David vs. Goliath
Amateur vs. Millionaire Media
by Mike Hersh

Who controls what you see, hear and think you know?

We need a free press to control public and private abuses of power. Unfortunately, right wing corporations control the news.

We cannot count on the millionaire media to inform us about Bush Administration abuses and failures. We are not getting the news from "the news." Who will fill the breach?

Professional reporters who tell the ugly truth about right-wingers lose their professional status, while those who attack unions, environmentalists, poor people, minorities, and liberal and moderate Democrats prosper.

Book publishers, networks, and newspapers risk retaliation if they question corporations or investigate Republican crimes, as right-wing pressure groups, corporations, millionaires and billionaires support biased reporters who, in return, support those very same right-wing pressure groups, corporations, millionaires and billionaires.
(...)

Who is watching the watchers? We cannot count on the media to inform us about Bush Administration abuses and failures. We must expect media / right wing collusion during the war against Terrorism and beyond. As William Greider famously asked in his book "Who Will Tell The People?", who will fill the breach?

It falls to the many underfunded, often unappreciated amateur and small independent journalists on the Internet to report the truth -- websites and publications including Online Journal, Citizens for Legitimate Government, Bush Watch, Democrats.Com, Buzzflash, Daily Howler, Political Amazon, Bartcop, Democratic Underground, Smirking Chimp, truthout.org [The author's link doesn't work. I think truthout is the right link. - Gordy], my own Political Sanity group, and many others do the job complicit corporate media will not or cannot do.
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thanks to SmirkingChimp.com

One of the reporters that Mike Hersh mentions that has relocated, so that he can report the news, is Gregory Palast who now writes for the Observer which is part of the Guardian. The Guardian is in England. And here is a recent article by Palast:

FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11

FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.
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thanks to BookNotes

And why would the FBI be asked to back off by the Bushies. Maybe because the Bushes and bin Ladens have common financial interests?

The ex-presidents' club

It is hard to imagine an address closer to the heart of American power. The offices of the Carlyle Group are on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, midway between the White House and the Capitol building, and within a stone's throw of the headquarters of the FBI and numerous government departments. The address reflects Carlyle's position at the very centre of the Washington establishment, but amid the frenetic politicking that has occupied the higher reaches of that world in recent weeks, few have paid it much attention. Elsewhere, few have even heard of it.

This is exactly the way Carlyle likes it. For 14 years now, with almost no publicity, the company has been signing up an impressive list of former politicians - including the first President Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker; John Major; one-time World Bank treasurer Afsaneh Masheyekhi and several south-east Asian powerbrokers - and using their contacts and influence to promote the group. Among the companies Carlyle owns are those which make equipment, vehicles and munitions for the US military, and its celebrity employees have long served an ingenious dual purpose, helping encourage investments from the very wealthy while also smoothing the path for Carlyle's defence firms.

But since the start of the "war on terrorism", the firm - unofficially valued at $3.5bn - has taken on an added significance. Carlyle has become the thread which indirectly links American military policy in Afghanistan to the personal financial fortunes of its celebrity employees, not least the current president's father. And, until earlier this month, Carlyle provided another curious link to the Afghan crisis: among the firm's multi-million-dollar investors were members of the family of Osama bin Laden.
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