The sad fate of our generation is that since the 1980s, there had been no more real honest to goodness journalism. Much more so in the Philippines. In this country, in a significant way, journalism died. When Corazon Cojuangco Aquino came to power, journalism further regressed.
With the exception of three or four media organizations in Metro Manila and a few more in the rest of the country, there is no more credible Philippine media. To say in the jocular that those who were merely made to run an errand to buy suka (vinegar) suddenly became journalists, in the 1980s is to trivialize things. However, in many cases, this is true, most particularly in the entertainment industry. Barely graduates of elementary school, hardly finished in high school and unlearned college dropouts and graduates – many from out of place disciplines – invaded the entertainment journalism sector.
Unschooled, uncouth and foul language-spewing individuals pretend to be qualified and competent talent scouts – managers, with side jobs as tabloid “Columnists” (side jobs!) inevitably end up as runners for white slavery and prostitution syndicates and even drug trafficking rings. Imagine what the Profession of the media has become! These vermins have been feeding our young women to vultures and sharks — specially moneyed chinese, politicians, well-paid professionals and businessmen, tourists as well as flashy OFWs with a lot of loose money to throw around.
Young girl victims that cannot comprehend what the fake “movie journalists” cum “talent managers” (in reality white slavers, pimps, sex merchants) are doing to them are either killed when these victims complain too loud or are maimed or disfigured for life.
Unfortunately, in most cases, their deaths or injuries are reported by the decadent media and the corrupt law enforcement as suicide or self-inflicted – specially if the culprits are prominent personalities and will shell out grease money. Take the case of Miss Pepsi Paloma. Long after she was buried, her death was closed as the case of a desperate lass killing herself. In reality, the girl was so full of life and was a dauntlessly, ambitious young lady who could never contemplate suicide.
On the other side of the coin are the seasonal and sector-specific media. They apply for registration of a single proprietorship entity: a partnership or a corporation then print 200 or slightly more copies of a tabloid, weekly bulletin type newspaper, and focus on putting out stories about the police, the bureau of customs officials and offices, immigration issues, internal revenue concerns – targeting what is supposed to be just a micro-scale public.
These fly by night newspapers, most often with an organization of only one person, load up the editorial staff box with a lot of names of writers and pseudo journalists, editors and fake editors, business managers and pretend advertising executives.
All th
ey do is collect money during Thursday or Friday – at the offices where they are welcome and are friendly with. The good thing about many of them is that they are able to buy membership with the National Press Club (NPC) and are able to peddle themselves to everyone and sundry as “legitimate members of the media”. During the happy hour time at the NPC every Friday evening, these fake journalists often converge at the NPC building in Intramuros to spend good money on alcohol and good food. A lot of gambling goes on at the pool tables and some at card games.
Photo credit: David Montasco Photography
On the regional-provincial scale, these charlatans become the praise makers for local politicians. In the more sordid cases, these fake media persons become the hitters in print or on the air for multi-millionaire or billionaire leaders of crime organizations, or drug trafficking syndicates, for gambling lords, kidnap for ransom as well as robbery gangs and all the other illegal elements of the Underworld.
A lot of well-trained mediamen, alongside their moronic, maleducated counterparts, are dirtying their hands with dirty skim money like freaking slimeballs devoid of any morality or redeeming value. Along with them, their own employers – the very owners of the media outfits themselves.
The biggest question to many quarters is: What happens to the public constantly fooled by media who takes bribes and indiscriminately dishes out humongous falsehoods? destructive information? demonization and extremely harmful smear campaigns?
What happens is the people get tired of media people lording it over in our communities and in our country. Like the fly on top of an elephant’s head, media practitioners believe they have grown big and impossible to defeat. Particularly those that were banished into oblivion for a reason, such media persons have come to the conviction that nothing and noone at all can kill them. In their mind, they have grown invincible.
We can only sympathize deeply with the victims of media who just suddenly wake up and find in the morning papers all splashed in the front pages no less, their personal character wholly besmirched by baseless, diabolic accusations by gargoyles in media.
Rapes That Never Took Place
Let us take a look at how Broadsheet dailies campaigned by publishing successive Front Page news for more than one whole week to totally wreck the reputation of a simple government worker serving as former Pres. Ramos’ and Secretary Winston Garcia’s undersecretary at the DOTC:
Together with the extremely dirty language spouting tabloids, the character of the good civil servant was totally ruined by these broadsheet newspapers.
The Secretary of DOTC later confessed to having worked with the media to publish on a consecutive, day-to-day basis the supposed complaints of rape against his own Undersecretary.
Even if Secretary Winston Garcia is a complete bastard and absolutely corrupt son of a bitch, the media should not have accepted the bruited about Thirty Million Philippine Pesos (Php30,000,000) blood money that was extorted from the owner of one of the famous mall chains in the country today.
It’s still money, even if dirty money? That should qualify as a preposterous response. The person whose reputation they destroyed was a fast and extensive performer.
The Undersecretary did not even tell a soul about discovering Secretary Garcia stealing funds from the DOTC, still Garcia and his contacts in media proceeded to crush the man and drive him as far away as possible from the department.
They were taking the bribe anyway, the least that the media should have done was to qualify that the rape was mere allegation and that therefore, should not have taken sides with the stupid lowlife scalawag Winston Garcia. In that sense the media should have made an escape hatch for themselves, but they did not.
