keep the government out of news media?

and allow them to continue under corporate control? (with all of their gross manipulation of the truth)

Please.

It’s crucial to qualify the term government. What the

U.S. has now is an institution owned & operated by

Wall Street for Wall Street. To pretend we still have

a democracy would be like having AA meetings in a

Blarney Stone Pub or Jack Daniel’s Whiskey Distillery.

Patrick Henry is quite right; the US government has been knee deep into the news, including, and perhaps especially, the CIA and intelligence agencies and the Pentagon.  And this will not change until we get news contolled and produced by “inquisitive, rebellious, missfits” that Boyarsky bemoans, instead of bribed, conformist hacks like himself.

How to develop such a truth system is a central question in how to transform the American power system.

“…wrote Stone, who died in 1989…’I tried to dig the truth out of hearings, official transcripts and government documents’” – so that’s where ‘truthdig’ comes from! But if it’s, “…the mentality of mainstream journalism leaders, an attitude that we and the government are on the same side. This is the mentality that led to the news establishment’s acceptance of the Iraq War.”  And this too is the mentality of mainstream journalism leadrs, an attitude that we and the Israeli government are on the same side. The sadistic mentality also of zionist hypocrite Boyarsky who went even further than many mainstream journalism leadrs in acceptance of Israel’s terrorist attack on Gaza last winter, and extols just about everything else the fascistic Jewish State does. “Anyone who thinks the fox can be safely admitted to this particular henhouse should read what” old Zionist fox Boyarsky said in January about Gaza. “The idea of government help” to Israel in these crimes “reflects the airy vision of news executives and their allies in journalism education” - and Boyarsky - who provide ideological cover for the Zionist entity. “…from the 1960s through the ’80s, when a few national newspapers, the television networks and the news magazines were dominant[,] their near-monopoly status allowed them to finance large investigative reporting staffs and an expensive news-gathering process. I was a reporter and editor in those days, and they were great for the journalists and for society.” How “great” those days were for American society is debatable – but they certainly were not great for Palestinians. This was the start and consolidation of the illegal military occupation – and the near-monopoly press support for Israel in this dark period and the near-total exclusion of any Palestinian voices was [and largely continues to be] despicable. Despite their “large investigative reporting staffs and an expensive news-gathering process”, they still could find no room for any Palestinian coverage, thanks to the near-monopoly of zionist reporters and editors like Boyarsky in the press. So if, “that’s ended” – three cheers! The fewer Boyarsky’s we have in the media, the better! The rise of new, more ethical, unbiased news organizations like Al-Jazeera is a breath of fresh air! In the U.S, no doubt AIPAC still “will have more clout than editors…. Reporters will be urged to be nice to Israel and its minions. They will not be allowed the time—or be given the encouragement—to dig into the corruption and war crimes they might see” in Israel and the Occupied Territories. “They won’t be permitted to make trouble” for the Chosen People. “We hope in the future we’ll see more” Al-Jazeera’s and “more guerrilla warriors on the Web, in print and on the air” – and more guerrilla warriors on the ground where it counts. “Because of them—and not because of a government handout” or the “near-monopoly status” of “a few national newspapers, the television networks and the news magazines” — great reporting will survive, as it always has. And, more importantly,  great resistance movements!

ardee:
’...Once, as frank1569 intimates, the News adjunct was not perceived as a money earner but a necessary public service by the networks. Once the at changed all news became suspect, serving, not the public but the advertiser.

As we see our free press deteriorate into a propaganda tool, and the argument rages whether that tool serves left or right, we lose something very,very necessary to a democracy, access to fact. ...’

We can’t lose access to fact, at least not reliable access to fact, because we never had it.

Constructing some kind of reliable, verifiable sources of information is an interesting problem for the future, but expecting governments or large, profit-making corporations to have anything to do with this work is asking the wolf to take care of your chickens, as the lying of the present mass media and government unceasingly demonstrate.

Bob,
  I listen to BBC World news (can’t recall actual name) when it’s on NPR, which has now shrunk in NYC since WNYC (the local NPR station) took over WQXR (the NYTimes’ former music station with their news).
Now, the only place I can find BBC during the overnight (not at all day)on radio, is WNYE, the NYC education station on FM.  On weekends, it’s been on overnight for some hours.

  All of that to say that the BBC is not/has not been critical of their gov’t policy in re war on Iraq, Afghanistan nor of American policies in those places, nor Pakistan.  I listen to their economics shows when I waken during the night and they have recently had the most moderate to conservative guests from the US to talk about the economic crisis that’s all one-sided “pro-gov’t doing great” or critical from the right.  Never from the left.
  Same noncritical re the wars as recently as last weekend.

