Be Informed: Blog on

March 23, 2005

During World War II in Germany Minister of Propaganda Goebbels controlled the news and the Gestapo secret police enforced it. To listen to Britain’s BBC broadcasts in Nazi Germany was enough to precipitate a night-time visit from the Gestapo and your mysterious disappearance. People who did dare listen to foreign radio broadcasts were careful to keep the sound level too low for the neighbors to hear and to turn the dial to another station when shutting off the receiver. Even so, a radio emits a signal matching the one it’s tuned to and it can be traced.
Here in the 21st Century there’s a hint of government control and manipulation of the news when the Republican White House plants a ringer among the press corps pretending to be a real journalist while flinging “softball” questions to the president.
(In case you missed this story: fake “reporter” Jeff Gannon of a Republican website called Talon News obtained White House press credentials and was frequently called upon in press conferences over the past two years to ask questions puffing up the Bush administration. After other reporters became suspicious, Gannon was outed as James D. Guckert, a Republican activist who also operated and posed for a number of gay porn sites. -- ed.)
Other journalists assigned to the White House press corps are fearful of being barred if they ask George W. Bush embarrassing questions (as was the case with columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times). Without access they could lose their jobs.
The Fox News channel is blatantly biased, preaching the Bush line, and talk radio is almost exclusively screaming Republican. Further jeopardizing our access to the real news is the centralization of the news media under the ownership of a few monopolies. Australian communications mogul Murdock and others control television, publishing, and radio. It’s no wonder that the American public suffers for a lack of depth in their news.
I was horrified to be told by a staff member that the Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily, is a local paper. The Oregonian relies on the news services and syndicates for the news from outside the state. It’s the equivalent of what we used to call in radio “rip and read.” The kid on the studio controls would tear the sheets off the teletype and read them into the live microphone without comment or evaluation. Our eight-page Houghton fish wrapper, the Daily Mining Gazette, is a thinner version of the same.
What’s a news junky to do?
What’s happening to the American public is similarly alarming. Only about 40% of American households own computers. Hardly anyone owns a short wave receiver, and even if they did, they could no longer get the BBC World Service broadcasts so vital to the Europeans in World War II.
The BBC has cancelled North American service in favor of the Internet. If you don’t have access to email and the Internet, you can’t get the perspective of the British Broadcasting System, other than a few shows heard on National Public Radio. You also can’t access all the other foreign sources of the news.
When I asked the Oregonian reporter why their paper hadn’t covered the news that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was accused of being a war criminal and had to cancel his visit to Germany for fear of being arrested (a report that was on Public Broadcasting), the editor doubted it was true. Subsequently, the German state prosecutor held back on a warrant so Rumsfeld could attend a conference. The Oregonian reporter did find that the Belgian and Dutch had decided not to prosecute Rumsfeld as a war criminal, but I bet you never saw that story in your local paper or on television.
Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, those who do have web service can subscribe to daily news releases and links from the BBC and to other sources of foreign news. Bloggers have pursued some of those stories which slipped under the radar of the monopoly controlled American news media. Some hot stories have emerged, including the one about the fake journalist planted in the White House; hundreds of bloggers reportedly piled on this story to determine Gannon’s true identity and reveal his pornographic connection.
So far, listening to the BBC isn’t going to bring on a 2 a.m. Swat team breaking down your door. And we can thank the Internet for the access to the world that is being cut off by those who would control what we read, watch, and hear.
If you are a computer phobic, get over it. It’s a citizen’s responsibility to be informed. An uninformed, ignorant populace cannot make an intelligent choice at the polls. One reason America is a Republic of elected representatives and not a true Democracy of citizens like Switzerland is it takes time to keep oneself informed of the issues. Be informed. Log -- or blog -- on!

Harley L. Sachs, www.hu.mtuedu/~hlsachs, author of “Ben Zakkai’s Coffin” and “A Troll for Christmas” at ZumayaPublications, Mystery Club cozies at Wings ePress, “Scratch--out!” by Fire Mountain Press, etc. and books from IDEVCO.