At the high level Leveson inquiry in the UK, Ex-Prime Minister, John Major, stated under oath today that Rupert Murdoch, a non citizen, demanded that the government change its policies or we (the Murdoch organization) would oppose him.  Major’s government didn’t and Murdoch then supported Labour, who won the election. This seems to directly contradict Murdoch’s testimony at the Leveson inquiry – that he never asks for anything from a Prime Minister. Major complained that this is against the idea of one person one vote; Murdoch controls one third of the British Media, and hence wields huge political power. 

The striking thing here is that Murdoch also controls about one third of the US Media, vertically integrated across network and cable TV properties, newspapers, movie studios, book publishing and the internet. For the corporate news media pundits and politicians to ignore what is going on in the UK, and to not point to the obvious parallels between Murdoch’s techniques in the two countries is extraordinary.  He literally brainwashes 30% of the US, demands who knows what from politicians, and the public hears not a peep.

For more on John Major’s testimony read this article from the Guardian.

Sue Wilson’s essay on OpEdNews puts a finger on a dirty secret. With all the wailing about the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the superpacs, what is consistently not discussed in the mainstream media is that this state of affairs is a cash cow for TV stations, stations usually owned by the media conglomerates. During the Walker recall, something like 45 million dollars was spent on local TV ads in the space of a month. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress is attempting to keep the public from finding out who bought these ads, how many are broadcast and when. By the way the airwaves are public property.

To read this article, click here.

Michael Moore

By Robert Kane Pappas

I have been trying to get my mind around the “death of privacy” and what this means and portends personally, politically and economically. 

Yesterday, when Michael Moore was interviewed by Susan Sarandon in front of a packed auditorium at the Tribecca Film Festival, I asked a question from a hand held audience mic:

 “Hi,” (and then briefly tried to jog Mike’s memory; he had once recommended my film on his website) “I made ‘Orwell Rolls In His Grave’ and I would like to ask both of you whether – because of your work – you feel that you are under surveillance?”

The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and the Guardian have each led their stories with my question. Both Sarandon’s and Moore’s responses were striking and personal but the Huffington Post missed the key response from Moore. However, the Daily Beast and the Guardian highlighted it: namely, that Mike addressed the Murdoch UK hacking scandal and predicted that the hacking that had been going on over there has also been going on here in the US.

I have believed for some time that one of the coins of the realm of political control is blackmail.  

Murdoch deals directly with government leaders around the world.  Years ago, I interviewed his chef and housekeeper, who had on a lark, flipped through his rolodex. They gushed; “every name was a leader of this or that country or people like Michael Milken, every telephone number the person’s private number. One day the President of China’s daughter showed up with her entourage.”   

Murdoch had also given her a book contract (like Gingrich) to write a book about her father. He now has a strong presence in the Chinese media. Thank God Rupert is such a patriot! 

The idea of such access to leaders, coupled with a huge organization which has been shown to be capable of accessing private information, and publicizing it around the world instantly – such power is unprecedented. Plus, the other major networks follow News Corp’s lead. Stories can be driven and kept alive, careers made or destroyed, the public can be influenced. Consider Roger Ailes, and the fact that GOP candidates running for the Presidential nomination had contracts with FOX.  

The mainstream news outlets have been mumbling that the News Corp hacking story hasn’t “Jumped the Atlantic.” Yesterday, Michael Moore tried to help import it.

Bravo Mike.

by Robert Kane Pappas

I could probably find the script – lying somewhere down here in my basement office, the dungeon where I have been making films for a long time.  But the place is swamped with them so I’m not going to look.  I’ll just try to remember what I can. 

Cat Colvin, a woman I know, sent the screenplay to me to read and comment on – in, I think it was 2006 – her sister Marie Colvin was the author. Marie got blown up yesterday in Syria. 

It’s a feature film script. The main character is a woman Journalist, living with or married to a man in London, who feels compelled to rush off and cover terrible atrocities around the world. The relationship doesn’t go well. He cheats in her absence. 

I gave notes on the phone. My feeling about it was akin to how I felt about parts of Nathanial West’s “Miss Lonely Hearts” where this newspaper editor reads and responds to pathetic letters of human suffering sent in to the paper he works for.  

