The media’s authoritarianism and WikiLeaks - #WikiLeaks - Salon.com
►http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/12/10/wikileaks_media
Beyond the need to destroy this pervasive zombie lie about WikiLeaks’ conduct in the diplomatic cables disclosure, the broader point here is crucial: the media’s willingness to repeat this lie over and over underscores its standard servile role in serving government interests and uncritically spreading government claims. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has an excellent analysis today documenting how, in the wake of 9/11, they dropped all pretenses of checking those in political power and instead began explicitly proclaiming — as The New York Times’ chief stenographer and partner-of-Judy-Miller, Michael Gordon, suggested — that “capturing the dominant view within the government was the job [of journalists], even if that view was wrong.” As Rosen writes, “our press has never come to terms with the ways in which it got itself on the wrong side of secrecy as the national security state swelled in size after September 11th,” and thus: “To understand Julian Assange and the weird reactions to him in the American press we need to tell a story that starts with Judy Miller and ends with Wikileaks.”
That’s why this cannot-be-killed lie about WikiLeaks’ “indiscriminate” dumping of cables has so consumed me. It’s not because it would change much if they had done or end up doing that — it wouldn’t — but because it just so powerfully proves how mindlessly subservient the American establishment media is: willing to repeat over and over completely false claims as long as it pleases the right people — the same people to whom they claim they are “adversarial watchdogs.” It’s when they engage in such clear-cut, deliberate propagandizing that their true function — their real identity — is thrown into such stark relief.