Orwell Rolls In His Grave is a truth telling moment you may not be able to stomach. While other films have focused solely on the Fox "effect," the realities of why we are where we are now in the state of news go beyond Fox "News."
Offering a historical perspective, Robert Kane Pappas traces the decline in standards and funding for news divisions now owned by megacorporations.
Orwell's Ministry of Truth ensured that the Big Brother was never contradicted. As Pappas asks in a voice over, "Can lies become truth? Could a media system controlled by a few global coporations with the ability able to overwhelm oll competing voices be able to turn lies into truth? These corporations are not answerable to the people. Only the politicians can regulate them. "
Utilizing clips and interviews with people like Danny Schechter, Mark Crispin Miller, Charles Lewis (former 60 Minutes producer), Peter Mitchelmore (former NY Post editor), Robert W. McChesney, Mark Lloyd, Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders and Aurora Wallace, director Robert Kane Pappas paints a very disturbing portrait of a mainstream media that refuses to give the people the basic information they need to be informed citizens.
Topics include the "neverending story," the selling of the war, the media's handling of the 2000 election and the Supreme Court decision, media consolidation, the limited range of expression and 'free' speech.
This movie will explain to you why it is past time to hold the press accountable. Why an occassional story of import making the front page of The New York Times is not cause to celebrate our free press but further evidence of how poor the mainstream media is. Why does a day of truth or near truth in one story cause us to celebrate and scream "Yipee!" when in fact the press should be covering the realities every day but instead wants to focus on sports or "lifestyle." It's not news, people.
And it's not going to inform you of what legislation is coming out of Congress or how it's going to effect you. It's not going to help you put food on the table or pay the medical bills but goddamn if you won't know every last detail of who made the latest cut in the current reality shows or the state of celebrity justice in America.
Watch the movie and be disgusted with the state of mainstream media so that you don't fall for information management and greet a breif respite from infotainment as the second coming of real journalism.
And note Charles Lewis's obsersvation about today's reporting:
What will pass for investigative reporting is someone may get hold of an early report from some committee that's about to come out or an investigative report from the inspector general report that's going to castigate the secretary of this or that so you'll breathlessly go on the air and you'll say ABC has learned or whatever network is and you'll be out of breath and it's all exciting and you'll be out of breath and it look like the facelss minions that comprise the network
hundreds of them out there ferreting out information for you to serve the public. It's complete bunk, it's not happening at all. The public would never know from the media that they spent 11 million dollars to keep any free air time provisions out of amu legislation, successfully by the way.
Orwell Rolls In His Grave is a documentary you owe it to yourself to see to grasp how "news" is not a business pursuing truth but a corporate arm shaping and manipulating the public.
Robert Kane Pappas: The spin process is very effective, both in newspaper reports and on TV and in radio. If you make it your business to be informed, what happens is, you end up watching the mainstream news with your mouth hanging open. If you watch only what they offer, you're largely intellectually lobotomized. Your opinions are determined by two- and three-word sound bites: "Death Tax," "Conspiracy Theory," "They hate our Freedoms," "Democracy," "Liberal Bias," "Class Warfare." As Winston's co-worker Syme says with glee: "Every year, fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller."
We are linking to BuzzFlash for two reasons. One we learned of the movie from them and, two, they are taking on The New York Times and have asked who are you going to support? We'll go with BuzzFlash. The film costs 30 dollars minimum at BuzzFlash and we realize that some of our readers will not be able to afford that. For that reason, we have provided links to BuzzFlash interviews with Robert Kane Pappas. We'd also recommend that (to quote Tori Amos) "in times like these, you know who your friends are" so if you're not regularly checking out BuzzFlash, we urge to start visiting the site.