    I read the BBC homepage online sometimes and it’s not very critical of English or US gov’t policy.  Sometimes the Guardian is good http://www.guardian.co.uk and I read it daily online.

    Some people like the Asia Times online.

DaveZX3: PBS and NPR are now doing commercials.  There have been studies of bias at PBS by FAIR http://www.fair.org  I do not find any critical news of government policies on NPR, the radio side.  Sometimes I scream at the radio; usually I avoid listening.  “The News Hour” is played on NPR, so I’ve monitored it at times.

The closest thing to nonprofit,community listener sponsored radio is Pacifica Radio Network.  My station is WBAI.  There’s been a coup.  (The 2nd one)
See http://www.takebackwbai.org for how listener sponsored radio can get messed up.  I support the “undo the coup” movement.  “DemocracyNow” began at WBAI and is still carried by Pacifica and the 5 stations in the network, plus affiliates - and some of the stations carrying DemNow are NPR stations…

Not only do I dislike gov’t funding, I think I would never start a 501C (and haven’t)- you lose independence.  I was a subscriber to “IFStone’s Weekly” in the mid1960s when I lived in a very southern city (spouse doing community organizing and I got a volunteer pt time job with a civil rights law office while I began my art career). 

And to quote Mark Twain, “There’s freedom of the press for anyone who owns one.”.  I think it was Mark Twain.

ardee, November 6 at 9:39 am #

“The news is all over the web, virtually free”. 

“Nope, sorry, innuendo, opinion and ideological based reporting is all over the web”.

Oh, sorry, ardee.  I been living in America for so long I thought that was the news.

“Plus, non-profit news means commercial-free news. And, also plus - it works for The News Hour on PBS doesn’t it? Not perfectly, but still,”....

No, it does not work for PBS. Their reporting was more thorough, fairer, more balanced before W put his buddy Ken Tomlinson in charge of PBS, as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting —and Tomlinson immediately installed former Republican National Committee co-chairwoman and fellow neocon Patricia Harrison into the position of president and CEO of CPB. Together, they stacked the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with rightwingers like Mike Levy, Tim Isgitt, Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines. Since the takeover, damaged a bit by the firing of Tomlinson for hiring outside consultants to monitor “liberal bias” in PBS programs, the News Hour has been noticeably careful to include sometimes ridiculous rightwing “experts” to present their points of view… and fairly often leaving off a representative of the contrary viewpoint.

It’s a shame, but government-sponsored public financing means government intrusion. Just like advertiser sponsorship means taking their corporate point of view into account while reporting on certain matters influencing the sponsors’ companies or industry. Don’t believe me? Watch PBS’ News Hour for a month and be honest ... it definitlely treads softly, it pussyfoots, it shows ever-so-sublte bias all too often.

Bill Boyarski, you have done both Sammuel Clements and I.F. Stone proud, I’ll even throw in Gonzo Journalism Hunter Thompson.

The news is all over the web, virtually free. 

Nope, sorry, innuendo, opinion and ideological based reporting is all over the web.

PBS is non-profit news.  There is no law against non-profit news. 

News organizations can organize in many different ways, and the people of a republic are free to watch or listen to whatever they want. 

Communications has exploded to the point where every cellphone is a recorder of the news, and witnesses have the ability to blog their own news story.  You do not have to tune in or buy the paper of a corporate news organization anymore.  The news is all over the web, virtually free. 

In America, the outmoded, financially unsound institutiions are supposed to die off, and be replaced by more efficient, economical institituions.  Nobody has a right to their profit.  They have to earn it, and the public will be the final judge of what survives.

You could see the newspaper business dying decades ago.  The idea of printing the news on paper and transporting it to the consumer is about as antiquated and inefficient as a 78RPM record. 

You may really like your newspaper in the morning, and I am sure it will still be an option.  It will just end up costing as much as your breakfast.

Once, as frank1569 intimates, the News adjunct was not perceived as a money earner but a necessary public service by the networks. Once the at changed all news became suspect, serving, not the public but the advertiser.

As we see our free press deteriorate into a propaganda tool, and the argument rages whether that tool serves left or right, we lose something very,very necessary to a democracy, access to fact.

While govt intervention in news is a dangerous concept, we should not ignore the capturing of much of our media by agendized or extreme political ideologues. Perhaps a Faiurness Doctrine might be enforced, one that assures that those who deceive must cease editorializing in its supposedly straight news reporting.

The government has been eyeballs deep in the news business since WWII. 

The big problem is the lack of independent news.  Fewer people control more of the papers, airwaves and radio than ever before and thereby control public perceptions toward reported events.

The internet is the last great frontier which with the advent of “blacklists” (as Truthdig panders to), are restricting access to differing points of view and information. 

Of course the government will shut it down at the source.