When it comes to the biggest and most troubling stories of our time, corporate-owned and conventional public news outlets have a tendency to do an end run around the controversy and go straight to the most emotionally satisfying but least consequential aspects.
Take the assassination of the 35th president. Recently, the media were full of accounts on a book about condolence letters to Jackie K. Here’s the New York Times:
For a new book, “Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation,” released by HarperCollins, Ellen Fitzpatrick, a historian, culled through the archives. Now she has published about 250 letters, most for the first time, from people around the country who felt compelled to write to Mrs. Kennedy. The letters, many of them eloquent expressions of grief - from a priest in an Eskimo village, schoolchildren in Texas, a middle-class family in California, a widow in Pittsburgh, a Louisiana woman with a fourth-grade education - provide a window into Americans struggling with poverty, fighting for civil rights and trying to comfort themselves and others in the face of the president’s death. “The lights of the prison have gone out now,” wrote Stephen J. Hanrahan, Prisoner 85255, from a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. “In this, the quiet time, I can’t help but feel, that my thoughts and the thoughts of my countrymen will ever reach out to that light on an Arlington hillside for sustenance. How far that little light throws his beam.”
It’s all very poignant, but what about the assassination itself? How much effort does The Times make to keep its readers posted on developments in research about how and why the President died? Well, almost none. The paper of record almost uniformly avoids covering what has been for many years a steady stream of investigative breakthroughs on the issue. And while it did find space for “Letters to Jackie,” it did not even mention, much less review, James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable, Jefferson Morley’s Our Man in Mexico, or Family of Secrets (by yours truly), nor dozens of other carefully-documented and footnoted books by skilled diggers that suggest the Warren Commission’s version of events is, well, totally wrong on virtually every count. (In the case of Morley, he was actually mentioned in a Times article, which began with the remarkable clause, “Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Probably not.” The article actually managed to refer to Morley as an author researching Kennedy’s death without ever citing the title or substance of Morley’s book. David Talbot’s Brothers was reviewed, but put up against a book by a prosecutor contending that Oswald acted alone.)
Not to pick on The Times-this is the norm with most U.S. news organizations, including public radio and television. The foreign media, however, is much less reticent about the JFK story. And therein lies the real question-Why can this country’s media establishment not touch this transcendent domestic tragedy and timeless mystery?
[...] Letters to Jackie, But What About Jack? How to Avoid the Heart of the JFK Assassination [...]
Where did I hear this? Was it your interview on Boiling Frogs? If Americans were told that the some Latin American or African or even European nation’s government officials were involved in a coup and assassination of their own president, there would be no surprise. Someone dares to suggest the same thing could happen here, and gets laughed off the continent.
Maybe there is hope that “this transcendent domestic tragedy ” has not
been lost on another new generation
Singer Erykah Badu strips at JFK assassination site in new video:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/29/erykah.badu.strips/index.html?hpt=C2
Clearly Nov 22 1963 was leading to this on September 11 2001
http://bigeye.com/911mysteries.htm
Russ,
Your own biases are glaring. The tone of this article seems to suggest that truth is the rule and secrecy is the exception. Sorry, but I think you need to recheck your history.
Sure, coming from a journalistic background it is part of your training to believe in the market value of truth, and your industry would be nothing if the illusion of truth wasn’t omnipresent. However, truth has a market value first and foremost as a claim to authority. In other words, to be able to claim truth is the most important aspect of journalism. And you can do that with 10% truth.
In history, the importance of truth was never that any news organization was ever 100% truthful, but that some were less than 1% truthful, and eventually a crisis of authority ensued.
I suggest that if you want the truth about the Kennedy assassination to be brought to light you either:
put lewd images on your site.
include video games and youtube music clips
get some humor writers on staff
start your own freakshow section of your site
do like Alex Jones and produce sensational videos
…or, you put some heavy opinion pieces out there that knock heads together and become a real threat. If you don’t go that last mile and make some insinuations you lose to the all too opinionated competition.
I would remind you that the only news organizations that get the kennedy assassination truth out are porn magazines, Rolling Stone, and unpaid blogs.
Perhaps you need to study your competition.
Why can this country’s media establishment not touch this transcendent domestic tragedy and timeless mystery?
Fear.
Why fear?
Because you live in a military state but won’t admit it to yourselves.
Because the very same war machine that was behind the JFK assassination is still very alive today, it’s components have mostly all been replaced along the way by today (those involved mostly all died by now) but the machine is bigger and stronger than it has ever been.
The same malevolent machine that warped the Warren Commission, allowed the 9/11 events to happen even though they knew ahead, the same machine that let the Christmas bomber board the plane, the same machine that stole U.S. elections and presidency, and on and on.
In the meantime, Hollywood keeps up it’s military purpose and shines on, like a thick coat of makeup for an old wrinkled woman. We can’t let the world see the U.S.A’s real face.
Here is a link to Erykah Badu ’s brave video_ Window Seat
http://www.erykahbadu.com/
Just finished JFK and the Unspeakable - this book is an absolute must read and should be required reading in high schools and colleges. There is no doubt in my mind that JFK was murdered by the CIA and the military industrial complex for the crime of promoting peace and avoiding nuclear war.
I haven’t gotten to Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets but I did read the Immaculate Deception by Russ Bowen. The Bush crime family must be exposed! Al Martin did a good job exposing the Bush gang.
Russ , keep up good work …..heres the heads up for you ….the big scoop if you will…..actual video evidence that proves the CIA killed JFK on that fateful day …..get your hands on the ORIGINAL zapruder footage not the warren commssion edited version ….and watch it in slow motion frame 313 is the smoking gun …literally and figuratively….the CIA secret service agent driving the motorcade turns in an instant and shoots JFK in the face ….how much more evidence does anyone need that the CIA was implicit in his murder? The same powers behind this murder were behind the almost 3000 murders on 9/11.