By doing so and shamelessly spreading falsehood about an honest and incredibly capable, hard-working Ramos man, media proved itself to be fucking scoundrels and villains of the first order.
The humiliation, dehumanization and terrible shame that these owners of media and their trolls have to swallow for bringing out unprintable material that is inedible fare for all of us normal, average creatures of this country and people of other races around the world is superlatively degrading.
These owners of media and their similarly corrupt bootlicking underlings clearly have to stoop too low they will be crushed when run over by a pregnant ant. We wonder if there is any more humanity left at all in media owners and their army of ogres masquerading as journalists.
Such scuzzbag strategy of publishing lies and canards about immoral acts attributed to men of integrity makes many members of the media the bearers of the worst kind of disease in all of human history and the lowest form of members of the animal kingdom.
There was a time when media was called Fourth Estate. Time when media was so honored an institution that leaders of social thought declare: a nation without a government can survive, if there is but the press; yet a nation with a government, with no press, will surely die.
Rampant Killer Drugs For Sale At The MOA
Recently, media covered with pomp and all the attendant franticness the serious threat of drugs in the country. This long persisting drug phenomenon made itself manifest in a most brutal manner when 5 promising, vibrant, energetic youth died by ingesting a corrupted form of the drug Ecstasy during the Close Up Summer Forever Concert at the Shoemart Supermalls biggest regional category Mall of Asia. Those that suddenly collapsed and died were:
Ariel Leal, 22
Lance Garcia, 36
Bianca Fontejon, 18
Ken Lagubin Migawa, 18
Eric Anthony Miller, 33, American citizen
Ariel Leal (topmost); Lance Garcia (second to top); Bianca Fontejon (third from top); Eric Anthony Miller (bottom photo)
Among the final prognostic findings was stopping or bursting of the human heart due to intense overdrive caused by the illegal party drug.
PNP investigation report on cause of death
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico Legal issued a public statement that the cause of death of some of the victims was massive cardiac arrest which is the understatement of the century considering that the heart actually exploded.
If you look at all that massive volume of text and image about the Mall of Asia special event Close Up Forever Summer Concert, including photos and videos from various sources (see Mocha Uson’s blog) and The Summit Express post, it is clear to the mind of all audiences that the rave party goers at the MOA event Close Up concert, were undoubtedly drug-crazed.
The arrested drug pusher Joshua Hizola Habalo even went on to say, and this was supposedly being verified by posts over social media, that as young as 15 year old and even 12 year old minors were buying or have already ingested the drugs just by their very rowdy and sex-inviting behavior. Some of those that purport to “validate” Habalo’s claim present themselves as medics or hospital workers at San Juan De Dios Hospital.
Media on its own, without the Joshua Habaloses, appears to present that picture as well. This appears pinning the blame on the young people at the Close Up music event at the MOA. In many of the posts made by media, there is hardly even any mention of the Mall of Asia.
The closest they got to mentioning the name of that damned and forsaken place is “a mall at Pasay City.” It seems that media is afraid of Mr. Henry Sy and his children. They might lose advertising and promotional campaign contracts from the giant SM mall chain.
The question is: What if, as Coconuts Manila says, the deaths and the collapse of so many of the concert goers came from laced drinks that were passed around for free? What if the victims did not ingest the drugs at all?
Ecstasy tablets brought by foreigners to the Philippines
The Manila Bulletin as well published suspicions that this might have been the case here in this article. To be sensationalizing the statement for instance of drug pusher Joshua Hizola Habalo that many of the partyers had already ingested drugs into their system before coming to the concert is to overstretch the inverted theory: That the organizers basically, and categorically failed to make the concert grounds secure.
This erases the possibility that ill-intentioned individuals actually intended to poison many of the concert attendees by spiking the drinks that went around the concert venue.
Spiking of beverages has been in our country for the longest time. The entities and the media that are debunking this theory should be wary about what they are misinforming the public of.
There was a time long ago in the past when the chemical used to induce sexual arousal or heat for pigs was used to lace the drinks of women to make them vulnerable to “rape with (blind) consent.”
Waiters, drug pushers and many other individuals alert to a fast buck will agree to do the errand of spiking the drinks of either dates or else unescorted women and young girls with drugs in powder form that would turn them into sex crazed animals inside bars.
The victims who drank the spiked drinks would then be raped by the interested party or gang raped by a cruel group of men or boys who are out for a revolt of their basest senses.
Clubs in Manila, Makati and many other areas in Metro Manila, or even in the provinces were doing this practice since the 1970s, the 1980s or even earlier. Money changed hands before the lacing of drinks with powerful rape drugs – in many of the cases, in doses them not even safe for animals.
Over time, hundreds, thousands of victims suffered in silence the excruciating pain of being raped without even a memory of what had transpired.
Still and all, many executives and key people of media organizations even benefited from this brutal savaging of our women. No wonder that no media institution, however powerful, ever took up the cudgels except against those victimizing people using Ativan and robbing them of their valuables. As if the right of women as women and as persons not to be sexually abused is not one of the most valuable treasures that need to be guarded.
Today the victims of the super spiked Ecstasy mixed with poison does not only make women hysteric for sex, but they kill everyone including children who are unfortunate to taste the loaded party drugs or sip drinks laced with death.
