Aug 13, 2009

Whither the Watchdogs?

Joseph Farah
By Joseph Farah

The largest and most influential news-gathering organization in the world, the Associated Press, is delivering content to its subscribers created by groups with financing from philanthropist George Soros and another "progressive" billionaire who campaigned for Barack Obama and topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org.

AP content drives the news agenda more than any other agency in the world, including the New York Times. It not only provides most of the national and international copy for newspapers, but, because of its influence and worldwide reach, directly affects what is reported as news on the major networks, cable networks, radio networks and even the other international wire services.

When you ask yourself why the news media has a pro-socialist and globalist bias, one need look no further than the total corruption of the nonprofit cooperative known as the AP.

As I wrote in my book "Stop the Presses! The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution," the free press is a uniquely American institution designed to serve as a watchdog on government and other powerful institutions. That's what the founders had in mind when they enshrined in the Constitution special protections for the press. Though a free press as it has been known in the U.S. for the last 230 years was unknown anywhere in the world at any time before, the founders recognized how this independent "Fourth Estate" would be vital to the maintenance of a free society – not only in keeping the people informed, but in exposing waste, fraud, abuse and corruption in government, which they saw as the greatest threat to liberty.

They thought of the free press as yet another check and balance in a system loaded with checks and balances. They wanted government – especially any central or national government – to be kept off-balance, if you will, so that the chains removed from the people through their new form of government would not be easily reaffixed. The greatest accomplishment of the Constitution was removing those chains from the people and placing them on the government.

Because the great temptation of those in power is to increase their power, the press would serve, the founders believed, as a guardian of the people and the rule of law.

That was then. This is now.

Today, most of my colleagues in the news media have literally sold their souls to the god of government. They have forsaken their watchdog role. They have traded their birthright and the noble mission of the free press for a mess of pottage.

The example of the AP being subsidized by wealthy partisan hacks with a pro-socialist and pro-globalist agenda is not the first straw, it is the last. There's no going back for institutions like the AP. They have been corrupted beyond repair.

All the ethics rules in the world won't help when both the leadership and the rank and file of a once-great media institution lose their moral bearings. They cannot even see how they have been fundamentally compromised. They have long ceased to be the watchdogs on government and have actually become public relations mouthpieces for the ever-expanding role of government in the lives of individuals.

Even for a media insider like me who has worked with institutions like the AP for 30 years, it's hard to believe how completely they have become debauched, faithless, nefarious, reprobate and unprincipled.

The watchdogs have gone to the dogs.

Remember this when you turn on the TV for your news – it doesn't matter which channel. Remember this when you open your newspaper – it doesn't matter where you live. Remember this when you turn on the radio for news – it doesn't matter which station.

That's the sad reality of where the media are today. And when you hear the cacophony of voices all telling you the same thing, understand why.

I can only hope that my little Internet-based news organization provides something of an antidote to this mind-control, liberty-denying poison all around us.

Related Links

 AP to distribute Soros-funded 'journalism' - WorldNetDaily (Aaron Klein)
 Stand-Up Guy - Wall Street Journal
 ABC: Obama's 'state-run television network'? - WorldNetDaily