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Obama, FTC Plan to Bail Out, Subsidize Lapdog Media
By Victor Thorn
After passing a $787 billion stimulus package, bailing out banks and insurance companies, taking over segments of the auto industry and passing socialized healthcare legislation, not to mention rumors of nationalizing Big Oil, the government has now set its sights on resuscitating the failed mainstream media.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released a 47-page draft entitled “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism” that recommends less than a direct subsidy of $3.5 billion to failing newspapers such as The New York Times.
In a June 10 editorial for The Washington Times, Mark Tapscott called this move an attempt “to rescue old media being left for dead by formerly paying customers.”
During a June 24 interview, this writer asked Hank Albarelli, author of the book A Terrible Mistake, which documents secret U.S. intelligence experiments during the Cold War, to convey his thoughts on this matter.
“Who even said journalism needs to be reinvented?” asked Albarelli. “Mainstream media is in the death throes, and it can’t survive because they’ve lost so much credibility. People want reliable news, not stories that
are twisted, slanted, biased or ignored. Just because The New York Times prints something doesn’t make it true.”
If billions of FTC dollars are at stake, especially considering Obama’s thin-skinned demeanor, it’s fairly certain that funds will be funneled to lapdog media venues and not those pursuing their role as watchdogs.
Albarelli concurred: “The government will play favorites; that’s politics. But let’s be clear: the government can barely run itself. They need to stay away from the press and quit wasting taxpayer money. Plus, I’m sure none of those funds would be going to the alternative media.”
Another aspect of the FTC plan is to establish an AmeriCorps journalism division for students on college campuses. When asked if inclusion of such language reflected a none-too-subtle indoctrination process, Albarelli responded, “It sounds like infiltration. We know from Carl Bernstein’s 1977 Rolling Stone article that the CIA has agents at every newspaper, magazine and television network. William Colby also admitted that the CIA is associated with every serious media outlet in the country.”
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He continued, “In a Machiavellian sense, directly paying to train college students could be the government’s way of getting someone on the inside as a future asset. The media would become institutionalized—even more beholden to the government than they already are.”
The FTC report also describes antitrust exemptions that allow news organizations to collude with competitors and collectively set prices.
Albarelli sneered at this notion. “Isn’t the press already monopolized by five or six huge corporations?” he asked. “This legislation would make the situation even worse, with the potential to completely erase any sort of adversarial relationship between media and government. We’re not getting
much sincere information from the mainstream media anyway. They’ve completely given up on real investigative reporting.”
Spearheading the FTC’s campaign is self-professed neo-Marxist professor Robert McChesney, founder of a media advocacy group called “Free Press.” McChesney reveals his vision of a totalitarian takeover with the following quotes:
• “Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism.”
• “There is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”
In this regard, if the government defines who reports the news, they’ll ultimately be able to determine what is reported. The First Amendment can’t survive if the federal government intrudes upon and regulates this process. Or, as Albarelli concedes, “Our Constitution will go right out the window.”
Although the FTC used a benign form of rhetoric in its draft, they know there’s a reason why people aren’t buying establishment newspapers any longer. When The New York Times refuses to provide the entire picture, readers invariably resort to more valid sources that aren’t afraid to tackle subjects like 9-11 being an inside job, Israeli terrorism secretive Bilderberg meeting and the so-called “Holocaust.”
Stacking the deck with blatant subsidies won’t alter this situation when citizens increasingly keep bypassing the dinosaur media. This glaringly apparent fact leads to the crux of why the old-guard power structure is so concerned, and why it insists on more regulation. As people repeatedly flee from the “old media,” their ability to brainwash, condition, control and propagandize the populace drastically diminishes.
Albarelli doesn’t buy into this Orwellian newspeak. “The government’s plan to reinvent journalism won’t work,” he said. “It’s a boneheaded idea. No matter how much money they throw at this problem, the mainstream media is on its way out. Short of martial law and shutting down the Internet or alternative news sources, the government can’t change the shape of media in the future. People are avoiding them for a reason.”
It’s yet to be seen what will develop, but one thing is certain: If the government does decide to pad the pockets of certain newspapers, their money will undoubtedly go to ringers such as The Washington Post and not legitimate news venues like AMERICAN FREE PRESS.
Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.
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(Issue # 28, July 12, 2010)
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