by Rod Amis

INTRODUCTION: Inspire, Illuminate - Rod Amis's first post in the May Contagious Festival sets the agenda for his latest review of American journalism.

Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: "This is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night we aren't going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas." The networks should, and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser, the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests, which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts, reach the right decision--if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate image but the corporations are done for.

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To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

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This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determi ned to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. - Edward R. Murrow, keynote address to the Radio and Television News Director's Association - October 15, 1958

Here's a simple exercise for you, Gentle Reader: Replace the words "television" and "radio" in the above quote with the words "Web" or "Internet." In so doing, you will understand the nature of this new project by Your Interlocutor in the May Huffington Post Contagious Festival.

A Slideshow of Genocide

Wartime photojournalist Mark Brecke turns his lens on Darfur, Sudan, to document the ongoing genocide campaign ravaging the populace of that country.

3 May 2006: On 29 April, 2006, over a quarter million people - organizer estimates went as high as 350,000 - took to the streets of Manhattan to protest the on-going United States occupation of Iraq and to voice their opposition to "extraordinary renditions," secret prison camps in Europe and the notoriously infamous camp at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, and the militarist agenda of the current executive branch in Washington.

This reporter, on 30 April, went to the Web sites of the national newspapers of prominence, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and fond nary a mention that this gathering of humanity in America - labor organizations, the National Organization of Women (NOW,) veterans organizations for peace and immigrant's rights group, not to mention Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon - had ever taken place. On a Google search the first mention of the protest was listed from a publication in China. The only reference to the event found at either Google or Yahoo! was from the Village Voice.

What had happened? What had caused this Mouthpiece Media (MM) blackout of a major political event, in the estimation of This Reporter? A word I've used here at the Huffington Post before: marginalization. The marginalization of dissent against American policy in this country is a story unto itself, it seems.

Ah yes, but we have the Internet, where publications like this one - where Yours Unruly was asked, in a series of e-mails to return with this curmudgeonly commentary on American media - garner enough votes for a respectable showing but is relegated to competing with virtual cartoons for you attention. Yes, the Internet will provide us with a source of illuminating and inspiring news and commentary within the media mix.

I don't think so, not yet.

We are engaged, here in the United States, in a war o f ideas, a conflict over the vision of th e future held by competing camps, in which the media, on- and offline is a serious player. Whether you prefer the preaching to the converted of Alternet, The NewStandard or DemocracyNow! or that of the Michelle Malkin, you are invited to envision some future version of the country you have borrowed from your children and shall leave them when you and This Reporter are conferred to the dust.

Which of these sources either illuminate your understanding of basic citizenship or inspire you to create a better future for your offspring? How much noise is there relative to signal? IF you leave the topical partisanship behind and look for constructive commentary with which to make informed choices about policy, practical means and ends, how do any of these contribute to that contemplative process?

You tell me.

Along this journey of ours, because I know how much you love eye-candy and streaming video, I'll include feeds on important stories from Current TV, like the one included with this introductory post. Most, as you'd expect, won't be pleasant, though they are important. And in this outing I promise to attempt to inject a bit of humor, when appropriate.

During the course of this month, Yours Unruly shall attempt to point you to important stories that are excluded from the publications listed in the second 'graph of this introductory statement of the project and perhaps illuminate and inspire you as to what on-the-ground journalism should provide. Your comments are welcomed. Cross-posting and reprinting are encouraged, as is dialogue, should you be so inclined.

Good night and good luck.