On Becoming A Citizen Journalist
50 Years of Corporate Journalism Failed Us. The Only Stories That Matter Now Are The Stories We Can Tell Each Other
When I attended James Madison University in the late 70s, I only had a vague notion of what I wanted to do as an occupation.
I was attracted to communication and journalism, but only in the most nebulous sense.
For my parents, and people of their generation, a College education was THE key to success, (at that time defined as “making a good living”) in a rapidly changing world.
The G.I. bill that paid College tuition helped millions of people like my Father achieve a middle-class existence, proof positive, to my parent’s generation, that College was the path to take.
After flailing around working low-paying jobs, I decided to attend a small college in the rural South for a year, where I got a chance to work at the brand new campus radio station. At that time, the FCC required broadcasters, even student broadcasters, to be tested and licensed, due to the fact that they were operating equipment on federally regulated airwaves.
At first, there was no actual broadcasting, as the micro transmitter on the roof of the College dormitory would not be installed until the Summer break. The broadcast radius was pitifully small, maybe a city block, but it might as well have been 100,000 watts in my mind.
I practiced reading public service announcements and Associated Press headline summaries torn from the teletype through the monitors and headphones, trying to develop the serious intonation and broadcast quality voice I heard from professionals on radio and television. The thought never occurred to me that through these “bulletins,” powerful people were promoting their narrative and agenda. Essentially, you were broadcasting a minority, elitist view of the world. People went about their day-to-day lives without giving it that much thought.
I studied diligently that Summer to take an FCC broadcaster license test in Norfolk, Va. I passed the rigorous test and returned for the second year with a newly minted, third-class radio operator’s license, and proudly tacked it up on the wall of the broadcaster’s booth above the board.
Unfortunately, the second year of study came to an end within a few months, when I became deathly ill, infected with a case of Hepatitis that was misdiagnosed as the flu. I nearly died. I vowed that College was over. Even career concerns seemed trivial, but eventually, I decided to give it another go and try another school.
So I headed North in January of 1979 to pursue a degree in Communications at James Madison University, and a career in the dominant technology of the era, Radio, and Television. That coincided with major changes in the broadcast industry.
As the 70’s faded away and the ’80s dawned, there were only three major television networks that broadcast a 30-minute, tightly edited “news program,” brief summaries of major points without detail, pushback, or critical thinking. That was for Sunday talk shows or special editorial responses.
24-hour cable news, on the scene with reporters in the field, was the Black Swan Event waiting around the corner to upset this stale model. It was a male-dominated profession, but that was changing: Male AND female reporters, on location, live, at the moment, took the viewer to the scenes where events were happening, from natural disasters to war zones.
Cable news effectively eradicated the old model for disseminating news and information, especially when responding to major stories. They invested millions in people and technology for field reporting. No more “News at 6 and 11,” it was now 24 hours a day as long as you had cable access. The fledgling cable networks at least seemed to care about the tenants of good journalism: Getting the “5 Ws” right, (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) confirming veracity with multiple sources, and most importantly, being responsible for the public trust. The big three legacy networks held them to a high standard.
One of my Communications professors at JMU in the Radio and Television Department required us to read Dan Rather’s “The Camera Never Blinks” as part of the course curriculum. Detailing the anecdotes and lessons Rather had learned as an experienced, veteran field reporter, and compared to other minutiae we had to absorb in theoretical texts such as memorizing the dry facts of TV and Radio History, the book was a delight. If there was one thing that was burned in my memory ever since childhood, it was Rather’s somber, serious delivery on the day of the Kennedy assassination, in Dallas, covering the dystopia with calm and rationality. Finding the truth about this tragic event was vital.
Unfortunately, according to the incredibly revelatory documentary by Oliver Stone, titled “JFK Revisted: Through The Looking Glass” it appears that no journalist was skilled enough to push back against the narratives propagated by the powerful Warren Commission, F.B.I., and C.I.A.
