Ben Gurion, Nixon, Bush, Sharon...

  The more I read about USA, the more I feel really baffled - is it about USA or about my country?

When it comes to news on Bush - I'm completely in the dark. Are they misspelling Sharon's name?

Countries are easier to understand. Physically, Israel is small - USA is huge.
With Bush and Sharon it goes the other way.
No wonder I'm confused daily.

Then, the media. In Israel it used to be that every political party had its own newspaper.
Those were replaced later by independent, commercial media.
The journalist was entitled "the author".
No more.

Now we are back to square one, with a small difference. If at the olden times "the author" was the mouthpiece of the political party, directly - now the journalist is enjoying the services of the PR or Press Assistant.

To-night, reading Antonia Zerbisias, as re-published at the excellent truthout, I can only respond with the Hebrew slang, "I've already been in this movie"...

Probably the most troubling admission comes from Karen DeYoung, a former assistant managing editor who reported on the prewar palavering: "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power," she says. "If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said."

But since when is a presidential pronouncement The Word Of God? What happened to inquiry, investigation and, what's it called again, journalism?

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posted by Unknown at 12:21 AM