Independent journalism is dead, long live independent journalism. A recent interview by respected veteran journalist, former host of RT's Breaking the Set and current TeleSUR/Empire Files journalist, Abby Martin strikes at the heart of some uncomfortable truths in the US and global media space. Continually exposing the crimes and hypocrisy of the US empire at home and abroad, Martin has also earned recognition spotlighting global human rights and environmental atrocities as well as the multinational corporate infiltration of global power structures.
Her latest investigative reports have been nothing short of sobering masterpieces. Recently The Empire Files released Martin's three-part series chronicling Chevron Texaco's intentional spilling of 19 billion gallons of oil and waste in Ecuador's pristine Amazon rainforest--and the 25-year-long legal battle that followed. Martin has also recently returned from occupied Palestine to give the world a rare look at the inhuman conditions and deep propaganda that's perpetuating what amounts to a continuous, modern-day genocide.
During her recent interview on Solecast, Martin gave her account of the sad state of independent investigative journalism in the US as well as the public's apathy to support a new structure outside of corporate and centralized media organizations. When asked the question "What does it say about the current state of journalism in the United States if, in order to have a show like this [Empire Files], it has to be on TeleSUR?" Martin answered the following:
"Unfortunately people don't understand the context of global media censorship, not even just US media censorship. We’re talking about a world run and shaped by the economic and military empire of the US…it has partners, collaborators, puppets. This is a battle. This is a war of information and these constructs are held up by myths. They’re underpinned by myths and that’s the glue. So if you start to chip away at these myths, then that is probably the biggest danger for these institutions to hold.
People don’t realize how constricting media censorship is. It’s six corporations that control nearly everything Americans see, hear and read…over 90 percent. And there are so many hundreds of conflicting interests within that. Think about just how much Nestle owns. I was just buying cat food the other day and I realized I was buying Nestle cat food and I was like Fuck! I already thought I had eliminated all the waters Nestle had owned and I didn’t even know that they had a cat food empire so that devastated me. And that’s just one example of the hundreds of corporations that are feeding into these media conglomerates. And not only that, they also serve as the collaborators with US empire. We see time and again that people have gotten fired, demoted for simply criticizing the US during a time a war, simply criticizing the US line. This happens time and time again. So when RT came on the map, it’s funded by Russia obviously, it was created to deliver the Russian perspective. Which, if you ask me, in a world where we’re [the US] resurrecting the cold war, demonizing Putin every day, which is kind of dangerous because it’s a nuclear fucking state, and when we’re just agitating this all the time it’s really important to have kind of this other perspective. All right what is Russia saying you know. And also really, to be honest, that whole network exists primarily to point out the US government’s endless hypocrisies and it does a good job at doing that. And the US has recognized that threat and they hold briefings on RT all the time and they try to just paint it as propaganda.
When it comes to TeleSUR it’s slightly different. It’s a conglomerate collaborative project among several Latin American countries Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina – actually Argentina just pulled out – Bolivia and Uruguay. But that is also painted as propaganda and I always say that you’re probably not going to get the truth about the Venezuelan economy or the food shortage from watching TeleSUR just like you wouldn’t get the truth about what’s happening on the ground in Crimea from watching Russia Today. The problem is that the corporate media is so convoluted and so anti-these states too that, when it comes to issues that are actually funded by these, you know like Venezuela-funded news entity, it’s really difficult to actually get the news about Venezuela from any media source, corporate or state-funded, because everyone’s going to have such a heavy agenda that that situation’s really impossible. And the same with RT when it came to Russia I couldn’t believe anything. And so I was trying to find random indie journalists on the ground because it’s super hard to sort through the disinfo and misinfo on all those platforms.
I think it speaks to the utter, abysmal failure of journalism in the US and media. We love to tout journalists and paint them as heroes. We love to make movies and shows about them. But we hate funding journalism. Investigative journalism is dead. There’s absolutely no interest in funding them. It’s become just a completely info-tainment industry where TV news is a joke and even all the spawns off corporate media which is FOX and all these new corporate media indie sites online that paint themselves as indie are all just kind of runoffs of the same line touting the same propaganda."
