There is the fringe element in Barbados who continue to be dissatisfied with the operandus of how news is disseminated. The reality appears to be the willingness of our population to be fed sanitized news by the Rhelm of the Fourth Estate, a stinging indictment on our democracy. In case we have forgotten, a democracy is only a democracy when ordinary citizens participate. Barbadians can be consoled to the fact that the control of the Fourth Estate is a global reality and one which John Citizen has been on the shitty end for sometime now.
We miss the weekly columns which flowed from the fearless pen of the late Gladston Holder, who wrote ad nauseam about the clandestine workings of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). Unfortunately since his death not one single media practitioner has dared to walk his trail. Some of us in the BU household, many years after his death, suffer from chronic fits of convulsion caused by the void of his departure. His legacy which has been created by a relentless quest to discover and expose the truth which is usually masked by the ‘establishment’ will probably linger for generations to come (we know that there is a book which has a collection of his best writings).
This week a member of the BU household had an encounter with the media in Barbados which reinforced our cynicism in that most noble profession. It reminded us why we decided to start the Barbados Underground. Whatever happens we feel vindicated that as individuals who have benefited from some level of education offered by Barbados, we have found the courage to overcome the real fear of advocating opinions which sometimes are anti-establishment. We are sad when the Carl Moores (albeit retired) of the profession allow themselves to become nothing more than pawns in the grand scheme of things. We were reminded by a view held by Mohamed Nassar of how many Barbadians have failed education.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) which is a topic the late Gladston Holder wrote at length about, you can become enlightened by viewing the short video presentation.
33 responses so far ↓
freewilly // May 1, 2008 at 5:44 am
The world as we know it is coming to an end…when i say as we know it i mean us as “free people” will no longer be free.Bottom line stop watching channels like Fox news that are bias and have an agenda ..that agenda,is to keep the American public brainwashed until it’s time to call marshal law,put the Verichip in their hands and return to Facism..remember Hitler and how he did things right?..that is where we are heading my friends..history repeating itself once again.
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 6:58 am
freewilly // May 1, 2008 at 7:16 am
classic examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq9Dmoiwxo
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 7:56 am
18 Tales of Media Censorship
By Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet. Posted 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.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/12753/
If you have a high speed connection, watch this Youtube snip (below) from the Canadian documentary “The Corporation” where a couple of Fox investigative journalist, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, explain how they got fired (after attempts to bribe them failed) when their TV station and Fox came under pressure from Monsanto to quash their planned TV documentary report on the human and animal health problems associated with Monsanto’s Bovine Growth Hormone product. The product was sold to US farmers (it could not get regulatory approval in Canada and Europe) to increase milk production in dairy cows.
What is really significant about their particular case is that initially they won an unfair dismissal case against the station under Florida’s whistle blower protection act. However, the ruling was overturned on appeal when the appeals court ruled that their employer was under no legal obligation to tell the truth in its news programming and therefore they were not protected by the provisions of the whistle blower act.
It absolutely boggles the mind that there are so many people out there who swallow without a hiccup the Fox “fair and balanced” crapola.
Ask yourself how many other journalists are there that we don’t know about who have been placed in a similar situation and succumbed to the bribery or figured that je0pardising their kids’ college fund and their pension plan or having to risk losing their house after getting fired would not be worth the hassle and decided to just “go with the flow”.
Here is the snip where Steve Wilson and Jane Akre explain how they got fired:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E-5KivgwO4
You can also watch the whole documentary The Corporation at the link below (it’s in 3 episodes of roughly one hour each):
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 9:10 am
freewilly // May 1, 2008 at 5:44 am
The world as we know it is coming to an end…when i say as we know it i mean us as “free people” will no longer be free.Bottom line stop watching channels like Fox news that are bias and have an agenda ..that agenda,is to keep the American public brainwashed until it’s time to call marshal law,put the Verichip in their hands and return to Facism..remember Hitler and how he did things right?..that is where we are heading my friends..history repeating itself once again.
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Are you serious? Foxnews is the most open source of reporting on American TV.
