"As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society."--Robert McChesney, journalist

Our corporate North America media has become a cartel of media conglomerates where journalism has succumbed to the hegemonic business interest to make money with money. It is time to have media reform as we cannot trust our corporate media anymore. Egyptian journalist Osama El-Ghazali Harb writes

"In Asia or Europe, the US or the Middle East, terrorism can be traced to religious and ideological fanaticism, tyranny, and social and economic woes. But the Americans should also realise that the attacks of 11 September were closely related to half a century of US bias toward Israel, a bias that runs counter not only to the will of the international community as a whole, but also to America's cherished principles of freedom and self-determination."

Therefore, one international perception is that the United States' foreign policies have been flawed for the last 50 years and that these policies have been participatory causes for the violence in the Middle East.

 Our media could help us in understanding the complexity of the violence in the Middle East, instead they choose to either ignore the news, or distort the news, or to manufacture the news all together. Osama El-Ghazali Harb contends that the United States don't understand how flawed their foreign policies are as they continue to work for peace between Israel and the Palestine Authority while at the same time vetoing any peace effort by the United States Security Council. I am referring specifically to the December 15 Resolution to establish a monitoring force in the West Bank and Gaza, and in this regard social activist David Batstone writes "the fact that this item was largely ignored by the mainstream U.S. media is shameful."

There is no doubt that our corporate media has become the voice of the Bush Administration, and there is no doubt that this Bush Administration could take the world to an unprecedented level of violence. We need real journalism to support democracy at home and abroad, and as our lives are not above other people's lives we need to support the international community and their efforts for freedom from wars, for freedom from poverty and for freedom from the new form of colonization: the Free Market.

References:
Pertinent articles published in Ensign

Freedom Is History (and Vice Versa), by Eric Alterman, The Nation, December 10, 2001 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011210&s=alterman

Introduction:The Media / Democracy Paradox excerpted from the book Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert McChesney http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McChesney/MediaDemoParadox_RMPD.html

The Making of a Movement (Media Reform), by Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols, The Nation, January 7, 2002 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=mcchesney

The trouble with America. The year may have changed history, but some things haven't budged an inch. Osama El-Ghazali Harb wonders why, even when it asks the right questions, the US listens to the wrong answers. Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Dec. 2001-2 Jan. 2002 Issue, No.566 http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/566/op2.htm

Why does the Arab world mistrust us?, by David Batstone, S O J O M A I L, 19-December-2001, U.S. vetoes U.N. peacekeeping resolution http://www.sojo.net/sojomail/index.cfm/action/sojomail/issue/121901.html