A Call to Arms

Who would have ever thought that quiet, mild mannered, Bill Moyers would be the one to toss the torch and ignite a white hot fire under the moribund journalistic world? He didn't, yet, but if you'll just take the next 19 minutes and listen to his speech
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0r71L7cojE
to the National Conference for Media Reform I think you'll agree with me that his call to arms to the nation's journalists sounds just a bit like Patrick Henry.

In fact, he stirred this septuagenarian into writing this blog, the first one in a long, long while. It was while listening to what Moyers said that I realized that, given a lifetime as a journalist, if I didn't write something I was a part of the problem we face in this 21st Century.

Moyers gently pointed out that journalists no longer ask the tough questions. They no longer hold the feet of politicians and other government "spokespersons" to the fire; asking follow-up questions, asking for facts not speculation or memorized talking points. And, he lies much of this failing at the feet of a government which has allowed, nay, encouraged, our once free and independent journalistic tradition to become owned and dominated by corporate and conglomerate interests with only one thing in mind -- the bottom line.

Moyers' speech awoke in me something I carried with me as a journalist for every day of my 30 years writing for the public press and that was that I was sitting in that boring meeting or covering that court trial because I represented those thousands of people who couldn't or wouldn't attend in person. And, that I was using my skills to tell them what they needed to know if they/we were to continue to maintain an informed populace. That, by the way, is one of the corner posts upon which our Democracy is founded.

He names big media as being complicit in the Bush Administration's propaganda campaign to seduce America into the Iraq war. Here's the difference: back when journalists had the backing of their employers even a cub reporter wouldn't have hesitated even a microsecond to ask the questions that surely would have revealed that the Emperor had no clothes. That doesn't happen today and, why, you may ask? It's because the employers are now corporations who have many interests, many of them closely bound to government, and everyone knows that to rock the boat leads to not a life jacket, but to a pink slip.

On the one hand I'm glad I no longer work for Reuters or the Tampa Tribune or even the little Pottstown Mercury because I have this inherent dislike of castration. Luckily, I still have the skill to put my thoughts into readable prose and I have this blog and I no longer intend to remain silent.

In some countries you can be put to jail for criticizing the government, even killed. But, hell, I'm 70 years old. Not a whole lot of time left and there's not a whole lot that even a government can do to me that the sometimes dissolute life of a journeyman reporter hasn't.

Keep tuned.

Arjay