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 9:26 am
BU where and or how can i get a copy of this Gladstone Holder book. The truth is that i could never understand his writings, and would often give up in fustration, now that i am older i am willing to give them another go. I don’t hold out much hope of learning anything beyond good grammar and spelling which i don’t really care for, but we will see.
The video: I do believe that there is consolidation of interest to control the world’s assets but i don’t believe that this CFR has the reach that the video is suggesting. A lot of the mergers mentioned occured after Gladstone Holder died, and where finanacial failures as well. If true that the CFR sought and gain control of the largest American Newspaper and later control of the Broadcast companies, it certainly cannot be of much benefit today, as the majority of large American papers continue to hemerage sales and subcribers. Americans have long abandon the print media except for Sundays when there is an abundance saving coupons. Everybody in America is publishing and therefore there is no longer any control of the kind this CFR is rumoured to have had and may still have. Case in point it was the independence of blogs that brought down Dan Rather, one of the mentioned CFR members. On top of all of this where is the BBC, and the British base Economist magazine in all of this? Did they sit by and allow this domination?
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 10:01 am
You have got to be kidding right? Please tell me you just forgot to add the “sarcasm” tag.
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 10:24 am
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 10:01 am
Are you serious? Foxnews is the most open source of reporting on American TV.
You have got to be kidding right? Please tell me you just forgot to add the “sarcasm” tag.
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Well tell me what is the most open source of reporting on American TV. Let me compare.
Let me make a distinction here, I am refering to Fox cable news, and you maybe discussing the activity at a Fox news affilliate in Florida both own by the same parent company but have completely seperate editorial oversight. By the way I don’t watch the Fox providence (wnac-tv) or MyFox Boston (wfxt) both local fox affiliates in my neck of the woods.
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 10:30 am
For any BU reader who might take it seriously when AH states “Foxnews is the most open source of reporting on American TV“, may I suggest you watch the documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.
You can view it online at the link below:
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 10:41 am
But GM if Fox CABLE news is not the most open source reporting on American TV then who is??? I need know, as I need to be watching them.
freewilly // May 1, 2008 at 10:55 am
Let me be more specific for the sheep that are asleep,the New World Order controls the media,therefore what we see on television and the press and the internet mostly is fabricated news to suit an agenda..that agenda is to have a microchipped population,de-populating the earth right now of at least 2 billion people through wars,famine,disease and basically forming a One World Government run as they wish,they meaning big corporations and bloodline families who are dead set on controlling the earth until the end of time.
They consist of mostly of the organizations we are familiar with,The World Bank,IMF,The United Nations,all the types of institutions are run by the NWO..and as i said their main goal is global dominance,research and enlighten youselves.
no name // May 1, 2008 at 11:21 am
freewilly,
“global dominance”
Someone I hold in high regard told me that this would happen in my lifetime (which is far more than half gone).
Who wants to believe it will happen in our lifetime? Looks like we should start believing and, more importantly, those of us who have not yet started, start getting our houses in order.
The master plan for the World is becoming more obvious.
Our knees need to be calloused.
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 11:38 am
wait wait i thought George Bush senior ushered in the New World order? It is yet to come???? No name how do we get our house in order? what must we do???
no name // May 1, 2008 at 11:59 am
Adrian Hinds,
Ensure our consciences are clear and do what we know we should.
Linchh // May 1, 2008 at 12:01 pm
David:
I feel your pain
But then, again
Why are you standing in the rain?
Perhaps, your sense is down the drain,
While the rest of you has gone to Spain,
And falling, calling, gives no gain,
But just a sad refrain.
(With apologies to everyone who loves poultry!!)
***************************************
“We miss the weekly columns which flowed from the fearless pen of the late Gladston Holder, who wrote ad nauseam about the clandestine workings of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR).”
I have to confess that I am happy to miss GH’s columns. You see, in his other life he was, among other things, the Government’s Chief Information Officer, but EWB, the PM of the day did not have the slightest interest in anything that Holder wished to produce. As a brash young man I once asked Holder how did he plan to overcome negative public response to what he produced, when members of the listening public turned off their radios/tv sets as soon as they heard the GIS signature tune.
The masthead logo of the New York Times newspaper proclaims “All the News that’s fit to print”. Maybe, the theme of the media in Barbados should be all the news that is fit to read, or hear, or listen to. But who decides what’s fit, fat, or fiddlesticks? Isn’t that the real question?
