But September 24th, in D.C. we showed we could do more than complain, we showed we could mobilize and make our presence felt. The days that followed brought more encouraging news: Bill Frist possibly guilty of insider trading, Tom DeLay facing an indictment, Karen Hughes' charm offensive (which misses the dumb sweetness of Laura's) bombing in the Arab world, Bill Bennett disgracing himself and being called on it (even the White House distanced themselves from Bennett -- something they refused to do with Pat Robertson), there were a lot of things to be hopeful about.
We don't think of any of it is new. Not all that long ago, in the the Sunday magazine of The New York Times, Frist was reported as asking of a wanna-be appointment, how much had he donated?
DeLay? We're going back to the state elections in Texas in 2002. Makes you wonder why reporters were unable to tear into this story on the national scene? Should Ronnie Earl have been the only one following up on it. (Ava & C.I. report that Dateline was asked to do a story on it by viewers in 2003 when redistricting was pushed through but apparently the program had other stories to file. Do they regret it now? Any readers have the postcards Dateline sent out to viewers thanking them, but no thanks, for the suggestion that they seriously look into the actions of DeLay and company?)
The mainstream media hasn't led on any of this. As a group of people who follow various newspapers, various radio programs and various TV programs, take it from us, the mainstream's done very litte. As we began working on this edition Saturday night, we listened to The Laura Flanders Show and, as usual, got more information from that than anything we've learned from the mainstream media.
DeLay says he wants to resolve this quickly. The mainstream media has reported that. The others charged with conspiracy? It's in their interests to proceed slowly and . . . well, delay.
As Flanders pointed out, "You've really got the GOP in Texas at odds with the GOP in D.C."
(To read the indictments online, you can go here. We also learned that listening to Flanders. We've heard the mainstream talk of how confusing it all is but we haven't noticed anyone in the mainstream providing us with a location to read the indictments ourselves.)
In spite of the mainstream media, the summer of activism has already birthed the largest demonstration in the United States of this century. Over 300,000 people in D.C. to protest the invasion/occupation and demand that the troops be brought home now.
You did that. Not with the help of the mainstream media but in spite of the mainstream media.
You got the word out, you followed alternative media and informed yourself. You became your own media by sharing the issues that matter with your friends and family.
Though we're sure it's got to be coming, the one thing mega corporations has yet to be able to "consolidate" and "synergize" is the citizenary. We can be independent actors. We can reject the spin and the talking points. We can overcome of the various Operation Happy Talk messages coming out of the Bully Boy administration.
Saturday, the day they love to bury the big news, it was learned that the Government Accountability Office had ruled as "illegal" (sadly, there's no punishment such as sentencing or fines) the Bully Boy's practice of "creating news" by putting "journalists" on the payroll and creating "news story" that were nothing more than White House propaganda but ended up being carried, with no disclaimer, on many television stations across the country.
And the mainstream media wonders why they aren't trusted and where the audience has gone?
At any outlet, you can usually point to a person or two dedicated to real reporting. But they are the exceptions and not the rule. The dedication now appears to be to not offending anyone. Not offending a reader who's been fed spin, not offending a Republican controlled Congress, and not offending the Bully Boy.
The result is a decline in readership and a decline in viewers. You'd think they'd worry about that but they don't appear to be. (Maybe they haven't heard Cher's song "When The Money's Gone?")
The message that comes through more and more is that the mainstream media has made themselves irrelevant. As Norman Solomon has pointed out, what's the point in following it when you're not reflected in the coverage and you're made to feel that everything's being done outside of you and your input doesn't matter?
Maybe the mainstream media will wake up? We won't take any bets on that because we'd hate to steal your money. But they need to do some self-inventory and one step would be for one of the daily "biggies" to editorialize (not op-ed it) for an end to the war. When we read that, we'll
know that either the movement's gotten so large that the mainstream can no longer pretend it doesn't exist (which will probably mean polls that leap to 90% of Americans wanting us out of Iraq now since the majority that wants that now continues to be ignored) or it will mean that a paper finally grasped that if they don't have an audience to sell to advertisers, they don't stand much chance of staying in business. And if current trends hold, that's something they may need to seriously worry about. (Band-aids like charging to read op-eds are nonsense. The New York Times doesn't make money on the sale of the paper, they make money off the advertising and they set the advertising rate based on their circulation figures.)
Regardless of what the mainstream media does, the movement continues. That's the big lesson coming out of the summer and fall of this year. Keep being your own media, keep supporting independent media, keep active, but take a moment to pat yourselves on the back. (The way pretty TV personalities did in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.)
Many a break up ends with this phrase: "It's not you, it's me."
Mainstream media, it's not you, it's us. The people did the job you were
too scared to do. You're still timid like you've been for too long
now. It's us, we woke up to the reality, in fact you taught it to us, that
we can't wait around for you to rediscover your purpose.
So congratulate yourselves, whether you were able to make it to D.C. or a protest in your area, or whether you just kept the issue alive in your own circle. Congratulate yourselves and continue consuming independent media. In addition to Flanders, we'll do one more recommendation that we can all agree on, Democracy Now! -- the best daily resource, Monday through Friday, for the real news you can't get from the mainstream.
[This editorial was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ava, Jess, Ty and myself, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Mike of Mikey Likes It! and C.I. of both The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review.]