Randi Rhodes Statement on State of the Media

First: Political litmus tests are as common in my business as they are in yours.
If you are a conservative there is room on the dial, in the news rooms and on the cable channels for you, (provided you have the right hair, jewelry and stylist) If you are a liberal, and your life's dream was to report news, anchor news or be an investigative journalist, you will see, day after day, your stories censored, edited, or just killed. Corporate and government interference in reporting the news can also affect journalists who have no particular political agenda. They simply report the facts as they find them. If these facts are inconvenient or unflattering to the Republican Majority Party agenda they can be accused of being an accessory to murder, unpatriotic or fired.
Just this past week the White House decided to call Newsweek Magazine an accessory to murder for printing a story of Koran abuse that the ICRC has clearly documented for more than three years, in three separate countries. Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq.
News is essential for a vibrant participatory Democracy to continue to work and serve all who are lucky enough to be naturalized or born here. Unfortunately the forces at work are dumbing down the citizens AND IT IS BY DESIGN. How can anyone explain to a sane viewer that on the second day of Republicans and Democrats battling out the way the Senate will advise and consent to judicial nominees, the lead story on ABC World News Tonight was Star Wars bootlegging. On the second day of Republicans invoking something called the "Nuclear Option" -- So named because the fallout would be so devastating to democracy as we know it , the lead story on Fox News was two missing kids in Idaho. Michael Jackson, the Runaway Bride were also lead and sometimes the only story reported on various NEWS Channels. Aren’t we a Nation at war?