In 1998 the CIA released a 400-page report that acknowledged the Agency associated with members of the Contra movement who engaged in drug trafficking. Consumed with the President Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, the national media largely ignored the report. Gary Webb was never able to earn a living as a journalist again. In 2004, seven years to the day he resigned from the San Jose Mercury News, Webb was found dead in his apartment, shot twice in the head. His death was ruled a suicide. Kill the Messenger 2014 starring Jeremy Renner & Rosemarie DeWitt & Ray Liotta & Tim Blake Nelson & Barry Pepper & Oliver Platt & Michael Sheen & Paz Vega & Michael Kenneth Williams & Mary Elizabeth Winstead Andy Garcia & Josh Close et al, director Michael Cuesta, captions
Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome. Working together, journalists and experts are the architects of much conventional wisdom. Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
Sources in Washington speak of the American government’s increasing concern of developments in the Gulf. The banned Islamic Gulf movement … stepping up its activities on the oil-rich island of Alwai. Deadline 1988 starring John Hurt & Imogen Stubbs & Robert McBain & Greg Hicks & Bargach Abdelrahim & Julian Curry & David Conville & Roshan Seth et al, director Richard Shroud
He used to be one of the greats of all-time Fleet Street – Granville Jones. ibid. British geezers in lobby
From 1980 onwards a more aggressive media had a fresh target to hunt: Diana. Andrew Marr, Diamond Queen III, BBC 2012
The Queen was soon becoming uneasy about the pressure journalists were piling on her daughter-in-law. ibid.
Both Princess Diana and Prince Charles turned to journalists to tell their side of the story. ibid.
But it was the absence of words which created the biggest media storm of the Queen’s reign when in 1997 on the sudden death of Princess Diana in a Paris car crash the Queen stayed at Balmoral for another four days. ibid.
If you go back fifty years television journalists were creeps, above all to politicians. Adam Curtis, The Rise and Fall of the TV journalist, short film 2007
With the questioning of authority in the 1960s this began to change. But it was Watergate that transformed everything. ibid.
With the end of the Cold War the TV journalists were thrown into a new and terrifying world. ibid.
You cut out the middleman – the journalist. ibid.
They have had to revert to their old habit of finding someone in authority who will tell them, but this time it’s not the politicians, it’s us, the audience, that they turn to. The only problem is that we don’t have a clue what’s going on, particularly because the journalists have given up on their job of explaining the world to us. ibid.
May 1st 1970: I took the expressway up to the track; I drove very fast … Gonzo @ The Derby, ESPN short 2016
In 1970 Hunter S Thompson went to the Kentucky Derby and he changed sports journalism and broadcasting for ever. ibid.
‘Thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whiskey bottles.’ ibid.
The Kentucky Derby is Decadent & Depraved. ibid. Hunter
‘We become the story.’ ibid. Steadman
‘I think we have to ask at what point do what should be journalistic decisions become marketing decision? Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, interview O J: Made in America
The pressure that Empire will put on those few reporters who attempt to go out and actually report is fierce and can even involve loss of life. Abby Martin, The Empire Files with Chris Hedges: War, Propaganda and the Enemy Within, Youtube 2015
It’s a topic that’s always framed the same way. Abby Martin: The Empire Files: The Distortion & Death Behind Israel/Palestine Coverage, Youtube 2015
DC’s leading idealogues leapt to conflate Palestine with terrorism. ibid.
It’s hard to imagine more disingenuous coverage. ibid.
The constant and indiscriminate bloodshed in Gaza isn’t seen as criminal or deliberate. ibid.
What Israel is really saying is that it has the right to execute journalists anywhere in Gaza. ibid.
Paparazzi: photographers who stalk their prey: celebrities: climbing through bushes, peeking through car windows, all lying in wait for that perfect shot, for that perfect candid moment … Will they bear a true emotion? Uncensored with Michael Ware VIII: Paparazzi, National Geographic 2017
The most hated photographers in the world who are part of this massive money-making machine, the eco-system of celebrities. ibid.
We definitely have a more ‘yes man’ or ‘yes woman’ culture now. There’s a generation of people now that are very keen to rise, will do what they think the editorial bosses want them to do, and are less awkward in terms of how they interpret directives from the top. You end up with an output that is too homogenised, too reactive and I think not questioning enough. BBC News editor, cited Justin Schlosberg, Power Beyond Scrutiny: Media, Justice and Accountability
1954: I inherited my first newspaper … 1983: I bought my first cable channel. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, 2004
9 satellite television networks, 175 newspapers, 100 cable channels, 40 book imprints, 40 television stations, 1 movie studio … ibid.
‘... Firmly announce we are starting a Fox news channel.’ ibid. Murdoch
‘We were a proponent of a point of view.’ ibid. Jon du Pre
‘… some people say …’ ibid. Fox cliché
‘… shut up! …’ ibid. Bill O’Reilly
‘… who actively work against our military once a war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me.’ ibid. O’Reilly
‘Tremendous progress in Iraq.’ ibid. Rupert Murdoch
‘That call on election night had more to do with making George Bush president than any recount or ballot design issue.’ ibid. John Nichols
They couldn’t hear me. They couldn’t see me. But I could hear them and see them. It’s been a secret all these years. It’s been a secret for 47 years … A lot of people are going to call me a pervert. A peeping Tom. Voyeur, Foos, 2017
I’m pursuing a story about a man named Gerard Foos who decided he wanted to buy a motel for the express purpose of using it to watch everything that was being done in private. ibid. Gay Talese, journalist
He writes it down … hundreds and hundreds of stories. ibid.
I’m wondering how firmly I can rely on him. The hotel is real. ibid.
He wanted to be discovered. ibid.
Gay Talese Disavows His Own Book Before It’s Published Saying ‘Its Credibility Is Down the Toilet.’ ibid. newspaper article
I got in his life and I ruined it. ibid. Foos
That book is really dead. ibid. Talese
In war a week is a whole life condensed. There’s no tricks, no masks. There’s excitement, ecstasy. There’s fear, moral commitment, empathy. But without denying the essence of life: everything’s random and fleeting. Dying to Tell, Netflix 2018
They don’t realise the price they’ll pay … I didn’t realise the price I’d pay … I didn’t know how much of me would die. ibid.
We go to war in search of adventures but we come back with a suitcase full of bodies. ibid.
These people go from bomb site to bomb site to look for bodies and survivors among the rubble. ibid.
Fear is a defence mechanism that tells you, You shouldn’t be here. ibid. journalist
When I come back I feel lonely. ibid.
We’re not easy to live with between wars. ibid.
You can’t sleep at night. Or you wake up screaming or dreaming with constant repetitions of a scene, like a football match replay. But it’s a death match. ibid.
Jamal Khashoggi: smart, kind, and outspoken Saudi journalist. He vanished after walking into an embassy. Panorama: The Khashoggi Murder Tapes, BBC 2019