The PIPA report released recently informed the American public that we have been sadly misled by the news media in terms of information concerning the Iraq war and post September 11th decisions. As I was watching “The Colbert Report” earlier today an issue was discussed bearing a striking resemblance. Stephen Colbert was interviewing Lowell Bergman who came to talk about the upcoming Frontline special on PBS titled, “The Enemy Within,” about sleeper cells in America. Colbert told Bergman to just give it to him straight, to tell him the hard truth about the presence of these dangerous people on our home soil. Bergman replied that the police have had little success finding these cells, because, guess what, it seems like they might not be as prevalent as the government suggests they are. “What!” Colbert replied sarcastically. He then proceeded to say something to the extent of “they must be here, they keep on telling me they are here.” To be quite honest, I was genuinely shocked and would have probably said the same thing.
We are constantly told of the dangers of these so called ”sleeper cells.” We hear stories on the news of their discovery, their foiled plans, and their capture. But, it seems that once again we have been misled by another joint White House-news media production.
The combination of reading chapter nine of Leighley and watching this spot makes me heartily agree with one of Leighley’s suggestions at the end of the chapter. She states that we must sever the dependence of journalists and reporters on government officials. The dependence on governmental stories has led journalists to accept the stories as true with little investigation. Even more so with a story like the discovery and destruction of a terrorist sleeper cell, which is bound to be big news.
However, the dark cloud does have a silver lining. After all, PBS will be airing this show and will set the story straight. So now the hope is that people will watch it.

Where to start when it comes to Pennsylvania elections? Firstly, I would just like to say that I am happy that this assignment excludes gubernatorial races. It is a relief not to have to discuss the ridiculousness of the fact that my current governor, Ed Rendell is being challenged by former Steelers receiver, Lynn Swann.
My Senatorial race, though much more dramatic, does make me a bit more at ease, assuming that election day goes my way. Senator Rick Santorum, my Senator since 1995 is being challenged by Robert Casey, former Auditor General and current State Treasurer. Santorum is a Republican Junior Senator, who wears his Christianity based, conservative leanings on his sleeve. He has taken controversial positions on homosexuality and sexual privacy rights, and has taken criticized positions on Social Security, intelligent design, and the Terri Schiavo case. Bob Casey Jr., to the dislike of many fellow Democrats, is very conservative. As a religious Catholic he is against reproductive rights for women and he also opposes most legislation on gun control. Though seemingly aligned on certain issues, with Santorum in the mix, I personally find this decision rather simple.
It has been interesting to see how the media has portrayed this election. Just like any other horserace, as the election-day approaches the polls have gotten closer. Today, the Franklin and Marshall Keystone Poll, as quoted in blog and newspaper alike, reported that Casey, who originally had a much more commanding lead, now only leads Santorum by six points. Whether this is true or as Leighley asserts, more of a strategy to get more people interested in the ”game” aspect of the election, tension is in the air.
Here in Pennsylvania, this election has turned into a bit of a mud-slinging festival, with Santorum taking the lead in slinging the mud. Santorum’s ads have been accused of spreading untruths. Santorum is now getting the slack for it. But even beyond the media taking a dislike to Santorum’s advertisement ethics, they have also jumped on him, for the revelation that the Penn Hills school district, where his children live are paying for their cyber-charter schools. This has brought media attention concerning whether in fact the Santorums are actual residents of Penn Hills.
It is interesting to note that part of the appeal of this particular election in the media is purely because of the persona of Rick Santorum. The New York Times has even run four article series about this election. This election is also appealing because of the state of Pennsylvania in general. My home state is confusing, to say the least. Pennsylvania, a long time swing state is a bundle of contradictions. We went for the Democrat candidate, Kerry in the past Presidential election. We have voted in two Republicans to the Senate, one of them being Santorum, one of the most conservative Senators, number three in the Republican party, and Arlen Spector, one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate. Pennsylvania is a traditionally conservative and religious state, prime ground for the Republican Party. As a Pennsylvanian native, it is tough to foresee the outcome of any election, and this one is no different.
Even with the media having a field day with Santorum or the Republicans calling Casey unintelligent, I have no idea what will happen. To add more confusion into the mix is Lynn Swann. People are known to vote “down the line,” i.e. to choose their gubernatorial candidate of choice and follow through with that party. Swann, who brings little to the table and to date is trailing Rendell somewhere in the double digits is only hurting Santorum. A potential roadblock for Casey, as noted in this morning’s Patriot News is that of Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli. He is having trouble getting enough signatures to be put on the ballot. Casey supporters are concerned that his presence on the ballot will draw voters from the Democrat candidate and are trying to disqualify some of his signatures. What a horserace this has become?
The media attention is now turning to their spending and funds. The main headline of the front page of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s Patriot News for today was,” Spending Time: Santorum, Casey save up for stretch run.” The article analyzed their campaign’s financial standing, who their money is from and where it is going. The conclusion of the article highlighted one Philadelphia based law and lobbying firm. Though usually a supporter of Republican candidates, this election they have decided to support both candidates financially. I think that this fact sums it all up. Nobody knows who will win. Many are disillusioned with Santorum but Republicans are known to have better voter turnout. Casey is a fresh face who has done a lot for the Commonwealth, but Santorum is a high-ranking Senator who has a lot of political clout. As evidenced from the end of the above-mentioned article, even the media is unsure of the election results. But, unlike me, they are loving it! Those darn profit-seeking media!