Back to the MOA drug deaths, the media reported that drug pushers Joshua Hizola Habalo (photo below) and 5 other perpetrators were later arrested in the persons of Seergeoh “Gio” Villanueva, 27, an IT professional; his partner Erica Valbuena, 26, a fashion designer; Marc Deen, 28; Thomas Halili and Martin Dimacali, 20.
Joshua Hizola Habalo, arrested pusher dealing in Ecstasy, Shabu
However, the arrested suspects, except for Habalo were too media shy to a fault. They never forgot to get their hands on anything that they could camouflage their faces with. If they don’t find an object for cover, they simply used their own two hands to shield themselves from the paparazzi.
Very young manufacturers, sellers of deadly drugs
The press were too circumspect in showing these suspects’ faces to the public. At the current state of media, many would wonder: Is this out of fear? or the prospects of getting rewards from the parents of the vaunted well-to-do young drug pushers who were not only selling drugs but actually manufacturing the illegal lethally poisonous substances in their own condominium unit at the Azure Urban Resort Residences situated near SM Shoemast at Bicutan, Taguig owned and operated by Century Propeties are too good to just throw away.
Azure Urban Resort Residences where the killer drugs were made
Photos below show the camera shy Drug Manufacturers-Pushers Erica Valbuena, Marc Deen (top photos), Martin Dimacali, and a supposed sixth suspect (bottom photos) who are part of the drug makers and sellers arrested by the NBI.
The Solaire Resort Casino Drug Overdose Case:
Media Reportage Of Murder That Never Happened
In a similar case that transpired a few months ago, both the media and heavy users of blogs and social media manifestly allowed themselves to be exploited in the cover up of a drug overdose by the Assistant Manager of Solaire Resort and Casino Hotel at Aseana Avenue, Paranaque City. The cause of death is similar to the drug intake — this time, clearly by self-inducement not from the lacing or spiking of beverages that was suspected to have been done by criminally minded parties at the concert venue at the SM MOA Arena concert venue.
The fatality at Solaire Hotel, Ms. Edgel Durolfo suffered massive heart attack and multiple organ failure. Her nerves appeared to have ruptured violently that even her skin burst as in the case of many drug overdoses here and abroad. The late Edgel was suffering from a dysfunction of one of her internal organs – her kidney.
There were times when she simply collapsed on the floor at the house she and her boyfriend were living together at. At other times, she would enter into a fit of desperately sucking in air due to breathing difficulty. She was a perfect candidate for a serious physical breakdown. Taking in drugs without relent was simply too much for her condition.
Both the social media, bloggers and the mainstream as well as the sleazy tabloid media projected the case bull headedly with headlines screaming MURDER.
Television reporters and staff kept pestering the neighbors of the fatality’s boyfriend, hungry for a statement that could be used against the person. The most aggressive media house that kept haranguing the community where the boyfriend lived prior to the drug overdose was GMA Channel 7. At one time, GMA Channel 7 actually planted a camera on tripod in front of the boyfriend’s rental apartment, for what reason and to what end, it could not be ascertained.
The president of the homeowner’s association and the parents of the boyfriend tried to discourage the media personnel but they kept using various ruses just to keep visiting the village now and again. Whenever the parents of Edgel Durolfo appeared at the boyfriend’s village, GMA TV was also around. Were the parents and GMA TV connected one way or the other? Or was there a bigger entity that linked them both together? We could only surmise.
Apparently they could not get anything useful, the people of GMA TV stopped their antics.
Solaire Hotel VIP Casino Assistant Manager Edgel Durolfo
Edgel Durolfo and her boyfriend, Rodney during happier days.
In the intelligence community, what appears as the story behind the death of the late Assistant Manager Edgel Durolfo, also known as Joy Mercado, is a multi-faceted tale.
Furthermore, there appears to be several angles to the case observers say. However, surprisingly, media and especially social media does not even delve into these aspects of the case.
For instance, the victim was brought to the San Juan De Dios Hospital by the boyfriend along with his relatives and friends – close friends of the late Edgel that are now considered as suspects in a sham murder case. Immediately upon admitting Edgel at the hospital, the parents of Edgel were called by the boyfriend and friends to inform them of Edgel’s condition.
Following a brief interval after the victim was brought to the San Juan De Dios Hospital upon recommendation of the company clinic officer at Solaire Hotel and around the time of arrival of the parents of Edgel, policemen showed up at the scene – suspected to have been contacted by the parents and “friends” of Edgel.
The boyfriend was alerted by his own relatives and friends that the police officers appeared to be ready to arrest him. Boyfriend left the hospital and stayed in the provinces thereafter.
The late Edgel died 12-13 hours later after boyfriend had her admitted at San Juan De Dios Hospital. The cause of death being bandied about is murder by strangulation. How could one person after being strangled still survive for one day? Was she killed by someone else other than her boyfriend?
It happens that one of the “friends” of Edgel, a supposed white slavery godfather disguising as a “talent manager” and “promoter”, one James Tiu, is wholly privvy to the drug abuse problem of Edgel. This James Tiu is allegedly the owner of a fly by night company that pretends to be a modeling agency but in actuality, James Tiu is very active in providing sex workers to foreign and local clientele.
