people do terrible things to each other, but it’s worse in places where everything is kept in the dark.
As made available at Truthout, Bill Moyers quoted the above from Tom Stoppard’s play “Night and Day” in his speech to the Newspaper Guild/Communication Workers of America dinner on May 19, 2004. Read Moyer’s eloquent attack on the powers that have plunged the press — and our associated freedoms — into darkness.
(I haven’t been blogging about government lately because so many others are and just thinking about what those guys are doing makes me want to retch.)
Near the end of Moyer’s address, he says:
I believe journalism and democracy are deeply linked in whatever chances we Americans have to redress our grievances, retake our politics, and reclaim our commitment to equality and justice.
And, earlier in his speech he says something that makes what b!X is doing with his Portland Communique even more important than it already is:
The public interest group Alliance for Better Campaigns studied 45 stations in six cities in one week in October. Out of 7,560 hours of programming analyzed, only 13 were devote to local public affairs-less than one-half of one percent of local programming nationwide.
There are very dark times for American freedom, American democracy.