Though I was unable to attend the program last night, thanks to Alana I was able to listen to a recording of the speech. While I wrote about Secrecy News and Aftergood in my previous post, I just wanted to share some brief thoughts about the speech, or as much as I could hear of it.
There were some things that Aftergood said that I found absolutely fascinating. On a random day, like today, there could be somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 government secrets classified! I was floored by this. Even after reading back issues of Secrecy News, I had no idea that the number was this gigantic.
But, to tie this in to what I had previously posted, it seemed that his remarks. like his website were a plea for democracy. He mentioned two examples of breaches in our democratic practices that I found particularly persuasive. The phone book of the Defense Department used to be available to the public, for a fee. However, as of late, this book has been taken off the market. The Defense Department are no longer acessible to the people; they are not responsive. This is not democratic! Additionally, and even more shocking, he noted that Congress, the direct representatives of the people, are also not allowed to see certain classified documents. This directly hurts representative democracy!
It was difficult to get the whole feel of the presentation via tape recorder, but I found Aftergood to be informative interesting. Though I did not get to see the Powerpoint presentation, I think that combined with reviewing his website, I got a good understanding of his presentation and an appreciation for his mission.

In an interview with U.S. News Steven Aftergood discussed the importance of his website and of governmental openness. Without proper openness between the government and citizens “we are on our way to having our national policies determined by unnamed and unknown bureaucrats who sit behind closed doors and are inaccessible,” he claims.
Aftergood’s website and his personal views are based on the ideals of democracy. In an ideal democracy the people have access to the decision-makers whose job it is to represent them. But, even more important, the people know who to hold accountable for decisions that affect them. It is this ideal that Aftergood is fighting for. He agrees that there are some things that the people do not need to know, however there is important information that the government withholds, secrets which the government does not want to let out. Aftergood’s fear is that it cannot be long till these secrets lead to more secrets and a more secretive government in general.
It is not just the Federal government that is guilty of this; local governments are rife with secrets as well. These secrets can be even more dangerous and relevant to the daily life of citizens. Aftergood states in the interview, “many will find themselves in a situation where they need to know the location and quantity of toxic materials buried in a dump near their children's playground. Or the quality of the water that's coming out of their kitchen tap.” And what will happen? They may not be allowed to possess this information! This is a scary thought to ponder.
I find Aftergood’s work to be quite laudable. He is fighting to stem the tide of secrecy. Imagine a government where we know nothing about how our laws are passed or who passes them, where we are subject to rules for reasons that we are not told of! He is a man on a mission, a mission to save our democracy, as crazy as that sounds.
Aftergood’s website is an accessible account of government information that we should know, what he thinks should be news. He publishes information that is inaccessible to the public, or hidden from our eyes. He highlights what information we are missing and the path to get that information.
Unfortunately I will be unable to attend his speech on Monday night uptown because of a class that meets once a week at that same time. However, if present I would want to ask him the following questions:
In his interview with U.S News he discussed how journalists were being subpoenaed to reveal their sources by the current administration, in the ideal situation how should the journalist respond and more generally, what role should the journalist play in combating the forces of secrecy?
Does he think that there are things that the public justifiably does not have a right to know?
What can people do to stem this tide of governmental secrecy?