Ian Bourne // May 1, 2008 at 12:16 pm
4th Estate Matters from a Bajan askance – I saw CM at a Geo Lamming lecture and said he took real blows from the blogs and he huffed that he gave back some good ones, Ho Hum, LOL!
See how BFP had the Ghanaian rape matter 7 days before the Nation?
This is why blogs are disliked, we dare to unearth what is there as it happens, before the dead-trees or tv & radio whose souls are stored very securely at the Company Store
Indo-Guyanese // May 1, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Wow!. People like Adrian can make sense sometime but simply plays the ass when it come to racial issues, especially regarding indians.
So pathetic!
Chris Halsall // May 1, 2008 at 12:49 pm
My humble opinion of the most open source news available in the US (and here in Bim):
PBS — http://www.pbs.org/
BBC — http://www.bbc.co.uk/
CBC — http://www.cbc.ca/
Note that none of the above are heavily dependent upon advertising revenue…. Simply correlative, or causal?
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Indo-Guyanese // May 1, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Wow!. People like Adrian can make sense sometime but simply plays the ass when it come to racial issues, especially regarding indians.
So pathetic!
================================
Indo, wuh um is that you selling and that i refuse to buy? :D
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 12:57 pm
no name // May 1, 2008 at 11:59 am
Adrian Hinds,
Ensure our consciences are clear and do what we know we should.
=================================
Make sure our conscience is clear? as in empty our thoughts and become blank slates??? If we do that on what or who’s instructions can begin to do what we know we should do??????
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Ian Bourne // May 1, 2008 at 12:16 pm
4th Estate Matters from a Bajan askance – I saw CM at a Geo Lamming lecture and said he took real blows from the blogs and he huffed that he gave back some good ones, Ho Hum, LOL!
See how BFP had the Ghanaian rape matter 7 days before the Nation?
This is why blogs are disliked, we dare to unearth what is there as it happens, before the dead-trees or tv & radio whose souls are stored very securely at the Company Store
=================================
Ian my friend. :D How are you? I hope you notice that as much as i does cuss you, and will continue too, :D that i use your good work at your current location to “show up” Carl Moore’s lack of traction in his presidentcy of the quieter Barbados organization. Did he attempt to get ideas from you? He should.
Sam Gamgee // May 1, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Culture of ‘bondage’
Published on: 5/1/08.
by TREVOR YEARWOOD
THE CARIBBEAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (CBC) is short-changing Barbadians as it seeks to capture the attention of youths in its programmes.
Barbadian novelist George Lamming made this charge on Tuesday night, after delivering a lecture in a series sponsored by the Barbados Community College (BCC).
In the lecture, the author of the classic In The Castle Of My Skin spoke of a need to “decolonise” Barbadians’ eating habits and advised caution for those seeking “First World status” for the developing nation.
Responding to questions and comments after the lecture, Lamming told the gathering in the Grand Salle of the Tom Adams Financial Centre that his beef with CBC was its caricature of the Bajan language in its programmes.
“The fuss I make is when I hear the oral tradition being caricatured by people who think if you make it sound ordinary and ordinary and ordinary, the more popular [it becomes] . . . .
“I regret I have to say I think CBC has been one of the greatest betrayals of public trust.
“This attempt to catch something called the youth, to catch the youth, to catch the youth . . . has forced them into all sorts of nonsense.”
CBC did not realise “that the youths are really casualties of the market, that that easy access . . . which the consumer society has given to things has actually put a whole generation into a new kind of bondage”, he added.
Quality of life
In the lecture focusing on Nation, Culture And The School, Lamming noted the frequently made statements
about the need to have Barbados upgraded to a First World nation.
“These statements are [usually] made by people who fail to recognise that in those areas you call First World the phenomenal increase in standards of living reveals a corresponding decline in the quality of life,” Lamming said.
He also touched on Barbados’ high food import bill and the need to change consumption patterns.
“How do you decolonise the eating habits of the people who have surrendered their palates to foreign control?” he asked.
“I live in an island where the synonym of breakfast is Kellogg’s. How do we reverse that? It can’t really be done by legislation.