Tiu’s enterprise is exceedingly lucrative that his models travel to as many places around Asia and other far off continents just to satisfy biological cravings of sex-starved patrons. Edgel herself traveled to Macau on the auspices of James Tiu’s business.
Tiu is the same crass person together with his wards who put up a Facebook Account called “Justice for Joy Mercado” – which account has been created, deactivated, reactivated, for no particular reason.
James Tiu is the same one along with his friends who have been feeding distorted information to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and to the other broadsheet as well as tabloid dailies. Tiu is also closely associated with a certain Angelo, said to be a very close relative of politician husband and wife Ralph Recto and Vilma Santos. Angelo is more closely identified with the Rectos of Batangas. Angelo is Edgel’s former live-in partner and he is the father of Shaun, the late Edgel’s pre-school son.
Shaun, Edgel’s son by former lover, Angelo of the Recto clan
At one time, a helicopter owned by the Recto family, made several flyovers at the house of the aunt of Rodney in Batangas – probably thinking that Rodney was hiding there. What is the interest of the Rectos in the boyfriend of a lady who was their relative’s ex-live in partner?
Why was media so quick to swallow the spin that the boyfriend is the murderer of Edgel when the victim and her boyfriend were very lovey-dovey in the extreme and would never be suspected to engage even in a shouting match much less in a violent quarrel?
And why is the media too keen on sniffing on the footsteps of the boyfriend? Is someone bankrolling their acts of planting a camera on tripod at abandoned apartments, going to and fro to tail the parents and other close connections to Mr. Boy Friend of the late Edgel Durolfo and doing such other inane acts not worthy of their station as members of the media?
How could media not allow the story about Angelo, the relative of Ralph Recto, clearly the father of Edgel Durolfo’s son, to play out in the open? Were they paid to protect the Recto family name? Were they paid not to rock the boat for this family or else the drug business which it is linked to and the smuggling of very expensive luxury cars in Batangas (thousands of Mustang sports cars), running illegal gambling operations, among many other criminal activities might emit a very pungent smell?
The pernicious acts of media does not only extend to playing allies with criminals and syndicated drug trafficking among many other outlaw organizations.
In the past, it was bandied about that ABS CBN was the key support group that encouraged and gave money so that the MAGDALO group will all of sudden, without any lengthy well-done planning, take over the Hotel Manila Peninsula in Makati City.
The scene of crime, the various areas of the hotel, were littered with bags where money were placed in and delivered to the hotel before the coup. A good volume of SIM kit envelopes containing Globe Telecom sim cards were all over the place. It is no secret to everyone and all that Ayala Group-Globe Telecom and ABS CBN are now joined together at the hip when the former bought into the Lopez Group of Companies to acquire Bayan Telecommunications (Bayantel). The more mysterious aspect of the coup d’ etat attempt of the MAGDALO Group commanded by Maestrocampo and has-been socialist revolutionaries based in the University of the Philippines like Professor Dodong Nemenzo was that the full cast of ABS CBN coverage team including an anchor no less in the person of Miss Pinky Webb were already very well and strategically positioned, perfecting the angles of coverage of their cameras and the location for their other equipment hours before the coup d’ etat attempt took place.
It is much talked about since then, that after the failed coup d’ etat attempt, Ms. Webb was promoted by her bosses to head the Investigative Journalism Team at her station. Investigative journalism my ass!
Guerilla media and politicians’ operations in the last May 2016 Elections
The 2016 Presidential Election hopefuls
In the recent elections, the television station owned by the Lopezes once more is in the thick of the fight. As if fighting the Arroyos and engaging them in a failed coup attempt was not enough, ABS CBN worked elbow to elbow with the suspected narcopolitical party – the Liberal Party to where Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III and Franklin Drilon belongs.
The battle that the Lopezes fought this time, together with the drugs-associated Liberal Party was the Philippine Elections of 2016.
The drug syndicate-linked Liberal Party headquartered themselves clandestinely at the Novotel Hotel in Cubao, Quezon City together with key elements of the Venezuelan company, the Smartmatic.
According to sources, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would become the ultimate accidental target of the cabal of ABS CBN, Liberal Party, Smartmatic, COMELEC several other television stations, as well as other organizations including those under two allied Senators of the ruling party.
If for anything else, this move was real media in action, black operations. It would appear as if media was back in World War II when the government of Winston Churchill utilized media extensively during the campaigns against Adolf Hitler.
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler and his ward, Joseph Goebbels
However, in this case, the more proper description for the role of media here is that of Joseph Goebbels the head of Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine itself and enemy to Churchill’s secret media army.
It is now the talk of the town that the plot to install Cong. Leni Gerona Robredo by hook or by crook was hatched by this same cabal nearly one year before the actual elections in May 2016.
The individual that changed the script at the transparency server, among all the other key movers of this dastardly bunch of political guerillas, was spotted in Hong Kong several times with the members of the narcopolitical party – Liberal Party, selected media personalities (on junket no less since they were idiots in computer programming and manipulation) and a motley of knowledgeable foreigners and natives in the field of computers.
These scum of the earth reportedly purchased a large volume of devices and computer internals and peripherals in Hong Kong that would be compatible with the Smartmatic Vote Counting Machine (VCM) and its CF memory card.