I spent a lot of time this evening browsing what felt like dozens of blogs in search of the perfect entry with the perfect comments. I wanted to find a post that I found to be interesting, maybe a little funny and thoughtful too. I wanted the comments to be intelligent, maybe a little catty or at least confrontational. What I found were many blogs with posts from serious and unserious alike about a plethora of topics.
I was actually amazed to see the "Google" results of "political blogs." After finishing the Chapter 6 reading in Leighley and seeing how uninformed and uninvolved the American public are, this was rather reassuring and uplifting.
I finally decided on a blog called Civic Rule. I found an interesting post titled "NSA Surveillance Struck Down." The title is rather self explanatory of what the post was about. What I found interesting, the more I thought about it and after reading the "About" page, was that here was a normal everyday American citizen with the desire to encourage frank and honest discourse about politics.
The comments as well as the post itself were intelligent and articulately written. One would think this would only be more uplifting. Imagine, the intelligent back and forth between informed citizens!
Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the world of political blogging and commenting is not representative of the masses. The blogging world is a self selective bunch. It is only those who are already interested in politics, to the point of checking on political blogs, that post comments. If a person is uninformed politically, no blog will help. Additionally, no individual without a certain breadth of political knowledge and interest will have a blog to freely post his or her politically related queries or thoughts.
So, while it may seem that everyone and and his or her cousin have a political blog, the sad truth that they do not, and the even sadder fact is that if they did, they probably would not know what to write.
This problem is compounded by the fact that on second glance, not all blogs appear to be as intelligent as the one I found. Or, even if the posts themselves are inteligent, the comments seem to resort to unintelligent ranting and name-calling. I was looking at a post on a blog named Media Girl, particularly at a post concerning global warming, and this sad fact was clear. While the post itself was thoughtful and and thought provoking, the comments quickly turned catty and soon turned into a liberal vs. conservative name calling game.
So, maybe I was wrong about my previous excitement about the abundance of political blogs. Maybe most of them are just the ranting and raving of a unintelligent and uninformed individuals who just want to read their own thoughts.
But nevertheless, in my constant desire to find good in the American people, I would rather have these uninformed pontificators spewing their opinions than not have them involved at all.

In chapter 5 of Jan E. Leighley’s Mass Media and Politics, she enumerates the different types of news events. The one most coveted by politicians is the “fully controlled news events.” This refers to a news event governmentally planned and carried out for the purpose of attracting media. Even though Leighley asserts that a press briefing with a forum for questions does not fit under the fully controlled category, I disagree. The morning Press Gaggle, from the White House Conference Briefing Room is an example of a briefing with questions that still should be considered a fully controlled news event.

I recently viewed and read the transcript from the Press Gaggle from the morning of September 5, 2003, featuring Press Secretary Tony Snow and Frances Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. I was truly in awe of how much of a fully controlled event this was. The level of power and authority that the speakers wielded, just because of the forum, was astounding. They possessed such a power to frame issues and to assert White House characterization as fact. Two examples stood out to me.

“…There are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.”

The way that this is phrased by Tony Snow makes the “some people” look like terrible, American hating, individuals. Key to this, I think, is the use of the description- al Qaeda. The assertions that all detainees are al Qaeda terrorists is stated with such certainty that one feels like anyone who opposes what is going on at Guantanamo Bay is guilty of treason. This is the power of asserting a White House characterization as fact.

Another part of the gaggle that stood out to me was,

“So this, again, is something that the President would love to see members of both Houses of Congress returning to that sense of cooperation we had after September 11th, where the real goal was not to try to hand out pink slips at the Pentagon, but instead to win the war on terror in a way that is going to make not only America safer, but also the rest of the world safer so that democracy can take firm root throughout the globe.”

This was just one of the examples of the Press Secretary having the ability to make the opposition seem petty. It almost seems from this that the Democrats are more considered with getting rid of Rumsfeld that preventing terror. The Press Secretary has the podium and he or she has the final word and is always on the right team.