“It has to be done by some revolution, some turning upside down of the way in which you see yourself,” he added.
Lamming saw it as “most unfortunate” to arouse the expectations of local farmers and then force them to engage in a rivalry with imported food, much of it largely subsidised.
He complained that despite a fertile sea and land with the potential to meet basic food needs Caribbean people had surrendered their cultural sovereignty.
“There is a crisis in cultural sovereignty when patterns of consumption bear little relation to basic needs and cannot
be supported by the productive base of the societies,” he said.
Green Monkey // May 1, 2008 at 2:10 pm
AH said:
The two reporters in question say that threats of lawsuits and withdrawal of advertising were made to the Fox owned TV station as well as to Fox in general. You would have thought if you listened to how right wing, republican blowhards carry on about the benefits of the US system vs. the totalitarian controls on free speech and freedom of the press in nasty, dictatorial commie states like those run by Castro and Chavez, Fox would have used their corporate resources to stand behind the TV station’s reporters and get this important story on the air to inform Americans of the dangerous crap Monsanto was putting into the food supply instead of folding to Monsanto’s heavy handed threats. However, thanks to the internet at least you can till find out what Fox and Monsanto don’t want you to know. Just go to this website http://www.foxbghsuit.com/ where Jane Akre and Steve Wilson have posted some information regarding the issues they were researching re. rBGH in the US milk supply.
BTW, If Fox is all that great a news source, how would you account for this story (I can bet this is one story that was not covered by the well coiffed, bloviating gasbags and flag lapel-pin wearing, faux-patriots at Faux News):
AH said:
Hate to break it to you AH, but none of them can be trusted. They are not called corporate media whores for nothing. A few corporate conglomerates (some of them with interests in the arms making “defense” industries) basically own and control 90% of the US media outlets these days and while they may or may not overtly set the agenda as to what news will make it to air and how it will be presented, it’s not like the journalists and reporters would need to get detailed instructions as to how to handle stories every day, (unless they blatantly step off the reservation like the two at Fox) . I would think a junior reporter will quickly get a handle on what types of stories and what slants on stories get approval from the bosses and pats on the back and bring on pay raises and promotions and what stories and slants on coverage result in him/her spending a career covering the equivalent of the debates at city hall on funding for new garbage trucks etc.
I’ll just leave you with this snip from an article by Norman Livergood PhD, a former department head at the US Army War College where he researched and wrote papers on topics like brainwashing, psychological warfare, mind control etc.
My only advice would be to get your news from as wide a variety of sources as possible, including the blogs and the web and from overseas sources such as overseas newspaper web sites etc. , and don’t assume that because a story came from a so-called mainstream source it must therefore be true or it must be the “correct” way to look at some issue. Most importantly always be prepared to question authority.
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 2:47 pm
George Lamming has been telling it like it is for some time now. I am surprise that Carl Moore would find him worthy of his attention.
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 2:49 pm
As i was saying:
http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11294258
Ian Bourne // May 1, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Trevor Yearwood shocks me, as to the angle he chose, but that is good as it leaves me with another spin for my News Blog, please keep watching my space, LOL!
Mr Hinds, I am pleasantly surprised we are in are in correlation for the moment, I’ll enjoy while I can…
Keltruth Corp. // May 1, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Chris Halsall suggested a correlation between advertisers and news content.
This is not surprising. Media makes its money on ads. Government and big business place many ads. Businesses serve their customers.
The good news is that both in America and Barbados, bloggers are making big changes by publishing news and by shaming the media to publish.
No news source is unbiased. My solution is to look at several news sources with DIFFERENT biases. This may not be possible when news is being suppressed!
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 5:09 pm
GM thanks for attempting to answer my question. There will always be people wanting to hide news for whatever reason and they will most likely never succeed for any length of time.
