[Peace-discuss] @ the Art: "Kill the Messenger" docdrama on natl security journalism martyr Gary Webb

Sat Oct 18 14:34:44 EDT 2014

Robert

Excellent review of the film "Kill the Messenger", thank you. I do challenge your last statement that "there is no alternative to US main stream media", or rather our corporate owned media, there is however "Democracy Now", " The Thom Hartmann Show", "Aware on the Air", " News from Neptune" all on UPTV 6, and RT News, though no criticism of Russia takes place, also does a good job of covering international news on station Mhztv, along with Peter Lavelle's "Crosstalk" on Sundays which like NFN offers more indepth analysis. I am just referring to the tv programs which challenge mainstream media. There are many links, blogs, etc. out there, not to mention some of the radio programs.  The only newspaper I have come across is the Public I published here locally. 
"Democracy Now" did cover the film "Kill the Messenger," and the actual events of the time, a couple weeks ago.

If we think the food might be poisoned maybe we shouldn't eat it at all.  

Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 12:27:19 -0500
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: [Peace-discuss] @ the Art: "Kill the Messenger" docdrama on natl security journalism martyr Gary Webb
From: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net

By happy chance, I saw the movie "Kill the Messenger" at the Art last night. I say happy chance because I had never heard of the movie until I saw it listed on the marquee. I happened to be downtown and thought, what's at the Art?
Folks who were active in the Central America solidarity movement will remember that Gary Webb, a journalist at the San Jose Mercury News, "broke the story" in mainstream media terms about how the CIA supported drug-runners during the Contra war and "looked the other way" (at least) while these drug-runners brought cocaine into the United States, fueling the "crack cocaine epidemic" in urban America.
But for an audience today, the story of the movie that is to me so resonant and powerful is not that the CIA supported drug runners without a care to the consequences of that for urban Americans; that's old news. The story of the movie that is resonant and powerful today is how mainstream American journalism betrayed Gary Webb. Instead of following up the story, newspapers like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times set out to destroy Gary Webb. 

This was a guy who was established in his career as an investigative journalist. If you look at his entry on Wikipedia, every year or so he got another award for investigative journalism for publicly exposing wrongdoing by powerful bad guys, for things he wrote alone or with others. 
He didn't set out to expose wrongdoing by powerful bad guys in the U.S. government. He stumbled across it. But having done so, he wouldn't accept the idea that exposing wrongdoing by powerful bad guys in the U.S. government was off-limits. He thought that was part of his job, too. It reminded me of the young prosecutor in the Costa-Gavras movie "Z," who didn't get the memo that the generals in the Greek military junta were off-limits. 
For his service to the public, mainstream American journalism destroyed Gary Webb's career and destroyed his life. 

I highly recommend seeing the movie, particularly for its portrayal of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. These are good images to keep in mind as we consume mainstream U.S. media. We have no alternative to consuming mainstream U.S. media, just like someone in prison has no alternative to eating the prison food. But if we think that the food might be poisoned, we should eat it very carefully. 
===Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

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