What was even more interesting than the press briefing itself was the question and answer forum that followed. The dynamic between the press and the Press Secretary was fascinating. At times discourse was civil and even friendly. Yet, at other times it seemed tense and heated. I was aghast when reading this interchange,

“MR. SNOW: I think you've admirably expressed the Democratic point of view, but I don't think --
Q Actually, Tony, I don't think that's fair, if you look at the facts. If you look at the facts.
MR. SNOW: Well, I do, because -- no, because, for instance --
Q No, no, no. No, I don't think you should be able to just wipe that, kind of dismiss the question --
MR. SNOW: Well, let me --
Q It's not a Democratic argument, Tony.
MR. SNOW: Let me answer the question, David.
Q But hold on, let's not let you get away with saying that's a Democratic argument.
MR. SNOW: Okay, let me -- let's not let you get away with being rude. Let me just answer the question, and you can come back at me.
Q Excuse me. Don't point your finger at me. I'm not being rude.
MR. SNOW: Yes, you are.
Q Don't try to dismiss me as making a Democratic argument, Tony, when I'm speaking fact.
MR. SNOW: Well, okay -- well, no --
Q You can do that to the Democrats; don't do it to me.
MR. SNOW: No, I'm doing it to you because the second part was factually tendentious, okay?”

While on the one hand the members of the press were thankful to have their questions answered, they were ready to assume their “watchdog” position when they were unsatisfied with Snow’s response. I found this rather reassuring and imagined this to be the realization of the neutral adversary. However, this dream was short-lived when I realized that even after all the back and forth between Snow and David, as shown above, the question was still not adequately answered. All of the questions are inadequately answered. They receive standard responses, rewording the questions and offering standard White House lines.

But this makes sense. Honestly, how far can a press member push it? The journalists are on White House turf and can only get away with so much. The Press Secretary has the power of the podium and the home-court advantage. How dare the lowly invited guests misbehave?

Network, directed by Sidney Lumet, is a prophetic film about the negative effect of corporate culture and mass market on society. Released in 1976, this film portrays the corporations as the devil, the destroyer of all that is good. In this film, corporate control of the media destroys America, destroys individuals, destroys families, and destroys love. Corporate control destroys anything that the individual creates, be it his or her own thoughts or even a liberation army.

Frequently when corporate control of the media is discussed terms like profit-seeker model are applied and the effects on the consumer or audience are analyzed. The effect on the public is expressed as the main concern. What I found interesting in this film was that instead of focusing on the effect of corporate control of newsgathering on the public, the film focused on its effect on those involved in the “production” of news. It is not the audience who are the focus of the film; it is the newscaster, the head of the news department, the corporate executive and other network officials through which the theme of the destructive power of the corporation is expressed. It is their lives that are destroyed. Howard Beale is driven insane, prevented from getting the help he needs, and eventually killed. Diana loses any connection to reality, lives life like it is a series of scripts, and becomes incapable of feeling real-life emotion, like love. Both the leaders of the Communists and the Ecumenical Liberation Army are brought under the sway of the media corporation and appear to lose their initial passion and independent spirit. It seems that Max is the only one who in the end sees the corporate control of the media for what it is, and even his life is ruined because of it. While one could suggest that this film may be a rather dramatized exaggeration of the effects of corporate control of the media, it is nevertheless insightful and telling.
The idea of the power of television is so profound in this film and its control over people is eerie. As Beale states,

“ Because less than three percent of you read books. Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get from over this tube. Right now there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube.”

All Beale has to do is tell his audience to do something and they jump. They yell out their windows, they send telegrams to the President.

However, the one part of the movie that I did find uplifting and raised my opinion of the public was at the end, when the people had experienced enough of Howard Beale. They no longer cared for his depressing message, imposed upon him by Mr. Jensen. They were not wholly under Beale’s control; they were under no one’s control. They were his followers when he empowered them as individuals, urging them to rise up, giving them an escape from their depressing daily lives. But, when he began to preach on dehumanization of the world and the powerlessness of the individual, the people lost interest and the show lost ratings.

This film left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand I saw the destructive and manipulative power that the corporations have and exercise through control of news media. Yet, on the other hand I saw the power of the American people, their independence and unwillingness to fall prey to everything the corporate world tries to impose upon them.

So I say to my fellow Americans and classmates, fear not! Do not worry about the profit seeking, media controlling corporations. As long as we retain our independent thought and control over what we believe and what we do the apparently evil forces of corporate network owners will not corrupt us.