How the American Media Covered Hitler and Mussolini

Smithsonian.com looks back to how the American media covered the rise of Hitler and Mussolini:

How to cover the rise of a political leader who’s left a paper trail of anti-constitutionalism, racism and the encouragement of violence? Does the press take the position that its subject acts outside the norms of society? Or does it take the position that someone who wins a fair election is by definition “normal,” because his leadership reflects the will of the people? These are the questions that confronted the U.S. press after the ascendance of fascist leaders in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
How does the press cover a rising dictator? Not as a "dictator."
Dorothy Thompson, who judged Hitler a man of “startling insignificance” in 1928, realized her mistake by mid-decade when she, like Mowrer, began raising the alarm. “No people ever recognize their dictator in advance,” she reflected in 1935. “He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will.” Applying the lesson to the U.S., she wrote, “When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”

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Why we should distrust big media

Why should we distrust big media? I'm still sorely disappointed that much of big media rooted against Bernie Sanders, contributing to his defeat. But, of course, Big Media simply moves on, often taking sides rather than reporting. Check out this photo of the same paper, The Wall Street Journal, spinning the same story in two different ways to two different markets, trying to make Trump more palatable in two disparate places.   14202634_10210184398063694_5803670331295367517_n

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Glenn Greenwald: Journalists must not give Hillary Clinton a Free Ride, despite the danger of a Trump Presidency

At Truthdig, Amy Goodman interviews Glenn Greenwald, who urges that journalists vigorously investigate Hilary Clinton. That is their job, even though her opponent is a madman.

Here you have Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having this Clinton Foundation, with billions of dollars pouring into it from some of the world’s worst tyrannies, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and other Gulf states, other people who have all kinds of vested interests in the policies of the United States government. And at the same time, in many cases, both Bill and Hillary Clinton are being personally enriched by those same people, doing speeches, for many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in front of them, at the same time that she’s running the State Department, getting ready to run for president, and soon will be running the executive branch.

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John Oliver warns us that the death of newspapers makes us all far more vulnerable to political corruption

Here is yet another excellent video by John Oliver. This issue of the defunding of responsible newspaper reporting, and the lack of investigative journalism effects you and me every day. The answer, I believe is public funding of legitimate media, because it is a common good that can no longer sustain itself. Oliver's ending video is a very sharp sword. We are living in dangerous times where no one is babysitting most of those in power at all levels of government. We can't have a democracy without the Fourth Estate. We are rapidly approaching the time when we won't have a Fourth Estate, merely a shell of what it used to be. This is an extremely complex and serious issue. Thank you, John Oliver for given it the spotlight. Please share. For more on this loss of serious reporting, consider the writings of Robert McChesney and John Nichols, including Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America. I spoke with John Nichols a few years ago about the loss of reporters:

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