There is no need to tell me to get my news from multiple sources, the skeptic that i am have determine this to the best approach, but more importantly is that i continue to ask questions, look for established facts and then find the history and ideas that led them becoming facts to get to the core of a situation. I read all news source, when looking at a particular topic i don’t shut out any media house base on their percieved political slant.
i read from NYTIMES to Stratfor with National reveiw and the dailykos sandwish somewhere in between. I still find Fox Cable news the least partisan of all the cable and public TV news stations in America, would you like to dispute that? Interestly enough i never knew of Fox or Bill O’reilly it being a subscription channell ( I am a proud cheapo) until a visit to Barbados and seeing him live on so many BLP supporters tv. :D
Adrian Hinds // May 1, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Keltruth Corp. // May 1, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Chris Halsall suggested a correlation between advertisers and news content.
This is not surprising. Media makes its money on ads. Government and big business place many ads. Businesses serve their customers.
================================
The relationship is explain in this article
“India’s newspapers embrace a profitable but questionable new sideline
http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11294242
White Rabbit // May 2, 2008 at 10:29 am
For those seeking reporting of news as unbiased as possible let me suggest The Christian Science Monitor, widely regarded to be about as good as you will get in the U.S. As for TV news, what a joke, all sound bites and propaganda, not to mention the low IQ at which it is focused. CBC Channel 8 is due an award from the Barbados Library Service for encouraging reading. Not much difference in the U.S. Understanding the world around us requires reading, complete with correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., all necessary for transmitting the subtle nuances that separate news and information from entertainment.
Adrian Hinds // May 2, 2008 at 12:37 pm
White Rabbit // May 2, 2008 at 10:29 am
For those seeking reporting of news as unbiased as possible let me suggest The Christian Science Monitor, widely regarded to be about as good as you will get in the U.S. As for TV news, what a joke, all sound bites and propaganda, not to mention the low IQ at which it is focused. CBC Channel 8 is due an award from the Barbados Library Service for encouraging reading. Not much difference in the U.S. Understanding the world around us requires reading, complete with correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., all necessary for transmitting the subtle nuances that separate news and information from entertainment.
=================================
Here we are “expounding” (yuh like dah word? did i spell it write,right or wright? :D ) the benefits of diversifying our news scources and here you come, while sighting the same reasons as us for so doing, to give us only one choice.
=============================
But is the CSM free of the things that force us to seek multiply news sources? hardly.
Did you believe Jill Carroll’s account of her abduction?
+++++++++
Project Censored noted that the Monitor often publishes articles discussing topics under-represented or absent from the mainstream mass media. In comparison to other major newspapers and journalistic magazines, the Monitor tends to take a steady and slightly upbeat approach to national and world news. Many readers prefer the Monitor because it avoids sensationalism, particularly with respect to tragedies; at the same time, the paper’s staff does operate under the close eye of the church’s five-member board of directors, and has sometimes been seen as avoiding issues that involve the church in controversial and unfavorable ways.
Due to its church ownership, the “Monitor” largely avoids coverage about medicine, disease and death; articles that discuss these topics are carefully vetted for language viewed as inappropriate or unnecessary per church doctrine.Obituaries typically don’t mention the cause of death, and the ages of people in stories are rarely mentioned.
Modernization
The print edition continued to struggle for readership, and, in 2004, faced a renewed mandate from the church to turn a profit. The Monitor, more quickly than other newspapers, turned to the World Wide Web for its future. The Web offered the paper the opportunity to overcome the severe cost and logistical difficulties of mailing out a daily international newspaper. The Monitor was one of the first newspapers to put its text online (in 1996), and also one of the first to launch a PDF edition (in 2001). It was also an early pioneer of RSS feeds. The former editor was David Cook.
Reporter kidnapping
———-
In 2006, Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad, and released safely after 82 days. Although Carroll was initially a freelancer, the paper worked tirelessly for her release, even hiring her as a staff writer shortly after her abduction to ensure that she had financial benefits, according to Bergenheim.[3]
Beginning in August 2006, the Christian Science Monitor published an 11-part account of Carroll’s kidnapping and subsequent release, with first-person reporting from Carroll and others involved.
Galloway scandal
———-
In April 2003, the Monitor published papers that claimed George Galloway had received money for sympathy to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. These documents were forgeries.
freewilly // May 4, 2008 at 5:45 am
If this video doesn’t wake up more people, then whatever these scumbags do to you and your families in the future you will have to accept.Remember their policies will affect us all.
freewilly // May 4, 2008 at 7:22 am