Smartmatic vote counting machine supplied to Comelec
Part of the culprit: The CF Memory Card
This item about the purchases by the gang could be very verifiable and the good People’s Republic of China Government can provide a great quantity of evidence to its cousins in the Philippine Government about what kind of purchases were made by the Venezuelan guerilla master idiot and his fellow members of the fraud team in Hong Kong.
As the story goes, this Mephistophelian gang upon return to the Philippines from their trip or succession of trips to Hong Kong, proceeded to create the means to add 5 Million votes for the Liberal Party presidential, vice presidental and Senatorial candidates as well as where possible, local candidates.
Come the close of the elections, the group barely was able to escape from an inspection of the premises at Novotel Hotel. According to insiders at this nefarious camp, they used the consistently roving ABS CBN outdoor broadcast (OB) van to load the gadgets and computers in order to escape detection and discovery.
Rigging the 
canvassing would not succeed. They could not arrive at the math. Mr. Mar Roxas II will fail to put down the multi million vote lead of Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte even with the 5 Million vote padding they had programmed into the system.
Fortunately, the illustrious infernal syndicate had a back-up plan and it was to defeat Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at all costs. The writing on the wall was apparent once ABS CBN started conducting its own supposed surveys of 4,000 respondents, claiming a miniscule degree of error. The rival of Marcos, Jr. in the horrendous narcopolitical ruling party suddenly, out of the blue, launched tirades against the Senator in public.
In so doing, an astounding feat was accomplished by this detestable demoniacal fraternity: placing an opportunistic nonentity called Cong. Leni Gerona Robredo in the post of Vice President.
To upset the win of Mayor Duterte, would be to invite a civil war that the cabal from Hell did not want to incite. It would have to be a bloody riot and many of the narcopolitical syndicate called Liberal Party will die in the process, and the lot of them do not certainly want that to happen. Especially the Chivalrous Knight of the Liberal Party who travelled to China 16 times who most of all is too afraid of death – an anachronism it appears. Least of all, the standing leader of the Liberals, the poseur president Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III who trembles in fear when there is flood did not want to be murdered like the PNP SAF soldiers. Most assuredly, the bayot candidate and his / her make believe spouse out of the bedroom, would not be the first ones to put their necks on the chopping block when the killings, if ever, would start. (It is best to stay safe.)
Not surprisingly however, the transsexual presidentita ordered a difficult menu from a retired general: The assassination of the soon-to-be President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for 30 Million Philippine currency and untold presidential favors in the future. (Wasn’t she/he already packing her/his bags?) Too bad for the insane bading the retired general rejected him and his offer. The stupid transsexual shit now must feel like traipsing in downtown fully naked.
The queer thing is, both media and people like Mr. Ki Moon Ban (best pronounced Di Mun Ban), are demonizing the president while news reports are exceedingly highlighting the
The question asked by intelligent quarters is why ABS CBN, Pulse Asia, the Social Weather Stations and other purported “reliable” survey companies do political surveys.
Why should a television station, known to be biased against the Marcoses, be conducting political surveys? By what right, what authority do these companies, especially a broadcasting network, conduct their surveys? Who will police these corporations with heavy vested interests and tell them what is the right way to administer a survey?
There was a time when journalists proudly held the Banner of Media upright and declare that no nation can survive without the media.
John F. Kennedy once said:
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.
Were it not for debauched, corrupted journalism, and the incredible degradation of values of owners of media the times today will still make President John F. Kennedy’s statements hold true.
Alas, they can no longer be true. Media itself, has become the ultimate tyrant.
So that today, it is not so much as the corrupt journalist that needs heavy spanking. All around the world, owners of media outlets have become the subject of painful plaints. These owners of the pseudo harbingers of freedom of the press, freedom of speech have become the very suppressors of the truth. Top calibre journalists themselves decry the persecution they suffer from the very establishment whose existence and relevance they have upheld all throughout their lives.
Leading Journalists Expose Major Corruption in Mass Media
The riveting excerpts below from the revealing accounts of award-winning journalists in the highly acclaimed book Into the Buzzsaw reveal major media corruption. These courageous writers were prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting major news stories. Some were even fired or laid off. They have won numerous awards, including several Emmys and a Pulitzer. Join in building a better world by helping to spread this news across the land.
