Katerina Matsa: About two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) get news on social media sites... Facebook is still far and away the site Americans most commonly use for news, with little change since 2017. About four-in-ten Americans (43%) get news on Facebook. The next most commonly used site for news is YouTube, with 21% getting news there, followed by Twitter at 12%. Smaller portions of Americans (8% or fewer) get news from other social networks like Instagram, LinkedIn or Snapchat. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Jonathan Tepper: The internet was meant to be open, free, and decentralized, but today it is controlled by a few companies with grave consequences for society and the economy. ... The great hope of an open and free internet has given way to a dystopia where a few big companies control what we see, how we communicate, and what we can say online. ... Although the architecture of the internet is still decentralized, the ecosystem of the World Wide Web is not. A few giant companies have near-monopolistic control of traffic, personal data, commerce, and the flow of information. ... Before 2014, traffic to websites came from many sources, and the web was a lively ecosystem. But beginning in 2014, more than half of all traffic began coming from just two sources: Facebook and Google. Today, over 70 percent of traffic is dominated by those two platforms. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
R. Palme Dutt: The bourgeois democrats and reformists argue that Fascism is the consequence of Communism. "The fear of the dictatorship of the working class has evoked the iron dictatorship of Capitalism and Nationalism. Reaction on the 'Right' has bred reaction on the 'Left.' Reaction of the 'Left' is displaced by triumphant reaction of the 'Right' (Labour Manifesto on "Democracy versus Dictatorship," March 1933). From this they draw the conclusion, expressed in many Labour speeches: "To defeat Fascism, root out Communism." This line is expressed in the abstract slogan ' 'Democracy versus Dictatorship," presented without reference to class-relations: that is, in practice, defence of the existing capitalist state (with its increasing Fascist tendencies) against the working-class revolution, under cover of the plea of defence against the Fascist danger. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Nancy Snow: Without the monopoly concentration of mass media, there can be no modern propaganda. For propaganda to thrive, the media must remain concentrated, news agencies and news services must be limited, the press must be under central command, and radio, film, and television monopolies must pervade. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Snyder: News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast own 90% of the TV stations, radio stations, movies, magazines and newspapers that Americans rely on for news and entertainment. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Daniel Estulin: One of the best kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of giant conglomerates, all belonging to the secret Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, NATO, the Club of Rome, and the Trilateral Commission, control the world's flow of information. They determine what we see on television, hear on the radio and read in newspapers, magazines, books, or on the Internet. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Abraham Lincoln: I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Carl Bernstein: By far the most valuable ... associations, according to CIA officials have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc... Over the years, the (CBS) network provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well-known foreign correspondent and several stringers... A high-level CIA official with a prodigious memory says that the New York Times provided cover for about ten CIA operatives between 1950 and 1966. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lewis H. Lapham: There was a time in America when the press and the government were on opposite sides of the field. The press was supposed to speak on behalf of the people. The new tradition is that the press speaks on behalf of the government. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Parry: If you evolve in the mainstream media, you're basically evolving yourself out of a job. So you have a group oriented more toward their careers, people who don't have much of a real commitment to true independent journalism. You have journalists who know longer really care about getting the story correct as much as they care about protecting their flanks in terms of their careers. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Every specific turn in history causes some change in the form of petty-bourgeois wavering, which always occurs alongside the proletariat, and which, in one degree or an other, always penetrates its midst. This wavering flows in two "streams": petty-bourgeois reformism, i.e., servility to the bourgeoisie covered by a cloak of sentimental democratic and "Social"-Democratic phrases and fatuous wishes; and petty-bourgeois revolutionism-menacing, blustering and boastful in words, but a mere bubble of disunity, disruption and brainlessness in deeds. This wavering will inevitably occur until the taproot of capitalism is cut. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Parry: Over the last three decades, the Washington Post has evolved into a neoconservative propaganda sheet, especially its opinion section which fronted for George W. Bush's false Iraq-WMD claims, led the long-term bashing of Iraq War critics, and defends whatever actions the Israeli government takes, including the recent war in Gaza. Rather than a newspaper committed to the truth and favoring a broad debate about important issues, the Washington Post has become an enforcement mechanism for a neocon-dominated Establishment, setting the parameters for permissible points of view and twisting facts for that purpose. ... The sad truth appears to be that the Washington Post can no longer be counted on to be anything like an honest broker, especially when it comes to issues near and dear to the hearts of neocons. Rather the Post's role is now to set the parameters for whatever debate the neocons find acceptable ... Rather than encouraging as free and open debate as possible, the Washington Post sees its role as herding the American people to certain preordained conclusions - and casting out from acceptable society anyone who dares threaten the Washington consensus. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Daniel Estulin: Journalists who participate in The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer are some of the best-known political pundits in the United States, such as Paul Gigot, David Gergen, William Kristol and William Safire. All of them belong to the Bilderberg Group, the CFR or the Trilateral Commission. