...And Go Where the Silence Is

Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald spoke downtown at Ithaca's state theatre as they both accepted the first ever Izzy Award, in honor of the late and great independent journalist Izzy Stone. Both had great things to say about the path that independent media is paving and seemed to have high hopes about where it is going next.

One of my favorite portions of Amy Goodman's speech was when she showed the video of her calling out Chris Matthews during the MSNBC birthday celebration about the firing of Phil Donahue for his anti-war political views. (Watch it here.) I thought it was so great that Amy Goodman chose to use her time on MSNBC to point out their true bias for the war as many mainstream media outlets at the time were participating in. It shows that Amy is willing to put her own career on the line and maybe upset some people to get her point across, she is truly not afraid of the reprecusisons of speaking out against the voices of the mainstream media. Her intelligence and perseverance to give a voice to what would be silent is something all up and coming as well as current journalists should aspire to.

Glenn Greenwald could have said nothing else other than the quote (Greenwald also blogged about this topic.) from Newsweek's Evan Thomas, as he tries to explain his view of the role of journalists in society:

"By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring."

As a journalism and politics major, this is exactly what I would define as the opposite of a journalists role. I almost couldn't believe it when he read the quote. There it was, a mainstream journalist admitting what their role has been over the past decade and seeing it as a contribution to society! I was glad to see the reaction of the audience was clearly as aghast as I was. I guess I should stop being surprised at the mainstream media's true agenda. I would have love to asked Lester Holt to respond to this statement and hear what his response would have been.

Glenn Greenwald also boldly stated "There's no way to be a journalist without being independent." (Check out the article from CommonDreams written about the event.) Greenwald explained that journalism by definition needs to be independent in order to be useful to the rest of society. If journalist's work is placed within certain perimeters, because of a larger corporate ownership or funding from big donors with strings attached, then what kind of real content will be produced? We would end up with corporate agenda pushing media, which is what our mainstrem media seems to be comprised of now.

As cynical as I get the more I learn about the media's situation in our county, it is nothing less than refreshing to know there are other options and other business models for journalism that actually work. There is definitely lots of opportunity floating around the journalism world. The public needs to continue pushing for these other options and not just settle with what they give us.