Journalist addresses media bias

Amy Goodman says media, government have too close a relationship

By Laban Pelz

Accusing the mainstream media of being in bed with the government, journalist Amy Goodman addressed hundreds in the Satellite Student Union Wednesday night on the need for independent media and fair reporting in the United States.

Goodman, host of the radio show “Democracy Now!” is the author of “Exception to the Rulers,” an expose of what she said is a too-close relationship between the government, mainstream media and business.

“ She gives voice to our collective outcry,” said Vida Samiian, adviser of Fresno State’s Campus Peace and Civil Liberties Coalition, which helped organize the event.

Wednesday’s lecture was the first stop on a 70-city tour across the United States The crowd was cited by an organizer as the largest ever in the SSU.

“ We shouldn’t need to write a book called ‘Exception to the Rulers,’” said David Goodman, brother of Amy Goodman and co-author of the book, introducing his sister.

“ Every media and newspaper should be an exception to the rulers.”

He redefined the book’s message that the mainstream media agrees too much with the establishment.

“ The media have become megaphones for the lies coming out of the White House.”

He said those in the media now realize they have been used by the government.

“ The imbedded journalists of the Iraq War now talk about how they were played,” he said. “Our view of the war was the view down the turret of a tank.”

David Goodman also said bipartisanship does not equate with fairness.

“ Democrats and Republicans are the members of the independent 9/11 commission,” he said. “Is there anything independent about that?”

Amy Goodman began her lecture with a clarification.

“ I don’t call the mainstream media ‘mainstream,’ because they don’t reflect the opinion of the people,” she said.

Goodman said the media have carried the establishment’s message unquestioningly, and this has separated the United States from the rest of the world. She spoke of President George W. Bush’s visit to Ground Zero after Sept. 11, where a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” was heard.

“ That is not the answer.”

Goodman likened the “missing” signs posted around New York after Sept.11 to the placards carried by the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina.

“ We have all known terror,” she said. “If Osama bin Laden is held responsible for terrorism, Henry Kissinger should be as well.”

Goodman noted the major news networks’ use of U.S. military language during the Iraq War, such as NBC naming its program on the conflict “Operation: Iraqi Freedom,” showed a close relationship between the media and the government.

“ If we had state-run media in this country, how would it be any different?” she asked.

Goodman stressed the media must act responsibly.

“ Media corporations are among the most powerful corporations,” she said. “It is through them that we learn about the world, and the world learns about us.

“ We are projected to the rest of the world through a corporate lens, and that’s dangerous.”

Goodman ended the evening with a dichotomous look at the United States.

“ The United States represents two things to the rest of the world: the sword and the shield. We are seen as a possible source of peace.”