A new way of describing them

Because of what I do (talk radio or, as we like to call it at The H.O.R.N., America's Liberal Voice, "Conversation Radio"), I spend a good deal of time (probably more than is healthy, really) thinking about the media in our country.

We liberals/progressives/decent human beings have been mostly disgusted with the media's behavior for almost my entire adult life (N.B.: I'm 45). It's worsened to a degree almost unimaginable in the last eight years and, since March of 2007 has managed to inflame both the partisans of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as the rest of us liberals/progressives/decent human beings.

With the rise of the internets and particularly blogging, a new phrase entered the lexicon: "Mainstream Media." It has hung on like white on rice, like a dog on a bone-wagon, like a duck on a junebug, like stink on, well, never mind. You get the point.

Some folks have periodically noted that the media are anything BUT "mainstream." The media in this country are largely owned by a consortium or perhaps sextumvirate of some six major corporations. That gave rise to the term "corporate media," which is accurate as far as it goes.

What it doesn't do, however, is go all the way to the vile, bilious, throbbing heart of the problem.

Now, I think I've found the moniker many of us have been looking for. It dawned on me last night during "The H.O.R.N. Section," when Peter Godbold, Jon Fox and I get together for an hour on the air and sort of free-form ideas, stories and even occasional outright silliness. You can hear the archives of the H.O.R.N. Section and every other H.O.R.N. program at www.whiterosesociety.org. The live streams are always available at http://www.headonradionetwork.com , among other places.

This idea, however, struck me as anything but silly. It came from my thoughts about Dennis Kucinich's entirely accurate description of our healthcare crisis stemming from what he called "For-profit healthcare."

And there it was: jiggling like an overburdened toxic waste dump glistening under a blistering sun: "The For-profit Media."

It really encapsulates everything that's wrong with the Timmehs and Tweetys and Becks and O'Reillys and Humes and Scarboroughs and Phlegmballs and SavageWeiners and "BUYGOLDNOW and spend it on our herbal erection concocktion! Use it while sleeping on a Swedish mattress developed by NASA and clean up the mess with a vacuum cleaner that picks up bowling balls" ads that litter the Fourth Estate. At the end of the day, in the final analysis, it's the profit motive that drives everything we loathe about American media behavior. It's behind Fox's incessant, obsessive use of titillating imagery. It's what drove CBS to hire Katie Couric for FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS a year (anybody know what Murrow made at the height of his career?). It's what jams BritneyLindsayParis Shark Attacks on Missing White Girls onto our screens nightafternightafternightafternightafternight. It's what keeps America dumbed-down and hyped-up.

So there you have it. Make free use of it. Beat 'em over the head with it.

The For-Profit Media.

With any luck, we can make Timmeh and Tweety start hallucinating it in their AlphaBits.


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Mostly because it's true, but also because framing is important when discussing issues.

I'm gonna do everything I can to hammer this one home.

Anyone who's seen "Good Night And Good Luck" knows that even Murrow had to battle against the profiteers to get his message out.

It's only gotten/getting worse and worse and worse.



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That's the beauty of fascism.

Or for-profit anything else for that matter. Like health care. They're scared of anything that isn't for profit, thinking it's "communist."

At the H.O.R.N., we're trying to jump start that dialogue and discussion.

Part of the idea is to make the Timmehs and Tweetys defend it. "Of course we're for profit! How else are we supposed to afford Hummingbird Tongue Canapes for lunch every day?"

I guess I'm sensitive to the "for profit" notion because I live in a place that has more high explosives used on it every day than even Iraq, and it's ALL "for profit."


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Home of Mountain Top Removal. 3 million pounds of high explosives per day are used to destroy the oldest mountains on the planet and the temperate forest that re-seeded the entire continent after the last ice age. We've already lost an area of the Appalachians the size of Delaware.

You can learn more here: www.ilovemountains.org and www.crmw.net

It shows in massive scale how little regard our species has for the planet that sustains us.

than just about any other environmental toxin of which I'm aware.

For instance: because of the burning of coal in this country, every woman of child-bearing age has enough mercury in her system to account for a 10 point IQ deficit in each child she bears and her breast milk has enough poisons to qualify as a toxic substance under EPA rules.

Now: consider that every single "debate" (I call 'em "pageants") broadcast by CNN was sponsored by "clean coal." What a racket! There's that "For Profit Media" I was talking about.

I live five miles from a large coal power plant. The economy of the area I live in is driven by coal. It's just mined underground rather than by mountaintop removal. And I'm glad of that. Underground mining is bad, too, but I don't think I could bear it if they removed the tops of my beloved mountains.

Remember the accident at the Crandall Canyon Mine that received so much media attention? I'm from that area. My uncle worked in that mine at the time. Thank God he wasn't there at the time of the accident.

And, if we actually had a Department of Justice, Bob Murray would be suffering the turtle-squirts about now.

http://headonradionetwork.com/blog/2008/05/08/criminal-probe-ordered-in-crandall-canyon-mine-disaster/

As an anecdote, my windows just rattled from another blast going off at the mine site that sits on the edge of our national park here.

That mine was pretty much played out years ago. He was just trying to eke out as much as he could with no regard for the lives of the miners.

Of course, there are mixed feelings about that around here because so many people's jobs depend on the mines staying open, even if they are unsafe.

I'm sorry to hear about the blast rattling your windows. I can't imagine how you deal with that. And the mine sits on the edge of a national park? Yikes.

The New River Gorge National River.

And this:


The Gauley River National Recreation Area

The company that was pulling pillars in Crandall Canyon ought to be held criminally liable and never allowed to mine so much as another chunk of coal.

in your area? Do they hate it because of the destruction it causes or do they defend it because it creates jobs for them?

Where I live, speaking ill of King Coal is like blasphemy because so many jobs here depend on it. But even those jobs won't be here for long because our mines are running out of coal. We've got 30 years of coal left at the very, very most, and that's only if dangerous practices like those employed at Crandall Canyon are used. Most people seem to be in denial about that.

I would love to see this area become a center for alternative energy. We have more sunny days than cloudy by far, which would be great for solar. We also have tons of wind in the mouths of the canyons. But when I bring this up, I get immediately shot down as if I'd spoken ill of the Mormon prophet or something. They don't realize that it would create jobs, jobs that are sorely needed.