It is always interesting to see how other countries view your own. Here is an article, written by an English Report, about the atmosphere of fear in the American media:
1. DEMOCRATIC MEDIA: A DO-IT-YOURSELF STARTER KIT
by Sheldon Rampton
"I visit the States three or four times a year, and watching the
television news in hotel rooms in the last three years has been like
witnessing a time-lapse study of emasculation," writes Henry Porter,
the London editor of Vanity Fair magazine, in his ruminations about
the unmasking of FBI official Mark Felt as "Deep Throat," the
Watergate whistleblower.
"It's not just the unbearable lightness of purpose in most news
shows; it's the sense that everyone is rather too mindful of the
backstairs influence of the White House in companies such as Viacom
and News Corporation that own the TV news," Porter writes, adding,
"The result of this climate of fear and caution is that few
Americans have any idea of the circumstances in which 1,600 of their
countrymen have lost their lives in Iraq, the hideous injuries
suffered by both Iraqi and American victims of suicide bombers, or
even the profound responsibility that lies with Rumsfeld for
mishandling practically every facet of the occupation. The mission
to explain has been replaced by the mission to avoid. If today there
was a whistleblower as well-placed, heroically brave and strategic
as Mark Felt, one wonders whether he would now find the outlet that
Felt did at the Washington Post between 1972 and 1974."
For the rest of this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3782