Self-Censorship by Journalists

If the government's account of 9/11 is not accurate, wouldn't the media have been "all over it"?Isn't the fact that most mainstream media sources don't spend much time covering these issues show that there's nothing there?No.

Initially, there has been self-censorship by journalists.

Several months after 9/11, famed news anchor Dan Rather told the BBC that American reporters were practicing "a form of self-censorship":

Indeed, journalists who have even asked innocuous questions about 9/11 have been threatened.

And, referring to another topic, a leading MSNBC news commentator has said that there is self-censorship in the American media, and that:

As Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski has written (at page 26):

Censorship by Higher-Ups





If journalists do want to speak out about 9/11, they also are subject to tremendous pressure by their editors or producers to kill the story.The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, said:

In fact many journalists are warning that the true story is not being reported. See this announcement and this talk.

And a series of interviews with award-winning journalists also documents censorship of certain stories by media editors and owners (and see these samples).

There are many reasons for censorship by media higher-ups. One is money.

The media has a strong monetary interest to avoid controversial topics in general. It has always been true that advertisers discourage stories which challenge corporate power. Indeed, a 2003 survey reveals that 35% of reporters and news executives themselves admitted that journalists avoid newsworthy stories if “the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization’s owners or parent company.”

False flag terrorism is the most controversial topic there is. Exposure of the truth about 9/11 would challenge the government and the corporate status quo. Exposure of the truth of 9/11 would directly damage the bottom line of the war profiteers (see below). It would also damage the financial interests of the news organizations, since revelation of the truth would show how bad the mainstream media has been in covering real news, thus encouraging more people to get their news from other sources.

In addition, the Bush administration is allowing tremendous consolidation in ownership of the airwaves. The large media players stand to gain billions of dollars in profits if the administration continues to allow monopoly ownership of the airwaves by a handful of players. The media giants know who butters their bread. So there is a spoken or tactit agreement: if the media cover the administration in a favorable light, the MSM will continue to be the receiver of the government's goodies. And censoring the truth about 9/11 is a large part of covering the administration in a favorable light.

Drumming Up Support for War



In addition, the owners of American media companies have long actively played a part in drumming up support for war.



It is painfully obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the large news outlets studiously avoided any real criticism of the government's claims in the run up to the Iraq war. It is painfully obvious that the large American media companies acted as lapdogs and stenographers for the government's war agenda.

Indeed, veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:

always

But this is nothing new. For example, the mainstream media also played footsie with the U.S. government right before Pearl Harbor. Specifically, a highly-praised historian has documented that the Army’s Chief of Staff informed the Washington bureau chiefs of the major newspapers and magazines of the impending Pearl Harbor attack BEFORE IT OCCURRED, and swore them to an oath of secrecy , which the media honored (page 361) . Also listen to this interview And an official summary of America's overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950's states, "In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq." (page x)In fact, the large media companies have drummed up support for all previous wars. For example, Hearst with the Spanish-American War . And the military-media alliance has continued without a break (as a highly-respected journalist says , "viewers may be taken aback to see the grotesque extent to which US presidents and American news media have jointly shouldered key propaganda chores for war launches during the last five decades.")Indeed, the American press hasserved the elites in disseminating their false justifications for war.

Why?



One of of the reasons is because the large media companies are owned by those who support the militarist agenda or even directly profit from war and terror (for example, NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors in the world -- which directly profits from war, terrorism and chaos).

Another seems to be an unspoken rule that the media will not criticize the government's imperial war agenda.

9/11 was one of the main justifications for the Iraq war, as well as the entire American imperial war agenda. Revealing the truth about 9/11 would undermine the main reason for those wars, and therefore, is in direct conflict with the media giants' efforts to drum up support for war.

And the media support isn't just for war: it is also for conspiracies by the powerful. For example, a BBC documentary shows that

then

Moreover, "the tycoons told General Butler the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers . " See also this book Have you ever heard of this conspiracy before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

Censorship by the Government



Finally, as if the media's own interest in covering up things like 9/11 and in promoting war is not strong enough, the government has exerted tremendous pressure on the media to report things a certain way. Indeed, at times the government has thrown media owners and reporters in jail if they've been too critical. The media companies have already felt great pressure from the government to kill any real coverage of 9/11 other than the official story and attacking straw men.



For example, Dan Rather said, regarding American media, "What you have is a miniature version of what you have in totalitarian states".

Tom Brokaw said "all wars are based on propaganda".

And the head of CNN said:

ordered

(the expert has an impressive background ).

See

and the following 5-part interview for further information on 9/11 and the media: (

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Can We Win the Battle Against Censorship?

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent"

- Thomas Jefferson

"To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.





"Powerlessness and silence go together. We...should use our privileged positions not as a shelter from the world's reality, but as a platform from which to speak. A voice is a gift. It should be cherished and used."

– Margaret Atwood

"There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that [nothing] cannot suppress."

- Howard Zinn (historian and 9/11 truth advocate)

Indeed, former military analyst and famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that the government hasthe media not to cover 9/11, saying:Of course, if the stick approach doesn't work, the government can always just pay off reporters to spread disinformation. Indeed, an expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations And famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein says the CIA has already bought and paid for many successful journalists . See also this New York Times piece, this essay by the Independent, this speech by one of the premier writers on journalism, and this and this roundup Indeed, in the final analysis, the main reason today that the media giants will not cover the truth about 9/11 is that we live in a fascist country (see point number 6). Fascism actually means the blending of the government and corporate interests , and the American government and mainstream media have in fact been blended together to an unprecedented degree.The cards are heavily stacked against the media covering the facts disproving the government's version of 9/11 or the many credible people who have questioned that story. We are up against tremendous forces working to censor those facts.But we have the ability to outsmart the bad guys . We can "be the media" ourselves. We can be the movie-makers, the commentators, the reporters and writers. A thousand voices are louder than one voice with a megaphone.We cannot leave governance to our "leaders", as "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" (Jefferson). Similarly, we cannot leave news to the corporate media.