How ironic, that a Vietnam war veteran and filmmaker, as opposed to a “professional” career journalist, finally gives some clarity after over a half-century has passed. Finding the truth has taken Stone through some cultural and critical minefields along the way.
Stone, as a citizen journalist, wouldn’t take the sketchy government narrative at face value, and pursued the truth with dogged determination.
I'm sure I’m not alone in this, but people in my generation have been carrying around a psychic burden of sorts, irrevocably traumatized for decades: the shock and grief of watching a popular President gunned down in broad daylight. The official “story” as conveyed by numerous reports, close examinations, and documentaries over the years never felt resolved properly. We were lied to, so our perception of consensus reality, by default, was always based on a lie. It’s been that way, unfortunately, ever since, with everything from war to terrorism.
According to the documentary, The Warren Commission, empaneled specifically to find the truth, was, in fact, part of the conspiracy to hide critical evidence. There were they said, only THREE bullets that were found on the scene, ALL fired from a high angle by ONE man, above and behind, so there was a no wider conspiracy. With every step of the investigation, The Warren Commission held to the premise of three, and only three shots, and suppressed all evidence that contradicted the official story. A pattern for future calamitous events like 9 11.
Despite all the “professional” journalists, like Rather, and even Walter Cronkite, (who, as Stone notes, tried to pursue the truth surrounding The Kennedy assassination after the fact but was completely stonewalled) they failed to find it. Powerful arms of the government have always owned, and still own journalists. The C.I.A. has always been a key source of dubious American narratives.
The same US government that has touted itself for more than half a century as a proponent of freedom, liberty, and democracy, simply used the alphabet agencies of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. to cover up the US version of a third-world domestic coup.
I won’t delve too deeply into the documentary's startling revelation of decades of redacted evidence, but suffice to say that in the story of Kennedy’s assassination there is:
* Credible evidence of crossfire, that is, MULTIPLE assassins on the ground in Dallas.
* Multiple recruited C.I.A. assets for the operation besides Oswald.
* Backup plans for multiple assassination attempts in multiple cities in case one failed.
* C.I.A. and F.B.I. involvement in evidence tampering: the Kennedy autopsy was performed by unqualified people who requested more experienced people to help but were, inexplicably, refused. Autopsy photography was staged to cover up a forward shot bullet wound.
* Eyewitness testimony with corroboration that Oswald wasn’t even at the book depository the day of the assassination
* A pristine single bullet that did most of the damage, to two victims, Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connelly, had no malformities or scarring, a physical and scientific impossibility.
Kennedy was shot, according to the documentary narrative, because he wanted peace when the powerful Military Industrial Complex wanted war, and an American expansion of global hegemony, especially in Cuba. Fear of Communist expansion and Russian alliances drove US foreign policy. Kennedy specifically wanted America involved in Vietnam in an advisory capacity ONLY, with no commitment of US troops or equipment. That policy provision was changed by Lyndon Johnson to direct US involvement shortly after he was sworn in as President.
Kennedy, after guiding the nation through these existential crises, was fed up with the subterfuge of the C.I.A. led by Allen Dulles. Incidents like the Bay Of Pigs and Operation Northwoods, reflected poorly on Kennedy’s leadership and decision-making, and also, dangerously led America to near extinction. The Bay of Pigs failed in large part because Kennedy refused to commit United States military resources to back up the exiled, Cuban-hired army. This was in direct opposition to his advisors in the Pentagon, who tried to use his National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy, as leverage to change his mind, to no avail.
Kennedy, in word and deed, took on forces more powerful than even the Presidency, and he was killed for it. The message of the powerful was, from that moment:” Don’t interfere with our plans, on penalty of death.”
From that moment in 1963 on, through successive compliant administrations, the powerful forces of the empire have achieved that goal.
I’m still astounded on a daily basis, that in 60-plus years of living, we are right back to the same historical circumstances that cast a dark shadow of existential crisis over America and the world in the 1960s. Now I see it as a plan that was delayed and took some time to develop.
