http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want to keep from the public eye.
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Common Dreams:
"Following the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, The Washington Post thought it might be a good idea to have someone write about how the media's role during that time impacted the Bush administration's ability to galvanize a nation towards war. They thought it was a good idea, that is, until they were seemingly reminded how integral a part of that effort they themselves were in the debacle.
Journalist and media critic Greg Mitchell, who ran the highly regarded Editor & Publisher during the years directly before and after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, was asked to write the piece, but as he announced on his personal blog Saturday night, the Post killed the story after reviewing its contents.
According to Mitchell, 'The Washington Post killed my assigned piece for its Outlook section this weekend which mainly covered media failures re: Iraq and the current refusal to come to grips with that (the subject of my latest book)--yet they ran this misleading, cherry-picking, piece by Paul Farhi claiming the media didn't fail.' "
->The NY Times as well as the Washington Post have never really come to terms on how they sold the Iraq invasion to the American people. These two premier newspapers just can't admit ten years latter that they distorted the news for the Pentagon war machine.
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Common Dreams:
"In a 62-37 vote late Friday, the US Senate passed a non-binding amendment calling for the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Environmental groups and climate activists were quick to condemn the vote, but said the 'symbolic vote' was valuable because it revealed which members of the Senate have received the message on the seriousness posed by climate change and which continue to bend to the demands of industry lobbyists.
A post-vote analysis by Oil Change International, in fact, revealed that supporters of the amendment 'received 3.5 times more in campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests' than those who voted against it. In total, the researchers found that supporters took an average of $499,648 from the industry before voting for the pipeline, for a total of $30,978,153.
'Today’s vote presents yet another reason why Congress is less popular than root canals,' said the group's campaign director David Turnbull. 'Every single effort from Congress to influence the Keystone XL pipeline decision has been backed by millions in dirty energy money, and today’s was no different.' "
-->The NY Times wasn't interested in this report about big oil money buying Congressional votes. Maybe it's because big oil money has already bought the nation's media.
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Common Dreams:
"The gross slashing of funds for public universities has caused a 'surge' in tuition prices, disproportionately impacting low-income students says a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
States are spending an average of 28 percent less this year on public university funding than they did in 2008—a decrease of $2,353 per student. According to CBPP, thirty-six states cut funding by over 20 percent and eleven slashed their budgets by more than one-third. Arizona and New Hampshire have cut their higher education spending in half.
To compensate for this massive gap in funding, the burden of cost has shifted to students in the form of surging tuition which, at four-year public colleges, has grown 27 percent since the 2007-08 year.
'These numbers are a vivid demonstration of why Washington's post-recession path has been so disastrous,' said the Atlantic's Jordan Weissman in response to the report."
-->Is Washington's deficit cutting destroying the hopes of working families to send their kids to college? The NY Times wasn't interested in printing this recent report, although it affects 99% of the American public.
