18 Tales of Media Censorship
Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet
April 1, 2002
Between them, the authors of the incendiary
new book "Into the Buzzsaw," out this month from Prometheus,
have won nearly every award journalism has to give -- a Pulitzer,
several Emmys, a Peabody, a prize from Investigative Reporters
and Editor, an Edward R. Murrorw and several accolades from the
Society of Professional Journalists. One is veteran of the Drug
Enforcement Administration and a best-selling author, another
is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
And most of them are considered, at best,
marginal by the mainstream media. At worst, they've been deemed
incompetent and crazy for having the audacity to uncover evidence
of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by government agencies
and corporate octopi.
Edited by ex-CBS producer Kristina Borjesson,"Into
the Buzzsaw" is a collection of essays, mostly by serious
journalists excommunicated from the media establishment for tackling
subjects like the CIA's role in drug smuggling, lies perpetuated
by the investigators of TWA flight 800, POWs rotting in Vietnam,
a Korean war massacre, the disenfranchisement of black voters
in Bush's election, bovine growth hormone's dangers and a host
of other unpopular issues.
Borjesson describes "the buzzsaw"
as "what can rip through you when you try to investigate
or expose anything this country's large institutions -- be they
corporate or government -- want to keep under wraps. The system
fights back with official lies, disinformation, and stonewalling.
Your phone starts acting funny. Strange people call you at strange
hours to give you strange information. The FBI calls you. Your
car is broken into and the thief takes your computer and your
reporter's notebook and leaves everything else behind ... The
sense of fear and paranoia is, at times, overwhelming."
The majority of the eighteen pieces in Borjesson's
book are about hard-working mainstream journalists, dedicated
to the ideals of their profession, who stumble into the buzzsaw
and have their careers and reputations eviscerated. Though the
subjects and personalities involved are wildly diverse, the stories
echo each other in disturbing ways. Journalists are sent by their
bosses to do their jobs -- in the case of Borjesson, to investigate
the crash of TWA Fight 800 as a producer for CBS news. Sometimes
what they find is impolitic, other times it brings threats of
corporate lawsuits. Suddenly, editors kill the story, or demand
changes. In some instances, like that of TV reporter Jane Akre,
who was investigating the use of Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone,
reporters are ordered to insert outright lies in their pieces
or face firing. Other times, like with Gerard Colby's book about
the Du Pont family and Gary Webb's San Jose Mercury News series
about the CIA's role in the crack epidemic, the bosses are spooked
after the fact and withdraw their support from work already published,
hanging reporters out to dry.
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