PBS FRONTLINE GOES AFTER MAINSTREAM MEDIA

MSM is not some new product from Micro$oft. It stands for "MainStream Media." Why give the MSM their own acronym? Because it became important to make the difference between the MSM and the rest of the media. See, because the independent media actually does their job. It wasn't always this way, though you can point out plenty of times throughout history where the MSM has dropped the ball.

Sure, the obvious good stuff would be during the 70s with Watergate and all of that fun. Generally speaking, however, the MSM fails to cover truly important, truly challenging stories. Such as stories that suggest alternatives to capitalism or it's various subsets, like insurance, the war(s), and the environment. Sure, they're all in the news now but where was the MSM when these stories first broke?

Of course, the indy media HAVE been covering that stuff, pretty much all along. Unfortunately, it's expensive to produce your own news show or spend your day researching a story when you don't have a big fat corporation paying for your expenses (and your bills, rent and food). This, unfortunately, means that the bulk of the big stories are left to the big boys in the MSM to report on. The thing is, they really dropped the ball during the build up to the Iraq Attack which is sad since there was loads of evidence and it makes sense to challenge the march to war no matter what the cause is.

Back in February of 2007 the PBS news show (just on the very edge of the MSM) FRONTLINE did a documentary miniseries, called NEWS WAR, which covers how pussy-whipped the MainStream Media were for the Bush Administration's press releases during that build up to the Iraq Attack. The mini examines the whys and the hows. It's really good stuff. The good news is that PBS.org has made available the entire series for viewing on their site. The even gooder news is that they've got a STACK of other great stuff to check out relating to the whole "bailing on their job" thing with the media. This includes extended interviews with the people featured in the docu, transcripts of discussions given by the producers of the series, and a few other things.

So, check out everything here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/

The Internet ROCKS for this kind of thing and Gods bless the PBS for taking full advantage of the inexpensive facilities the 'net offers. .

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