“Who should regulate the media? Who should control the press? The commentariat agonises, as if the choice was between state control through some autocratic press law or a new Press Complaints Commission redecorated with false teeth. But there is another way. Let journalists regulate themselves.... Let's have a little democracy in the media. Even in the Murdoch papers, the number of journalists who are irretrievably lawless and callous is quite small. Most of the disasters at the News of the World happened because its editors treated their staff in the style of Muammar Gaddafi.” IfsWorldWayShouldLittlesStatesLawChoicesNumbersDemocracyHappenedMediaStylePaperNewsPressesDisasterTeethTreatedJournalistEditorsStaffComplaintsPapersAnother WayCallousGaddafiMuammar Gaddafi Author:Neal Ascherson
“A democracy survives when its citizens have access to trustworthy and impartial sources of information, when it can discern lies from truth. Take this away and a democracy dies. The fusion of news and entertainment, the rise of a class of celebrity journalists on television who define reporting by their access to the famous and the powerful, the retreat by many readers into the ideological ghettos of the Internet and the ruthless drive by corporations to destroy the traditional news business are leaving us deaf, dumb and blind.” LyingDiesPowerfulClassDemocracyInformationTelevisionSourceReaderInternetCitizensNewsBlindLeavingEntertainmentAccessTraditionalDumbJournalistCorporationsRetreatDeafRuthlessIdeologicalGhettoTrustworthyFusion Author:Chris Hedges
“If you look at the Associated Press wires, there's a constant flow of information coming in. At that time I happened to have direct access to AP wires. The day the marines landed in Haiti and restored [ Jan Bètran] Aristide there was a lot of excitement about the dedication to democracy and so on. But the day before the marines landed, when every journalist was looking at Haiti because it was assumed that something big was happening, the AP wires reported that then [Bill] Clinton administration had authorized Texaco to ship oil illegally to the military junta.” IfsLooksBigsDemocracyHappenedMilitaryInformationHappeningsFlowDirectBillsPressesConstantClintonOilAccessShipsAdministrationJournalistExcitementDedicationMarineWireHaiti Author:Noam Chomsky