MEDIA MYSTERY:

Corporate Media Blackouts Continue as Iran War Looms and Impeachment Moves Ahead

The sorry performance of the US corporate media, which blacked out stories questioning the official line on the so-called “Iraq Threat” until the nation was deeply mired in to pointless, bloody war in that country, and which has almost completely ignored a three-year, nation-wide movement calling for the impeachment of the president and vice president, has continued.

Search far and wide, and you will find no reporting on the fact that Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has filed a total 36 proposed articles of impeachment against President Bush, is finally going to get to formally present his case to the House Judiciary Committee, beginning on July 25. Although this is not an impeachment hearing, it is putting impeachment “on the table,” from which it has been banned for two years by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Although the House last week voted 251-166 to send Kucinich’s articles to the Judiciary Committee for hearings, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the nation’s television news organizations ignored this breakthrough (which included 24 Republicans voting for the measure). Only USA Today, in its online edition at least, even mentioned it, with a headline saying “Pelosi cracks door open on impeachment resolution” and that was just a five-paragraph story.

Another critically important story that is being blacked out by the corporate media is the Bush/Cheney administration’s march towards war with Iran. On Sunday, the London Times ran a well-researched and reported piece headlined President George W Bush backs Israeli plan for strike on Iran, saying that Bush has given the “amber light” to Israel to get its air force ready for an aerial assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The article, which quoted an unnamed “senior Pentagon official,” reported that while an actual attack would require a further “green light” from the president, the “amber light” meant planning could proceed.

The article also stated that the president was acting, “Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread skepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran.”

Surely such news of an increased possibility of the US being dragged into yet a third war in the Middle East should at least warrant a mention in the mainstream media. The Times of London is, after all, hardly a fringe publication. Though owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. it has a sterling reputation.

Yet while the rest of the world is holding its collective breath wondering if such a cataclysmic attack might be about to happen with US sanction and assistance (Israel would be flying American-made planes in any attack, and would have to be given clearance to fly over US-controlled airspace in Iraq, even if it was denied access to US airbases along the way), Americans are being left blissfully unaware of this latest crime in the making by their war-mongering president.

This is news of major import, and it is nothing short of a shame and a scandal that it is not being reported in the American media, which more and more is resembling state propaganda.

Those who want better of their news purveyors should contact local editors and demand that they stop blacking out stories like these. Better yet, get together with friends and picket your local news outlets!

About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is a 34-year veteran, an award-winning journalist, a former New York Times contributor, a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Journalism Fulbright Scholar, and the co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of a well-regarded book on impeachment, The Case for Impeachment. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.