I just saw a report that the Bloomberg news group won a court legal battle for us, the American people, against the government, this time against the government keeping secrets.
It seems they were able to successfully use the Freedom of Information Act:
"The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said."
More: "The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released."
I see local blogs online bemoan newspapers and always complaining about how they are the "dead tree media" and I find it tiresome. And ignorant.
Sure, kill the newspapers in that paper form but they need to exist, for sure. Without media--a good, strong, searching, investigating and persevering media to question our government and its institutions, bureaucrats and legislators, we are far weaker as citizens, taxpayers and voters.
We would be operating far more in the utter darkness without them.
Additionally, they can't be owned by other, big corporations that have so much to gain from having only their own viewpoint put out.
So score one for the media and the people.
We need lots more of this.
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I don't know that we could ever rely on the fourth estate in modern times. At least back when papers were outwardly biased, there would usually be a competing paper with a different political slant to pick up the news the other one skipped.
Every news story I've known firsthand has substantial and meaningful details wrong.
Everyone I've talked to who knew a story first hand said the news got substantial meaningful details wrong.
Not being owned by the corporations they report on isn't going to solve bias--Even newspapers rely on advertising for most of their budget. Being too harsh to a major advertiser and they are likely to pull ads. Ever notice how few bad reviews there are on mainstream products in any product-oriented publication other than Consumer Reports?
Media also has obvious biases. I get a lot of the gun ones pointed out, but I have a hard time believing those ar the only ones. A recent example--Thousands of IGOLD pro-gun demonstrators in Chicago--the media ignores them and reports on less than 100 anti-gun protesters. I can see that the issue itself might not be considered newsworthy, but if 100 protesters on one side of an issue is newsworthy, I can't see how thousands on the other side isn't.
We have to rely on some form of media. It's all we have.
Fortunately, groups like CREW, Alternet.org, Truthdig and Truthout, among others, are taking up where newspapers have fallen off.
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