Ben Bagdikian, Visionary

Jeff Cohen
Fairness and Accuracy In Media FAIR, March 12, 2016

EXCERPT...

Before almost anyone else, Ben warned about the impact of the modern wave of media mergers that accelerated during the Reagan years (and accelerated further during the Clinton administration). In the first years of FAIR, I heard from various sympathetic journalists in mainstream media who said they were thrilled that, finally, a pro–working journalist media watch group had formed . . . but that we were off-base to emphasize the impact of corporate owners—that the problem was in the newsroom far more than the boardroom. A few years and a few mergers later, these same journalists told us that we’d been right, almost prophetic—that boardrooms were undermining journalism, often quite nakedly.

But we weren’t the visionaries. It was Ben Bagdikian who was the seer.

Ben was a journalist’s journalist—from his years as a local reporter to his years at the Washington Post (where he played a crucial role in publishing the Pentagon Papers and went undercover as an inmate in a maximum-security prison). He served the public, not the boardroom—and luckily for him, he got out of corporate media before the conglomerate era.

SNIP...

Ben’s motto through all these decades could have been: “Tell the Truth and Stand Strong.”

The New York Times obit for Ben (3/11/16) quotes his message to his journalism students at UC Berkeley:

Never forget that your obligation is to the people. It is not, at heart, to those who pay you, or to your editor, or to your sources, or to your friends, or to the advancement of your career. It is to the public.

SOURCE: http://fair.org/home/ben-bagdikian-visionary/

Additional info on corporate owned news:

http://www.corporations.org/media/

https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/MediaMonopoly_Bagdikian.html

GOP Senator Under Fire Doubles Down:

‘I Look at a White Nationalist as a Trump Republican’

By David Badash
The New Civil Rights Movement, May 12, 2023

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is not walking away from the firestorm he lit earlier this week when he declared white nationalists are simply “Americans.” Now, doubling down, the former college football coach has announced a white nationalist is simply a “Trump Republican.”

Tuberville, already under fire for holding up 184 U.S. Armed Forces promotions or appointments, has been promoting white nationalism by claiming he’s just trying to help the military meet its recruiting goals

NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin asked Senator Tuberville, “Do you want to clarify your comments?”

“The Democrats characterize all MAGA Republicans in the military as white nationalists,” Tuberville incorrectly told her. “Wrong. Okay, we can’t get politics in the military. This has nothing to do with extremists and all that this, you know, my first day here was January 6 had several senators stand up on the Senate floor saying to me we got too many white nationalists, I mean, what the heck is that?”

“We all got different beliefs. You know, I’m a church Christ, Catholics, we got different people. And we all have to make one military. We can’t start distinguishing different types of people. Okay. That’s all I say.”

Continues…

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/05/us-senator-under-fire-doubles-down-i-look-at-a-white-nationalist-as-a-trump-republican-video/

Not One Single Republican Votes for Probe of Neo-Nazis in US Military and Police

Zero House Republicans supported a measure requiring the Pentagon and federal law enforcement agencies to publish a report on countering white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in their ranks.

KENNY STANCIL
CommonDreams, July 14, 2022

Zero House Republicans on Wednesday supported a measure requiring the Pentagon and federal law enforcement agencies to publish a report on countering white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in their ranks.

Rep. Brad Schneider's (D-Ill.) amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023 directing the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense "to publish a report that analyzes and sets out strategies to combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies" passed in a party-line 218-208 vote.

Among present lawmakers, Democrats were unified in support and Republicans in opposition. Reps. Theodore Deutch (D-Fla.), Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) did not vote.

Snip…

Schneider's proposal requests "figures on the number of people who were discharged from uniformed services or law enforcement because of situations involving white supremacy and neo-Nazi activity," The Hill reported. It also calls for "information on how the agency leaders responded to 'planned or effectuated incidents' connected to white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideology."

Continues…

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/14/not-one-single-republican-votes-probe-neo-nazis-us-military-and-police