4 Responses to “Freedom on the March”

1. DrFallon Says:
   January 30th, 2005 at 12:00 pm

   Thanks.

   Actually, I left NBC 6 years ago to teach full-time. I am now an assistant professor of journalism at Roosevelt University in Chicago. I linked to your site, well, because you have some interesting things to say.

   What I find hilarious is that, in just a week, “Freedom on the March” seems to be attracting so much attention. It’s just a little joke to keep myself amused.

   I’ve had a more serious blog, “IN THE DARK,” for several months now that I spend hours on every day, that is, in its own way, every bit as damning to this administration, because it seeks to separate lies from reality. But no one has much noticed it. And then–BOOM–all of a sudden what I intended to be a joke has become fairly popular (getting more hits than IN THE DARK).

   Go figure.

   Peace,
   Peter

2. Aine Says:
   January 30th, 2005 at 1:19 pm

   This blog doesn’t get noticed either… until lately that is… right after I moved it. If you’ve been reading along for any length of time, and I assume you have, then you know I don’t have too many flattering things to say about this administration. Heh.

   I’m not real fond of the mainstream press these days either. I think that they are doing the public a disservice in not telling them the truth, and I think that they don’t have the courage to be a free press. Yes, there are exceptions here and there, but Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) has made some excellent points about today’s news being more about entertainment than it is about real reporting.

   What I’d like to know is, how do you, as a journalism professor, reconcile how you feel about this administration with how you see the mainstream media reporting it?

   PS : Thanks for linking to me. I’ll be checking out your normal blog, too.

3. Dr. Fallon Says:
   January 30th, 2005 at 4:06 pm

   I believe that people are as good as their information. That is to say (and this is an article of personal faith) that people are essentially good; when they act against “the good,” it is because of one of two reasons: 1] they are themselves somehow not in sync with “the good” (they are, for instance, greedy, self-centered, enamored of power, full of hate, etc.), or 2] they are not getting good information.

   In this “age of information,” we can certainly not complain about not getting enough information. But what kind of information are we getting? Up until the present administration, the position of the mass media seemed to be a sort of “bread and circuses” attitude: give them what they want and they’ll shut up (See Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”). The Bush administration’s lies of the past three years, however, have gone largely unchallenged in the mainstream media (the “liberal” media?), and this makes me wonder if there’s is not outright complicity.

   As an 18 year veteran of NBC, I am acutely aware of the dual pressures of advertising revenue and political/economic policy on the selection and reporting of “news,” and it makes me very unhappy.

   I’m trying to teach my students to move beyond the “free market” model of information as a commodity. Americans NEED good information, and it is the job of the journalist to give it to them–whether they want it or not.

   I hope you do take a look at IN THE DARK, Aine, and if you do think it is interesting and useful, I wouldn’t mind at all if you linked to it. Thanks, and

   Peace,
   Peter

4. Dr. Fallon Says:
   January 30th, 2005 at 4:13 pm

   Ooops!!!!

   You already did!

   Thanks for the link, Aine. I hope your friends will stop in and read every now and then.

   Peace,
   Peter

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