Jane Akre – Fox News. After our struggle to air an honest report [on hormones in milk], Fox fired the general manager [of our station]. The new GM said that if we didn’t agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we’d be fired for insubordination in 48 hours. We pleaded with [him] to look at the facts we’d uncovered. His reply: “We paid $3 billion dollars for these stations. We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!” [After we refused] Fox’s GM presented us an agreement that would give us a full year of salary, and benefits worth close to $200,000, but with strings attached: no mention of how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever expose the facts. [After declining] we were fired. (click for more, revealing video clip)
Dan Rather – CBS, Multiple Emmy Awards. What’s going on is a belief that you can manipulate communicable trust between the leadership and the led. The way you do that is you don’t let the press in anywhere. Access to war is extremely limited. The fiercer the combat, the more the access is limited, [including] access to information. This is a direct contradiction of the stated policy of maximum access to information consistent with national security. There was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people’s necks if they dissented. In some ways the fear [now in the U.S.] is that you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. That fear keeps journalists from asking the tough questions. I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism. (click for more)
Monika Jensen-Stevenson – Emmy-winning producer for 60 minutes. Robert R. Garwood – 14 years a prisoner of the Vietnamese – was found guilty in the longest court-martial in US history. At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question that Garwood was a monstrous traitor. Several years later in 1985, Garwood was speaking publicly about something that had never made the news during his court-martial. He knew of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the war was over. He was supported by Vietnam veterans whose war records were impeccable. My sources included outstanding experts like former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Tighe and returned POWs like Captain McDaniel, who held the Navy’s top award for bravery. With such advocates, it was hard not to consider the possibility that prisoners (some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to make sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war reparations. [After the war] American POWs had become worthless pawns. The US had not paid the promised monies and had no intention of paying in the future. (click for more)
Kristina Borjesson – CBS, Emmy award winner. Pierre Salinger announced to the world on Nov. 8, 1996, that he’d received documents proving that a US Navy missile had accidentally downed [TWA flight 800]. That same day, FBI’s Jim Kallstrom called a press conference. A man raised his hand and asked why the Navy was involved in the recovery and investigation while a possible suspect. “Remove him!” [Kallstrom] yelled. Two men leapt over to the questioner and grabbed him by the arms. There was a momentary chill in the air after the guy had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and entourage acted as if nothing had happened. [Kallstrom was later hired by CBS.] (click for more)
Greg Palast – BBC. In the months leading up to the November [2000] balloting, Gov. Jeb Bush ordered elections supervisors to purge 58,000 voters on the grounds they were felons not entitled to vote. As it turns out, only a handful of these voters were felons. This extraordinary news ran on page one of the country’s leading paper. Unfortunately, it was the wrong country: Britain. In the USA, it was not covered. The office of the governor [also] illegally ordered the removal of felons from voter rolls – real felons – but with the right to vote under law. As a result, 50,000 of these voters could not vote. The fact that 90% of these were Democrats should have made it news as this alone more than accounted for Bush’s victory. (click for more)
Michael Levine – 25-year veteran of DEA, writer for New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today. The Chang Mai “factory” that the CIA prevented me from destroying was the source of massive amounts of heroin being smuggled into the US in the bodies and body bags of GIs killed in Vietnam. Case after case was killed by CIA and State Department intervention and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. … In 1980, CIA-recruited mercenaries and drug traffickers unseated Bolivia’s democratically elected president. Immediately after the coup, cocaine production increased massively. Bolivia [became] the source of virtually 100% of the cocaine entering the US. This was the beginning of the crack “plague.” … The CIA along with State and Justice Departments had to protect their drug-dealing assets by destroying a DEA investigation. How do I know? I was the inside source. … I sat down at my desk in the American embassy and wrote evidence of my charges. I addressed it to Newsweek. Three weeks later DEA’s internal security [called] to notify me that I was under investigation. … The highlight of the 60 Minutes piece is when the administrator of the DEA, Federal Judge Robert Bonner, tells Mike Wallace, “There is no other way to put it, Mike, [what the CIA did] is drug smuggling. It’s illegal.” (click for more)
Gary Webb – San Jose Mercury News, Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I wrote a series of stories that began this way: For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America. … The story was developing a momentum all of its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the major media. Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA’s activities. Instead, my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable [Mercury News editor] Ceppos wrote, that the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the series “could not find a single significant factual error.” A few months later, the Mercury News [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away from the story, publishing a long column by Ceppos apologizing for “shortcomings.” The New York Times hailed Ceppos for “setting a brave new standard,” and splashed his apology on their front page, the first time the series had ever been mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News not long after that. … Do we have a free press today? Sure. It’s free to report all the sex scandals, all the stock market news, [and] every new health fad that comes down the pike. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff – such stories are not even open for discussion. (click for more)
John Kelly – Author, ABC producer. ABC hired me to help produce a story about an investment firm that was heavily involved with the CIA. Part of the ABC report charged that the CIA had plotted to assassinate an American, Ron Rewald, the president of [the investment firm]. Scott Barnes said on camera that the CIA had asked him to kill Rewald. After the show aired, CIA officials met with ABC executive David Burke, [who] was sufficiently impressed “by the vigor with which they made their case” to order an on-air “clarification.” But that was not enough. [CIA Director] Casey called ABC Chairman Goldenson. [Thus] despite all the documented evidence presented in the program, despite ABC standing by the program in a second broadcast, Peter Jennings reported that ABC could no longer substantiate the charges. That same day, the CIA filed a formal complaint with the FCC charging that ABC had “deliberately distorted” the news. In the complaint, Casey asked that ABC be stripped of its TV and radio licenses. During this time, Capital Cities Communications was maneuvering to buy ABC. [CIA Director] Casey was one of the founders of Cap Cities. Cap Cities bought ABC. Within months, the entire investigative unit was dispersed. (click for more)
Robert McChesney – 500 radio & TV appearances. [There has been a] striking consolidation of the media from hundreds of firms to an industry dominated by less than ten enormous transnational conglomerates. The largest ten media firms own all US TV networks, most TV stations, all major film studios, all major music companies, nearly all cable TV channels, much of the book and magazine publishing [industry], and much, much more. Expensive investigative journalism – especially that which goes after national security or powerful corporate interests – is discouraged. … A few weeks after the war began in Afghanistan, CNN president Isaacson authorized CNN to provide two different versions of the war: a more critical one for the global audience and a sugarcoated one for Americans. … It is nearly impossible to conceive of a better world without some changes in the media status quo. (click for more)
The Corruption of Mainstream Media
April 18, 2014
America’s mainstream media still pretends it is the custodian of “serious journalism,” but that claim continues to erode as the corporate press shies away from its duty to challenge propaganda emanating from various parts of the U.S. government, as Danny Schechter describes.
