MY TURN-Whenever I start to believe there is no rhyme or reason to anything I experience in my daily life, serendipity pops up its coincidental head and throws me for a loop. I mean at first examination, what does fundraising at national public radio station KPCC have to do with George Orwell of 1984 fame and an essay he wrote entitled Politics and the English Language?
In Orwell's essay, he clearly describes how "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." What occurred to me is that the only thing that has changed since he originally published this essay in 1946 is that those in the government and the media have only become more adept at obfuscating reality. Thank G-d for an occasional Ed Snowden to let us know what time it is.
While I am not surprised about the self-deceptive and predictable rhetoric of the delusional right in this country, what is now giving them a run for their money is the disingenuous platitude-ridden rhetoric of the left that has purposefully blinded itself to an incessant move to the right. If one dares to question why liberals no longer posit programs that have in the past implemented traditional liberal values like equal access and opportunity, peace, and equality before the law, one is accused of being negative and a pessimist for an unwillingness to live in wonderland.
As NPR station KPCC was in its fundraising mode last week, for me there was a clear disconnect between what those hawking for donations on behalf of the station said and the reality of the stenographer status that KPPC reporters have come to practice on a daily basis to the exclusion of any real reporting.
Like state-run media in the old Soviet Union, our media, both mainstream and public, never deviate from a clearly defined corporate party line. And with the consolidation of media by five or six corporations and the dependence of public media on subsidies from foundations with their own political agenda picking up these stations shortfall in light of cuts in their federal budget, those interested in keeping their jobs fall all over themselves to keep it light and breezy.
In listening to the incessant optimism of those trying to get me to support KPCC, I found their picture of this "best of all possible worlds" to be in marked opposition to what my own senses were telling me as to what's really going on.
It wasn't true that KPCC reporters "left no stone unturned" in reporting a story. Although they have far greater access to what is going on, they merely parrot what they are told in complete contradiction of their claim that "we're here for you."
Reporter Sharon McNary of KPCC once told me straight out, "We will never report what you want us to report about LAUSD, because the Broad Foundation supports Superintendent Deasy at LAUSD ... and Broad supports us."
The revolving door that we all have become used to over the years in government, where those charged with regulating business, wind up cashing in by going to work for the same businesses they were supposed to regulated has now become a phenomenon infecting 1st Amendment freedom of the press, where Reporter Barbara Jones of the syndicated Daily News, who supposedly covered LAUSD for 6 years, now takes a job with LAUSD Board Member Tamar Galatzan. Is this her paid day for having played softball with LAUSD over the last 6 years?
During the Vietnam War era I remember demonstrating against the war and then going home and seeing in-depth coverage of the issues that finally brought an end to the war.
More recently, a veteran reporter like Helen Thomas who dared to question this country's unquestioning support of Israel is drummed out of her post at the White House.
So now, if a tree falls in the forest, one is free to assert that it didn't, because nobody heard it. But with Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and other monosyllabic means of expression, one must also wonder how much longer we will be able to sequence together enough facts to even understand what is going on.
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He’s a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 25
Pub: Mar 25, 2014