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Eric Zuesse: The framing conditions shaping the corporate media: 1. Corporate nature, elite/ parent company ownership and profit-maximising orientation 2. Dependence on allied corporate advertisers for 50 per cent or more of revenues 3. Dependence on cheap, subsidised news supplied by state-corporate allies 4. Political, economic and legal carrots and sticks rewarding corporate media conformity and punishing dissent. When facts, ideas, journalists and managers are poured into this framework, the result is a highly filtered, power-friendly 'pyramid' of media performance. Every aspect of corporate media output is shaped by these framing conditions. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Paul Craig Roberts: Most newspapers are part of huge conglomerates, and the policy that comes down is that you don't rock any boats. You can't make the government upset because the value of the company is the broadcast licenses, and the government will not renew them, and we can't make our corporate owners mad because they will fire us, and we can't make the advertisers mad or they will pull their advertising. So the media can't say anything that will upset the power structure. And that's what had happened to the press. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Oliver Stone: As news organizations are increasingly driven by a bottom-line mentality, the news we get becomes more and more sensational. What is the difference between Time and Newsweek? Between ABC, NBC, and CBS News? Between the Washington Post and the New York Times? For all practical purposes, none. The concentration of media power means that Americans increasingly get their information from a few sources who decide what is "news. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Glenn Greenwald: If you only speak to a very narrow slice of people. If you spend most of your time in Washington only speaking to political elites in both parties, or corporate executives and lobbyists, you have a very distorted picture of what public opinion is. A lot of times both political parties will agree on a certain position that a huge number of Americans, often even majorities actually reject. And yet, if all you're doing is talking to people in political power and political and financial elite, you will believe that the range of opinion is much narrower than it actually is. Reporters and media stars and corporate and establishment journalists are so embedded into the establishment as a cultural and sociological matter, that they're out of touch from what public opinion actually is. Polls show that huge numbers of issues and positions that are held by large numbers of Americans are ones that are virtually never heard in our media discussions. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Peter Dale Scott: The CIA developed covert relationships with about 50 American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations. According to one CIA operative, "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." The agency arranged for the publication of books to be read in America, and for at least one of these works to be reviewed favorably in the New York Times. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: The scientific conclusions of Malthus are "considerate" towards the ruling classes in general and towards the reactionary elements of the ruling classes in particular; in other words he falsifies science for these interests, But his conclusions are ruthless as far as they concern the subjugated classes. He is not only ruthless; he affects ruthlessness; he takes a cynical pleasure in it and exaggerates his conclusions in so far as they are directed against the poor wretches, even beyond the point which would be scientifically justified from his point of view. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stephen Lendman: The mainstream media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Arianna Huffington: A problem that has been facing American mainstream journalism for a long time has mainly to do with access. They want to get their calls returned by the big guys at Goldman Sachs. So they develop a relationship in which the journalists themselves become insiders. Too often, consequently, they do little else than rewrite the press releases they are handed. This has cost America a lot. Mainstream journalists of The New York Times and elsewhere were complicit insiders both in the lead-up to the Iraq war and in the lead-up to the financial meltdown. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bob Shanahan: American journalism is dead and has been for at least the last ten years. It used to maintain a semblance of objectivity and at least tried to report on the facts on the news of the day without politics distorting everything. But bias and editorializing have polluted our newsrooms for some time now and it is only getting worse. The mainstream media has become a fake news propaganda machine. We cannot trust our mainstream news sources anymore for an honest view of today's political, economic, cultural, or even international events. There is no more objectivity, no more dedication to the truth, and no more fair-minded analysis of the facts available without taking sides. American journalism is dead today because our news reporters and commentators have let their ideology get the best of them. The mainstream media is on its way out and there's nothing they can do about it because they can't even admit there's a problem. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
John Pilger: For most people, the primary source of their information is the mainstream. It is mainly television. Even the internet for all its subversiveness has still a very large component of the mainstream. And that means we're still getting its singular message about wars, about the economy, about all those things that touch our lives. All we are getting is what I would call a contrived silence, a censorship by omission. I think this is almost the principal issue of today because without information, we cannot possibly begin to influence government. We cannot possibly begin to end the wars. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Des Freedman: Many senior journalists reflect the dominant strain that runs through their newsrooms - one based on the assumed benefits of neoliberalism and foreign intervention and the undesirability of redistribution, nationalisation and people like Jeremy Corbyn who don't share the same social circles or ideological commitments. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