By Danny Schechter
First the good news: The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was not only the best covered of its awards this year, but it recognized a series of disclosures that made many media outlets nervous, if not adversarial the publication of National Security Agency secrets leaked by Edward Snowden.
The award recognized the reporting by the Guardian in England and also Bart Gellman’s work in the Washington Post even as they, did not recognize the work directly of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras whose independent reporting appeared in many newspapers.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaking in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013. (From a video posted by WikiLeaks)
Thomas E. Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press and teaches at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His latest book, Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism, examines the causes and consequences of declining news quality and what news organizations and journalists can do to reverse the trend.
The Corruption of Information
10 Most Censored Countries
See updated list of 10 Most Censored Countries at https://cpj.org/2015/04/10-most-censored-countries.php.
North Korea tops CPJ’s list of “10 Most Censored Countries”
New York, May 2, 2006 – North Koreans live in the most censored country in the world, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. The world’s deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya round out the top five nations on CPJ’s list of the “10 Most Censored Countries.”
“By any international standard, the practices of these governments are unacceptable,” said Cooper. “We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning these restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens.”
Here are summaries of the Most Censored Countries:
1. NORTH KOREA
Leader: Kim Jong Il, chairman, National Defense Commission. In power since his father Kim Il Song’s death in 1994.
How censorship works: North Korea has wedded the traditional Confucian ideal of social order to the Stalinist model of an authoritarian communist state to create the world’s deepest information void. All domestic radio, television, and newspapers are controlled by the government. Radio and television receivers are locked to government-specified frequencies. Content is supplied almost entirely by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It serves up a daily diet of fawning coverage of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il and his official engagements. The country’s grinding poverty or famines are never mentioned. Only small numbers of foreign journalists are allowed limited access each year, and they must be accompanied by “minders” wherever they go.
Lowlight: After a deadly munitions train explosion in April 2004 in Ryongchon near the Chinese border, KCNA reported that citizens displayed the “spirit of guarding the leader with their very lives” by rushing into burning buildings to save portraits of Kim “before searching for their family members or saving their household goods.” The international press, meanwhile, was barred from the scene, where more than 150 died and thousands were injured.
2. BURMA
Leader: Than Shwe, who took over as chairman of the military junta known as the State Peace and Development Council in 1992 after the resignation of 1988 coup leader General Saw Maung.
How censorship works: The junta owns all daily newspapers and radio, along with the country’s three television channels. Media dare not hint at, let alone report on, antigovernment sentiments. Burma’s few privately owned publications must submit content to the Press Scrutiny Board for approval before publishing; censorship mean that none publishes on a daily basis. In 2005, the junta took control of Bagan Cybertech, Burma’s main Internet service and satellite feed provider. Citizens have been arrested for listening to the BBC or Radio Free Asia in public. Entry visa requests by foreign journalists are usually turned down except when the government wants to showcase a political event.
Lowlights: An article in the June 4, 2005, edition of New Light of Myanmar (Burma) titled, “Have positive attitude in broadcasting news” explains the government’s approach to media: “The Myanmar people do not wish to watch, read, or listen to corrupt and lopsided news reports and lies. The Myanmar people even feel loathsome to some local media that are imitating the practice of featuring corrupt and lopsided news and lies.” The Voice, a Rangoon-based weekly was suspended in May 2005 as punishment for an innocuous front-page story about Vietnam’s withdrawal from Burma’s New Year water festival, which the junta found embarrassing.
3. TURKMENISTAN
Leader: Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, elected 1991 and declared President for Life in 1999.
How censorship works: Niyazov has isolated the country from the rest of the world and created a cult of personality declaring himself “Turkmenbashi,” father of the Turkmen. The state owns all domestic media and Niyazov’s administration controls them by appointing editors and censoring content. Niyazov personally approves the front-page content of the major dailies, which always include a prominent picture of him. In 2005, the state closed all libraries except for one that houses the president’s books, and banned the importation of foreign publications. The state media heap fulsome praise on Niyazov as they ignore important stories on AIDS, prostitution, unemployment, poverty, crime, and drugs. A handful of local and foreign correspondents work for foreign–primarily Russian–news agencies, but their freedom to report is minimal.
Lowlight: State television displays a constant, golden profile of Niyazov at the bottom of the screen. Newscasters begin each broadcast with a pledge that their tongues will shrivel if their reports ever slander the country, the flag, or the president.
By the principle of destabilization, if the corrupt media that helped install a fake vice president, will contribute everything in its power to kill a sitting president, we will no longer be surprised if the owners of media and their snake in the grass, miscreant, good-for-nothing dirtbag paid hacks will get killed one by one.
