uncle@ucsbcsl.UUCP (07/20/86)
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Return-Path: <ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 86 22:38:24 pdt
From: <ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Posted-Date: Fri, 4 Jul 86 22:38:24 pdt
Subject: Press Censorship - West : the subtle heavy-hand
(re: submission by wex@mcc re: press censorship modes )
(reference to submission by wex@mcc is from recollection
i may not have acurately restated his position, however
his article motivates the following comments:)
i am a sometime net reader depending on which system i happen to
have access to. i was browsing in net.politics and saw that you
remarked upon the "free-world" approach to censorship. I think you
are correct in your observations. One of the reasons that this
state of affairs exists is the elevation and subsequent co-opting
of "journalism" by the mass-media industry ( (firstname=?) (lastname=
Cogburn(?)) a contributor to The Nation, recently wrote about this
in "The Los Angeles Weekly" (complete with e.g.s of how the
60-min. monolith conveniently misses big targets and how it actively
falsifies stories in order to contribute to the building of the
prevailing neo-fascist liturgy which has come to dominate public
discourse.
One group which carries a very heavy responsibility and which receives
scant criticism is 'academics'; they spend their lives delving into
this and that and then when they see that UP is being offered up as
DOWN etc. in the public discourse, when they see that such
falsifications are being used as justifications for war etc., they
don't rise up , no they just sit idly by figuring out how dept of
destruction money for laser research can be rationalized as 'medical
research', or how (fill in the blanks for everyone from anthropology
to zoology!) !!!!!!!
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-------campbell@maynard.UUCP (07/29/86)
Return-Path: <campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU> Date: Mon, 21 Jul 86 21:13:39 EDT From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Re: Press Censorship - West : the subtle heavy-hand In article ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU writes: > One of the reasons that this >state of affairs exists is the elevation and subsequent co-opting >of "journalism" by the mass-media industry ( (firstname=?) (lastname= >Cogburn(?)) a contributor to The Nation, recently wrote about this >in "The Los Angeles Weekly" ... His name is Alexander Cockburn, and he is one of the most trenchant commentators on the political scene today. The Nation is a must-read, not only for Cockburn's wonderful biweekly column, entitled "Beat the Devil", but for the best investigative and political reporting I've ever seen on either end of the political spectrum. Don't miss it! -- "You'll pay to know what you really think." Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846 -------
cramer@SUN.COM (08/05/86)
In article campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu writes: >His name is Alexander Cockburn, and he is one of the most trenchant >commentators on the political scene today. The very same Mr. Cockburn who is fond of decrying the influence of the evil capitalist system on journalism was fired from his post at the Village Voice a while back. It seems that Mr. Trenchant concealed the fact that he was under hire by a pro-Arab organization for "research" that was to end in publication. >The Nation is a must-read, >not only for Cockburn's wonderful biweekly column, entitled "Beat the >Devil", but for the best investigative and political reporting I've >ever seen on either end of the political spectrum. Don't miss it! Yes, the Nation is a must read, if you go in for chic anti-semitism. Gore Vidal's blatantly anti-semitic piece in the recent anniversary edition of the Nation was, without a doubt, the most vitriolic piece of Jew-hatred to appear in the "legitimate" press in the past decade. It's no surprise that such a stellar journalist find a home at such an august journal... And it is similarly unremarkable that folks who believe in an oxymoronic and non-existent "subtle heavy-hand" of press censorship (in a country in which plans for the hydrogen bomb have been published!) enjoy such rubbish. -------
campbell@maynard.UUCP (08/15/86)
