'Mainstream media to American democracy: Drop dead!'
Date: Friday, November 04 @ 10:10:36 EST
Topic: Media
Brad Friedman, The Huffington Post
It's been a full two weeks now since the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO came out with their 107-page report [PDF] confirming what so many of us have been trying to ring the bell about for so long: The Electronic Voting Machines which are proliferating counties and states across America even as I type, are not secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent, not accurate and not adequately monitored or certified by anybody.
To quote from the alarming landmark report:
[C]oncerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.
The Mainstream Corporate Media couldn't care less.
The report was requested by several high-ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It culminated a year-long investigation into the secret Voting Machines and Software now being deployed to the tune of millions of tax-payer dollars to privatize our American Democracy.
The release of the report was accompanied by a bi-partisan News Release which lauded its findings.
That's right. Six high-ranking U.S. Congressmen (3 Dems and 3 Reps) issued the incredibly rare joint News Release together. Two of those Congressmen were Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee respectively. You do understand how rare it is that those two can agree on anything much less issue a joint press release, right?!
And yet, none of the above has been carried by even one wire service or one major American Newspaper. Not one.
News of the landmark non-partisan report and bi-partisan news release was carried on a few Internet sites (here, here and here) in a few tech journals (here, here and here) and a couple of tiny independent newspapers (here and here). But there has not been a single wire-service (not AP, not UPI, not Reuters, not AFP etc.) nor a single mainstream American print newspaper (not NYTimes, not Washington Post, not any of them) to run even a paragraph on any of it. Not one.
While I'd expect the usual crappy coverage of something this important from both the wires and the print media, I am completely without explanation as to why none of them (Not one! Did I mention that?!) bothered to do even the usual sub-par, unsatisfactory, wholly misinformed, shitty job that we've come to expect from the Mainstream Corporate Media.
But why should they bother to run even a paragraph on it? It's only about our VOTE, the very heart of our democracy.
I've tried to encourage the respected Editor & Publisher to look into the matter. They cover the coverage of such things and it'll be a hell of a lot more difficult for the media to ignore the inquiries of E&P than it would be for them to simply disregard me. Perhaps E&P can find out from the four major wire services and America's two most important and influential newspapers why the GAO report and accompanying news release confirming that those of they previously labeled as "conspiracy theorists" are now confirmed as nothing of the kind. Perhaps they can find out why those organizations, apparently, consider a report which rocks the very foundation of our democracy to be less than "newsworthy".
I'd encourage you to do so as well by dropping a polite request to E&P that they inquire and report on the matter. Perhaps that'll help get some action. And some coverage. Their address is: Letters@EditorAndPublisher.com
I hope you'll help. This democracy ain't gonna save itself, ya know. I hope you realize that.
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Source: The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/
mainstream-media-to-ameri_b_10094.html