Americas mainstream media still pretendsit is the custodian of serious journalism, but that claim continues to erode as the corporate press shies away from its duty to challengepropaganda emanating from various parts of the U.S. government, as Danny Schechter describes.
By Danny Schechter
First the good news: The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was not only the best covered of its awards this year, but it recognized a series of disclosures that made many media outlets nervous, if not adversarial the publication of National Security Agency secrets leaked by Edward Snowden.
The award recognized the reporting by the Guardian in England and also Bart Gellmans work in the Washington Post even as they, did not recognize the work directly of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras whose independent reporting appeared in many newspapers.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013. (From a video posted by WikiLeaks)
Poitras and Greenwald still make the news world nervous because a) they are outspoken, b) not always under the control and discipline of traditional editors, and 3) have an openly respectful and positive relationship with their source as if that is a high crime or misdemeanor.
It is significant that they were recognized by the Polk awards, but not the Pulitzer board. In some higher circles, their source, Edward Snowden, is still considered a traitor or worse.
The Pulitzer Prize is the big enchildada in the media world announced in a formal ceremony at the Pulitzer room in the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism on New Yorks Morningside Heights. The journalists who win these prizes are recognized for life as Pulitzer Prize Winners, a sign that they reached the highest heights in the profession. Its a ticket to raises and more recognition.
I once was once told by a former dean of the same J School where I taught as an adjunct that they considered themselves the Taj Mahal of American Journalism. I didnt have the heart to remind her that the original Taj was built as a tomb.
Almost as significant as the prizes to stories emanating from a whistleblower was the award to an investigative report into coal miners who were denied black-lung disease benefits, a report produced by one of the not-for-profit media organizations, the Center for Public Integrity. A CPI reporter, Chris Hamby, won that one.
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The Corruption of Mainstream Media