If their acts will be so crass as to be telegraphed this early or in the midterm, it won’t be as much surprise as well if they keep dying like the rice and corn stalks of our poor farmers during the last El Niño. The devious charlatans and spinners of canard truly deserve what will come to them.
In coming out boldly with their brazen election fraud support system and demonization plan, media has effectively declared war on the people.
The president-elect and Senator Bongbong Marcos happened to be in the people’s path and unfortunately had to be the corrupt media and the miscreant elite’s biggest target.
In a parallel development, the misguided and blind United Nations has done it again: Sending a supposed UN Rapporteur to admonish the Philippines’ incoming chief executive to respect the rights of journalists and not to endorse their killings.
Everyone now knows what the United is for and what it stands for. Everyone is aware of how the UN is not for the people and in fact it is advocating global decimation — campaigning this early that the planet will no longer have peace, stability because of lack of food to feed people once the population of our dear Earth reaches 10 Billion people.
But that is light years away. In between now and that time, a huge number of catastrophes will hit the world that will reduce the global demographic so why espouse decimation?
The United Nations cannot be trusted. What does it have to do with protecting journalists in the Philippines or around the world when it is advocating the death of billions of people on the planet?
Related Readings:
Tabloidization, Popular Journalism and Democracy
Death of Good Journalism
Slow Death of Free Speen in Britain
Death of Freedom of Expression
Free Speech Almost Gone
Postscripts June 11, 2016
UN Rapporteur Prof. Christof Heyns, race: European but hails from South Africa (Afrikaans) issued statements against the Philippines to press the point of respecting members of media, “stop instigating deadly violence.” Professor David Kaye, from the United States has toured the world teaching about international law and denounces the Philippines incoming president’s supposedly giving permission to kill journalists.
Journalists’ killings: UN experts urge Philippines president-elect to stop instigating deadly violence
GENEVA (6 June 2016) – Two United Nations independent experts on summary executions, and on freedom of expression today urged Philippines president-elect Rodrigo Duterte to stop instigating deadly violence immediately. The experts strongly condemned Mr. Duterte’s recent statements suggesting that journalists are not exempt for assassination.
Speaking at a press conference, Mr. Duterte reportedly stated that most journalists killed in the country have done something wrong. ‘You won’t be killed if you don’t do anything wrong,’ the President-elect said, suggesting that victims were partly to blame for their fate.
“A message of this nature amounts to incitement to violence and killing, in a nation already ranked as the second-deadliest country for journalists,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on summary executions, Cristof Heyns. “These comments are irresponsible in the extreme, and unbecoming of any leader, let alone someone who is to assume the position of the leader of a country that calls itself democratic.”
For the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom opinion and expression, David Kaye, “justifying the killing of journalists on the basis of how they conduct their professional activities can be understood as a permissive signal to potential killers that the murder of journalists is acceptable in certain circumstances and would not be punished.”
Cristof Heyns and David Kaye, UN Rapporteurs
“This position is even more disturbing when one considers that Philippines is still struggling to ensure accountability to notorious cases of violence against journalists, such as the Maguindanao massacre,” the human rights expert added.
Mr. Duterte is further reported to have questioned the legal guarantees to journalists who are perceived to have made defamatory comments. ‘That can’t be just freedom of speech. The constitution can no longer help you if you disrespect a person,’ the President-elect stated.
“Such provocative messages indicate to any person who is displeased by the work of a journalist or an activist, for example, that they can attack or kill them without fear of sanction,” Mr. Kaye stressed.
The President-elect has also been reported as promising to pay bounties to police and military officials for every drug lord they turn in. ‘I’m not saying that you kill them, but the order is dead or alive,” Mr. Duterte reportedly said in a televised news conference.
“Talk of ‘dead or alive’ has no role to play in any state that claims to uphold human rights in law enforcement,” Special Rapporteur Heyns stressed, while recalling the limits imposed by international instruments on the conduct of law enforcement forces.
When the people of the Philippines suddenly saw a fake president rammed into their throats, the United Nations did not say anything about the rights of the people not to have a mentally aberrant child-man as president who was never elected by the majority but only by machines.
The entire Filipino nation, absent the members of media who have lucrative careers, suffered for the last 6 years because of this abnormal and corrupted turn of this great nation’s history.
Was the UN involved in this sinister installation, but of course it will not confess. What else is new. Did the media indulge itself in a campaign to discredit this fake poseur acting as president? It did not dare because most of the owners of media are joined at the chest and abdomen to the fake regime.
When the government did not allow aid to reach the victims of Yolanda, UN did not say a word about Aquino. Neither did it condemn Aquino’s resolve to push through with the Mamasapano affair that led to the Massacre of tens of PNP Special Action Forces members. Neither did UN even lift a finger to prevent an international incident between China and the Philippines during the Quirino Grandstand Massacre. Why?
This time, the president has not even taken his seat at the Office, UN is already increasing the crescendo of the destabilization effort in order for the devious interest groups to accelerate their agenda of a coup d’ grace. From the UN Rapporteurs now to the disgraceful head of the fiendish UN itself, they are all throwing tantrums, in the spirit of destabilization. Short of just saying we are at War with the Philippines (except with the disgusting narcopolitical Liberal Party and its hideous satan-worshipping elements.)
Cristof Heyns and David Kaye, UN Rapporteurs
The Nation Forum. 1987. 