st Amendment protections. I'm glad someone finally said it: Tim Russert was an establishment shill; thus he really didn't need any constitutional protection.

Elaine M. · 2 months ago

Thanks for posting the video. Excellent discussion. There are many of us out here who hunger for the truth--even if it makes us feel uncomfortable at times. When you read that Evan Thomas quote, it sent chills down my spine.

I'm so sick of the MSM and all the talking heads on TV--like Patrick Buchanan. They give us a little news and A LOT of opinion.

Keep ruffling feathers! To quote Matt Taibbi: "Journalists are SUPPOSED to be assholes."

knowbuddhau · 2 months ago

Thanks for posting this here, it's the first time I've watched GRITtv. I bow in all y'all's virtual directions.

Did I hear that right? I'm wondering, because I liked it a lot. That sounded like three real human beings discussing human problems in human terms. I'd better watch that again.

I share your outrage, Brother J, about Chuck Todd's egocentrism in place of professionalism, and events like the Overseer's Press Club. Reminds me of Kevin Black's book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: the best way to loot treasuries and jack nations to war is to own the media, including the house corporo-whores.

And Brother G said something that reminds me of the work of a philosopher at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Peter Hershock. We don't need their stinking press badges, this right here already is creating our own media infrastructure. (Hershock writes in prose that reads like haiku, tight as stone, so plz. pardon the length):

PETER HERSHOCK: Like the benefits of extensive, but entirely "passive," martial arts training -- made possible, say, by wearing a properly programmed robotic suit -- the benefits of societal activism are quantifiably real, but limited. Objectively and individually assessed, such training will undeniably improve our range of motion -- our degrees of freedom. But in situational crisis, having repeatedly gone through the motions of either tai chi ch'uan or the exercise of a legally-enacted civil society will prove to have been of little if any help. Instead of virtuosically according with the unique character of the present crisis and responding as needed to improvise its meaningful resolution, we will find ourselves just as likely as ever to freeze, not knowing what to do, or reverting to old patterns of victimization. If our practices do not transform how well we appreciate our situation, they will never enhance our capacity for contributing to the meaningful resolution of our troubles. On the contrary, we will continue repeating and not truly revising our karma.

In shifting our attention from the controlled redress of factual oppression and structural inequity to improvising novel conditions for meaningful contribution, we initiate a decisive return to dramatic immediacy and the disciplines of responsive creativity. Doing so, we are no longer obliged (in tragic imitation of Zeno and his paradoxes of motion) to carry society across the dramatic "dead spot" between disparate states of (political, social, or economic) affairs in an infinite regress that demands all our available attention and energy to no meaningful effect. It also frees us from the contradictory logic of either rebuilding society one person at a time or by way of mass movements organized and granted effective power by control-biased technologies.
http://www.buddhistethics.org/6/hershock991.htm...

Isn't that exactly how you all ended, on the need for virtuosically, instead of reflexively, attending to and contributing to our situations, as Brother J and Sister Amy did at OPC?

JennieCF · 2 months ago

I regard myself as fairly politically aware and media-savvy and yet what strikes me is how new this subject seems. I hope it's the dawn of a new journalism or, at least, awareness of the difference between regurgitators and truly original thinkers/questioners.
Actually, I'll look for outrage now in order to connect with a meaningful commentator. The ease and laid-backness of the Morning Joe crowd is far too lazy to matter or lead to progress. Their discourse is circular and inactive.

Truth Excavator · 2 months ago

Two great warriors of truth, justice, and liberty!

Thank you.

oBifferson · 2 months ago

You have a Tumblr! That's so cool! Following...

50sadchairs · 2 months ago

With an eye of objectivity, I believe I agree with the idea of building a strong network of independent media outlets. It would be a strong, nimble, and flexible structure of democratic voices utilizing technology to communicate directly to and with the people. It would also allow the people to participate immediately and directly in the dialogue, thus giving more strength and power in the regular ranks of the populace. Why reinvent the wheel when you simply need to build many wheels to surround an obese corporate hub of propaganda. I seem to remember that Gulliver was not tied down with one rope.
We know that Journalism does not exist as we have known it. And who better to create its new form than the members of independent media. And as we speak, independent media is being newly formed. In fact, my ability to write in this the Comment box is a new media outlet. And my believing in this form of democratic expression adds power to the network. I still strongly believe that professionals are needed, but the viewing and reading public have a unique and new method and manner in which to communicate. The community becomes intimate and huge all at the same time, but there is no impervious center. We can all bite into it as it were; it being the truth.
The revolution is not being televised, but twittered and skyped and e-mailed, and texted and blogged and you name it. I think Glenn and Jeremy are onto something. Stay tuned.

franz1 · 2 months ago

I just have to say that watching you on this issue was very powerful. I am thinking about majoring in Journalism, but have been sort of turned off by the corporate news outlets in choosing this field of study. Reading your book and watching you on Bill Maher might have shed new light for me and journalism. Great stuff taking on Chuck, I have it saved on my DVR!! haha