Her latest investigative reports have been nothing short of sobering masterpieces. Recently The Empire Files released Martin's three-part series chronicling Chevron Texaco's intentional spilling of 19 billion gallons of oil and waste in Ecuador's pristine Amazon rainforest--and the 25-year-long legal battle that followed. Martin has also recently returned from occupied Palestine to give the world a rare look at the inhuman conditions and deep propaganda that's perpetuating what amounts to a continuous, modern-day genocide.
During her recent interview on Solecast, Martin gave her account of the sad state of independent investigative journalism in the US as well as the public's apathy to support a new structure outside of corporate and centralized media organizations. When asked the question "What does it say about the current state of journalism in the United States if, in order to have a show like this [Empire Files], it has to be on TeleSUR?" Martin answered the following:
"Unfortunately people don't understand the context of global media censorship, not even just US media censorship. We’re talking about a world run and shaped by the economic and military empire of the US…it has partners, collaborators, puppets. This is a battle. This is a war of information and these constructs are held up by myths. They’re underpinned by myths and that’s the glue. So if you start to chip away at these myths, then that is probably the biggest danger for these institutions to hold.
People don’t realize how constricting media censorship is. It’s six corporations that control nearly everything Americans see, hear and read…over 90 percent. And there are so many hundreds of conflicting interests within that. Think about just how much Nestle owns. I was just buying cat food the other day and I realized I was buying Nestle cat food and I was like Fuck! I already thought I had eliminated all the waters Nestle had owned and I didn’t even know that they had a cat food empire so that devastated me. And that’s just one example of the hundreds of corporations that are feeding into these media conglomerates. And not only that, they also serve as the collaborators with US empire. We see time and again that people have gotten fired, demoted for simply criticizing the US during a time a war, simply criticizing the US line. This happens time and time again. So when RT came on the map, it’s funded by Russia obviously, it was created to deliver the Russian perspective. Which, if you ask me, in a world where we’re [the US] resurrecting the cold war, demonizing Putin every day, which is kind of dangerous because it’s a nuclear fucking state, and when we’re just agitating this all the time it’s really important to have kind of this other perspective. All right what is Russia saying you know. And also really, to be honest, that whole network exists primarily to point out the US government’s endless hypocrisies and it does a good job at doing that. And the US has recognized that threat and they hold briefings on RT all the time and they try to just paint it as propaganda.
When it comes to TeleSUR it’s slightly different. It’s a conglomerate collaborative project among several Latin American countries Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina – actually Argentina just pulled out – Bolivia and Uruguay. But that is also painted as propaganda and I always say that you’re probably not going to get the truth about the Venezuelan economy or the food shortage from watching TeleSUR just like you wouldn’t get the truth about what’s happening on the ground in Crimea from watching Russia Today. The problem is that the corporate media is so convoluted and so anti-these states too that, when it comes to issues that are actually funded by these, you know like Venezuela-funded news entity, it’s really difficult to actually get the news about Venezuela from any media source, corporate or state-funded, because everyone’s going to have such a heavy agenda that that situation’s really impossible. And the same with RT when it came to Russia I couldn’t believe anything. And so I was trying to find random indie journalists on the ground because it’s super hard to sort through the disinfo and misinfo on all those platforms.
I think it speaks to the utter, abysmal failure of journalism in the US and media. We love to tout journalists and paint them as heroes. We love to make movies and shows about them. But we hate funding journalism. Investigative journalism is dead. There’s absolutely no interest in funding them. It’s become just a completely info-tainment industry where TV news is a joke and even all the spawns off corporate media which is FOX and all these new corporate media indie sites online that paint themselves as indie are all just kind of runoffs of the same line touting the same propaganda."
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