I just saw this posted on CurrentTV and it absolutely needs to be seen by everyone. This fits right in with the narrative that has arisen regarding the failure and interference of the corporate media. If there is one movie that will drive any sane person screaming from their couch watching cable news to the warm hills of the blogosphere and more people powered media.
Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.
I implore you to watch the first 10 minutes and recommend as soon as your gag reflex fully kicks in.
[kudos to Trix for the embed code]
This just demonstrates that our press has been crippled by its own fascination with itself and has been abusing its power for decades now. Just a few gems to be found in this footage:
- Larry King tells Bill Clinton that Ted, his boss is a huge fan and could do a lot to help.
- Several phone callers issue heated criticisms to Pat Robertson, which he responds to with meaningless stories and platitudes. As soon as they cut away to other coverage, we get to watch Robertson proceed to declare everyone who criticized him "total homos", or some other such juvenile nonsense.
- Footage demonstrating how Democratic candidate Larry Agran was rudely and completely snuffed out of the '92 race by the media's circular logic of "you can't have media coverage until you get some media coverage"
- During NBC's 500th Anniversary Propaganza Spectacular Columbus day special, an actual Cherokee Nation history scholar's tried to describe the 2 years of genocide committed by Columbus after his 'discovery' of America. This is then derided off camera by Katie Couric, saying: "They just you know think that he ruined paradise and had no respect for nature and treated the Indians like dog doo..." (did I mention that she's talking about a quarter million dead by 1494 and a tyrant who decreed that all boys who couldn't find gold lost their hand? dog doo??)
I was shocked that this film isn't widely held up and distributed throughout the blogosphere. The ENTIRE documentary is press footage, indicting them with their own words and images. It is impeachable evidence of the traditional media's bias and fealty towards established power and the status quo. Please show this to anyone you can to remind people that all of the issues brought up by McClellan are nothing new, they're the same old game and it needs to change.