cramer@SUN.COM writes: >In article campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu writes: > >>His name is Alexander Cockburn, and he is one of the most trenchant >>commentators on the political scene today. > >The very same Mr. Cockburn who is fond of decrying the influence of >the evil capitalist system on journalism was fired from his post at >the Village Voice a while back. It seems that Mr. Trenchant >concealed the fact that he was under hire by a pro-Arab organization >for "research" that was to end in publication. What a bizarre paragraph! What does "the influence of the evil capitalist system" (or decrying same) have to do with being hired by an Arab cultural organization for research? And while we're at it, let's just straighten the record a bit about the Village Voice incident. Cockburn did not "conceal" this fact. He did omit to mention it to his editor, as he did not think it relevant. He was not a fulltime employee of the Voice, but a columnist, who also wrote (and writes) for many other publications. It was none of the Voice's business that he had accepted a grant from an Arab cultural organization to do some research and writing on their behalf. This whole thing was blown out of all proportion by the odious Alan Lupo, a right-wing Zionist crank who wrote at one time for the local weekly yuppie rag, The Boston Phoenix. (He may still write for it -- I don't know, I no longer read it.) Cockburn never denied the existence of the grant, nor took any overt action to conceal it. I suspect that the Lupo smear was just an excuse, and that the real reason Cockburn was fired was that his politics grated too harshly on the ears of the Voice's owner, Rupert Murdoch. Alexander Cockburn's pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist views are not new, nor are they secrets. It is ludicrous to believe that he could have been influenced in this respect by a $10,000 grant from the side with which he's already known to sympathize. It is as if to accuse William Buckley of irresponsible journalism for accepting a grant from, say, the Heritage Foundation, and failing to inform his readers. I think most would react with incredulity to suggestions that such a grant might sway Buckley even further to the right than he already is; the same applies, in a mirror-image sense, to Cockburn. He's a flaming leftist and pro-Palestinian -- no secrets to his readers, these -- and he's also an excellent writer. I often disagree with his politics (I am no Marxist, for instance) but I thoroughly enjoy his vitriolic attacks on the mainstream media. They deserve it. >>The Nation is a must-read, >>not only for Cockburn's wonderful biweekly column, entitled "Beat >>the Devil", but for the best investigative and political reporting >>I've ever seen on either end of the political spectrum. Don't miss >>it! > >Yes, the Nation is a must read, if you go in for chic anti-semitism. >Gore Vidal's blatantly anti-semitic piece in the recent anniversary >edition of the Nation was, without a doubt, the most vitriolic piece >of Jew-hatred to appear in the "legitimate" press in the past decade. Here we have yet another case of the inability of so many people to distinguish Jews from Zionists. Yes, Gore Vidal (and Alexander Cockburn, and I, if you care) disdain Zionism. But Zionism is not the same as Judaism. Cramer, like so many Zionists, figuratively waves the red flag of the holocaust at anyone who dares to question Zionism, or the policies of the Israeli government. Fortunately, there are writers like Vidal and Cockburn who don't instantly fall apologetically to the ground every time this well-worn bit of innuendo is trotted out. >It's no surprise that such a stellar journalist find a home at such >an august journal... And it is similarly unremarkable that folks who >believe in an oxymoronic and non-existent "subtle heavy-hand" of >press censorship (in a country in which plans for the hydrogen bomb >have been published!) enjoy such rubbish. I'm impressed; Cramer's article contains more idiocies per paragraph than the average Bernard Kalb briefing. I presume you're referring to the Howard Morland article in The Progressive in 1979. It is obvious that anyone who refers to this article as "plans for the hydrogen bomb" has never actually read the article. Morland's article was simply meant to demonstrate that much of the obsessive secrecy with which the government cloaks nuclear weapons research has nothing to do with protecting real secrets, and everything to do with intimidating and coercing the press and the public. Everything that Morland wrote was available in the open literature at the time. The whole brouhaha arose because the government wished (and still wishes) to preserve the aura of mystery, secrecy, and power surrounding the nuclear priesthood (and by osmosis, the military). It is noteworthy that the government's unprecedented application of prior restraint, the only such application ever attempted in peacetime, was overturned conclusively by a Federal court a few months later. The Progressive's defense cost them several hundred thousand dollars, an expense for which they're still in debt today. Fortunately for the First Amendment and the public, they chose to fight, they won, and despite the best efforts of the government they are still publishing today. More power to them. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846 -------