On Mainstream News & Credibility

Mainstream media losing all credibility as it fails to break any news on exploding government scandals

Friday, June 14, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) In another sign of the weakening “influence” of the mainstream media, not one of the major scandals currently swirling around the Obama Administration were broken by what you could fairly call the establishment press.

Fact: Over the past few weeks, three major scandals have broken over the Obama Administration, and it is a very sad (and frightening) truth that our pathetic, American, lapdog mainstream media are not responsible for breaking even a single one,” writes John Nolte in Breitbart News’ Big Journalism section.

He goes onto note that the three scandals – involving the IRS; NSA/Verizon phone records; the Justice Department’s improper seizure of Associated Press phone records; and Benghazi – were either broken by foreign media or the so-called U.S. alternative media (of which NaturalNews is a proud member).

Thank goodness for the alternative press

The Verizon story was broken by The Guardian, a British newspaper (the whistleblower in this case, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, an NSA analyst, probably didn’t trust anyone in the U.S. with this story).

How about the IRS’ improper targeting of conservative political action groups? Again, that story was broken “with a planted question,” Nolte points out.

In the case of the Justice Department’s targeting of AP reporters and editors, even The Associated Press failed to break that story; it only emerged after the Justice Department notified the AP what had occurred, so essentially, the department tattled on itself.

And Benghazi? Again, nope. Even though there was plenty of smoke there, the mainstream media – which has been in bed with Obama since day one of his initial campaign – took a pass en mass. There were a few exceptions, most notably Jake Tapper and Sharyl Attkission, but other than that, only Republican members of Congress and Fox News have been aggressively seeking the truth about what actually took place there when our ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed and brutalized.

“Left up to the media, we wouldn’t know anything about Libya. All of the media’s energy was collectively poured into ensuring the truth was never discovered,” Nolte wrote. “And do you want to know what makes this realization especially pathetic? In three of the four scandals (the AP being the exception), had our media been less interested in protecting Power and more interested in holding Power accountable, these huge, career-making stories were right there for the taking.”

What’s more, the media has been extremely hypocritical (no kidding) on some of these scandals. Take the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups.

In early June an editorial published by the editorial staff at The New York Times was highly critical of the president over his administration’s targeting of the phone records of millions of Americans, all in the name of protecting national security. And rightfully so; it is an abuse of the Fourth Amendment like no other in the history of the country.

There is no media in the Old Media

But more than a year before the IRS scandal broke, the Times was all about having the nation’s tax collection agency target those very same groups.

“But because Obama told them to, the media hate the Tea Party. So in the face of these complaints and even a few Congressional inquiries, the media either ignored the harassment reports or openly sided with the IRS,” wrote Nolte.

The same thing can be said about what happened in Libya. Because Barack Obama was in reelection mode; and because the mainstream media was all-in to help him get reelected; and because the president’s reelection narrative on terrorism in general was that al Qaeda was on the run – the mainstream press willingly went along and refused to dig deeper on Benghazi. Had that failed operation been scrutinized, many more Americans would have known before Election Day that the administration essentially sacrificed Stevens and three other Americans for the sake of political expediency.

“Our media are not only biased; it is an utter and complete failure and embarrassment. And although there are plenty of remaining table scraps to make meals out of, the media are already losing interest in the IRS, Libya, and AP scandals, but for only one reason – they are absolutely terrified of where they might lead,” Nolte writes.

White House Nixes SOPA, PIPA

White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA

White House Sopa

The Huffington Post    First Posted: 1/14/12 12:19 PM ET Updated: 1/14/12 01:58 PM ET

 Saturday marked a major victory for opponents of proposed anti-piracy legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which would target foreign-based websites violating U.S. copyrights.

House of Representatives bill SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA are designed to punish websites that make available, for example, free movies and music without the permission of the U.S. rights holders. Opponents of the bills, however, worry that the proposed laws would grant the Department of Justice too much regulatory power. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has called the measures “draconian.” Other Internet giants who oppose the bill include Facebook, eBay, Mozilla, Twitter, and Huffington Post parent company AOL.

The White House on Saturday officially responded to two online petitions, “Stop the E-PARASITE Act” and “Veto the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information,” urging the President to reject SOPA and PIPA.

The statement was drawn up by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff. They made clear that the White House will not support legislation that disrupts the open standards of the Internet.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” the statement read in part.

The White House statement went on to say, however, that the Obama Administration believes “online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy” and that 2012 should see the passage of narrower legislation that targets the source of foreign copyright infringement.

The letter also highlighted the following four points:

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. […] We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. […] That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders […] We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and Internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.

This is not the end of the debate, the White House statement emphasized. “Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting, while vigorously defending an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation,” the letter also read.

Following the release of the White House’s statement, SOPA sponsor and House Judiciary Chairman (R-Texas) Lamar Smith issued a statement of his own.

“I welcome today’s announcement that the White House will support legislation to combat online piracy that protects free speech, the Internet and America’s intellectual property,” Smith said,according to The Hill. “That’s precisely what the Stop Online Piracy Act does.”

On Friday, CNET reported that Smith said he will remove from the bill one of the most hotly contested provisions, Domain Name System requirements. Previously, SOPA had called for DNS blocking of infringing websites.

On Thursday, PIPA author Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said that “more study” was needed to asses the bill’s DNS-blocking provision.

The White House’s statement condemned DNS blocking in regulatory efforts and said that it “pose[s] a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.”

A House Oversight Committee hearing on SOPA’s DNS-blocking provision had previously been scheduled for January 18. However, according to Tech Dirt, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) said that the hearing will be postponed for the time being and that the focus now should be placed on the Senate’s PIPA bill, which Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has committed to moving forward in the next two weeks.

from:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/14/white-house-sopa-pipa_n_1206347.html