War with Russia, and provoking an inevitable nuclear extinction event, were unthinkable in the ’60s.
2022, allegedly an evolutionary point in time, feels as regressive and as ancient as the Peloponnesian War.
In contrast to Kennedy, an aged, cognitively challenged Joe Biden is pursuing war enthusiastically, excitedly, and unabashedly, on multiple fronts, which is a last-ditch effort to save the American petrodollar in the midst of global and domestic economic collapse. Citizen journalist economists I have watched on YouTube over the past months say the dollar is backed by nothing, printed out of thin air, and its value as a reserve currency is diminishing by the day.
The powers that be, through their corporate propaganda outlets, say otherwise. The empire is strong, powerful, and resilient, and will remain so forever. The only thing that has given the American dollar any credibility is American military muscle. Think of Tony Soprano’s street crews collecting protection money. It’s the same racket, only with more, and wider spread violence to back it up.
It took decades, but the very powerful people who own and dictate to our alleged leaders want to own the world, and they will sacrifice as many people in the world’s population as they need to do so.
Corporate journalism is now reduced to bread and circuses distraction and division, wasting time and resources broadcasting show trials with no intention of seeking justice or criminal liability. The powerful don’t care, or even take caution to hide their motives any longer, an indication that the plan is in motion, a runaway train with no brakes. The “hosts” feign surprise.
Corporate “journalists” dutifully broadcast every word of propaganda handed to them and repeat it immediately over social media. They sit in silk suits and dresses, comfortably ensconced behind TV set fakery, never breathing the dirty air of the real world. So they make up reality as they go along.
What of Ukraine?
It says everything about the pathetic state of journalism that, with multiple, overlapping crises, these arbiters of truth have become flat-out propagandists for the powerful.
Months since the invasion, is Russia winning, losing, or advancing?
We might have a better idea if there was credible, accurate reporting, but Ukraine’s fight against Russia has been enshrined as a Holy War, much like Israel’s offenses and continued genocide against Palestine are endorsed by a criminally inept “statesman” like Biden as a “bone-deep connection”(Israel) and in the case of Ukraine a fight for democracy against tyranny.
Anyone with a computer and creative searching skills knows that Ukraine is a dubious, criminal grift and money laundering operation for the powerful. Journalists like CBS News Morley Safer, who showed the American public the atrocities in Vietnam firsthand, have abandoned those principles, and are now highly paid cheerleaders and propagandists, never leaving the elite bubble of their studio, bad actors and stenographers for the powerful.
Responsible journalists, for example, would demand an accounting for the billions, and the actual weapons sent over the months since the invasion.
Instead, they breathlessly report on the latest visits and photo ops from politicians like Nancy Pelosi, and celebrities like Ben Stiller, but have nothing to say about the fact that Ukraine ranked an alarming 6.18 out of 10 in criminality according to the Global Organized Crime Index with a 5.60 in the proliferation of criminal markets.
Millions of Americans cheer on and mindlessly “support” the continued flow of weapons to militant Neo-Nazis, not thinking about the fact that the descendants of the same alphabet agencies, continuing the vile work that was almost successfully thwarted by John F. Kennedy, are using Ukraine to launch one point of a three-point war with the entire world: Russia, China, and Iran.
It’s really too late now to stop it. It was a decades-long plan in the making. The alleged party divides, all the performative political theater, good cops and bad cops is a way to keep the frogs from realizing they are in the pot with the water now at full boil.
I may have more time on my hands than most, but one thing I try to do, in the limited voice and power that I have, is to share vital information shared by professionals from doctors to financial analysts to independent journalists.
From Twitter to self-produced YouTube videos, these people, not the Jake Tappers and Chuck Todds, are vital in shaping consensus reality.
We have to remain vigilant in looking out for each other and seeking truth as citizen journalists in a world where our lives matter less and less by the hour.