“Journalism is the activity, or product, of journalists or others engaged in the preparation of written, visual, or audio material intended for dissemination through public media with reference to factual, ongoing events of public concern. It is intended to inform society about itself and to make events public that would otherwise remain private.”(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The catchword of “freedom” in the western democratic world has lost its crystal ringing . . . drowning all aspects of privacy, human rights & civil liberties. Big corporations, money & power rule at the expense of human lives so preciously enshrined constitutionally & propagated. All sense of human values is turned topsy turvy & disregarded under the guise of national security. This is so profoundly pursued in the recent “Snowden” surveillance whistle-blowing phenomenon. There appears to be new sets of law of convenience & interpretation to meet the objectives of Obama Administration, as they did previously with Bush-Cheney Programs.
In the following video interview, Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars author & journalist, simply and plainly describes what is happening to the privacy and freedoms of all human beings on planet Earth under the Obama Administration.
He says, “Unless we, as a society make it our business to address the root cause of the problem, which is that corporations are running the the show in the United States, then I don’t have any faith that [any] bill passed by Congress . . . is going to have any meaningful impact . . .”
“One of the fundamentals of a democratic society is a free and vibrant press and the role of journalists in a free and democratic society should be to hold those in power accountable . . . to give a voice to the voiceless, to fill in parts of the story that aren’t being covered by those in power, and to provide information the people can use to make decisions about what policies to support or oppose.
“What is happening under Obama – and was certainly happening under Bush, is that journalism is being criminalized.
“If you are cutting too close the heart of the National Security State – we have whistle-blowers that are being prosecuted in record numbers by the [so-called] ‘Constitutional Law Expert’ – President, you have journalists that are having their phone records seized, that are being surveilled, are having their discussions intruded upon – the end result of this is an attempt to chill whistle-blowers and to stop . . . people from talking to journalists.
“When you have a White House such as we have right now . . . that engages in official leaks . . . they will leak Classified information or stories that make them look like the great defenders of peace, freedom and democracy around the world. [However,] almost everything they leaked in the immediate aftermath of the Osama Bin Laden raid turned out to be false – but they were managing the story.
“If journalists only have access to the official leaks and the pronouncements of the PR people, spinning for the White House, the Pentagon or the CIA, that’s not a democratic press. That’s not independently-verifiable information.
“What that is, is propaganda.”
US Democracy is but a name . . .
Video (6:27 mins)
Paul Chong's Blog 