In Colvin’s script I kept thinking – why? Why does she do this? Why try to intervene in such hopeless situations? Why not stay at home and make the relationship work? I remember in Miss Lonely Hearts (which I read 30 years ago) the character had a girlfriend, and I kept hoping he’d get it together with her and settle down.  But he doesn’t and it ends sadly. 

I recall critiquing Colvin’s piece as a professional, explaining the need for some dramatic scene so that we know why she runs off to war, runs to danger, at the expense of her relationship. 

I may now be able to answer the question – but I need to backtrack. 

I hadn’t spoken to Cat Colvin for several years. Yesterday at 5 AM I woke early, and soon afterward Cat popped into my mind. I was thinking about whether she was still with that  guy from Boston.   

Sometime after 6AM I turned on CNN. Breaking news “journalist killed” flashes and a photo of a female with an eye patch appears on screen.  I knew instantly it was Cat’s sister because she had told me Marie lost an eye in some war.

I found yesterday’s coincidence odd and as the day wore on – for different reasons – disturbing.

I came to know Cat in 2000.  She, like her sister, had gone to Yale and was now working as a lawyer for IFC Films, part of Rainbow Media and Cablevision.  I had made an independent film “Some Fish Can Fly” that had been released briefly and was now being bought lock stock and barrel by Rainbow Media for not much money.  Cat was on the other side of the deal and we dealt pleasantly with each other concerning “film delivery items.”

In his film review, the Los Angeles Times critic, Kevin Thomas, noted that the filmmaker (me) appears to have made the film more than once:

     “The film, furthermore, is as ambitious in its structure, with Kevin vainly attempting to make a film drawn from his ambivalent romance while he has yet to come to terms with its ultimately impossible nature.”

 Pathetic but true. I actually had made the film twice -12 years apart -in the US and Ireland. I failed a little less the second time. Not enough money both times. Years of toil and poverty.

Why?

Days before the deal was to be closed with Rainbow, I pulled out. After all the SAG wage increases and such, my personal take would be around 10 thousand dollars for 3 years of work and I was giving away the copyright. I thought I might want to make the film again in a different way so I said no.  My partner was angry. I’m not sure what my wife thought.  I do know she doesn’t want me to make that film again.

In the summer of 2003, I had finished a cut of “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” a feature documentary I made about the Corporate News Media. I had begun filming in 2000, before 9/11.  I showed the film to Cat, who showed it to her boss at IFC.  There was interest and phrases like “we love it.”  IFC seemed to want to distribute the movie. Unlike my films about impossible love, this film dealt with our impossible media situation, and the havoc that such centralized media power does to our political system. The film itself was made during to the Florida Recount and the run up to the Iraq War.

Cat seemed sure a deal was going to happen.  Then there were delays, scheduling difficulties, all the while she continued to hear that “the boss loves it.”  This went on for a couple of months. Finally, another executive gave me a heads up. “The IFC is never going to buy this film, your movie goes against their business interests, the decision has come from upstairs”

I then call Cat: “But your boss just said he loves the film and wants to distribute it”

Cat responds simply: “He’s a good liar”

And so it went with “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” – a hit at festivals – untouchable for the major distributors, despite the interest and praise. It was like asking Turkeys to publicize Thanksgiving.  No film had ever discussed the media in such stark terms. Orwell Rolls… has become a ‘cult classic’- professors use it at Universities, libraries.  The film popular in places like Belgrade, Israel, Iran…

Why ever make such a film?

I have a new film “To Age or Not To Age” and a series on aging research and the implications.  I spent the last 5 years filming the molecular biologists, stem cell researchers and geneticists.

One of them – an Outlier – Aubrey De Grey, thinks there are people alive today who may live to a 1000 years or more. Aubrey looks medieval with a beard more than a foot long. He wants to get rid of aging and disease as a cause of death – a minor goal. Aubrey’s view nets him ridicule. I asked him why he got involved in aging research?  He responded; “I wanted to make a difference to the world”

I think his answer goes to why Marie Colvin’s character went to war.

It’s existential.  She was trying to intervene in the seemingly unstoppable human misery.  She wanted to do the impossible. Graft sense and meaning onto absurdity.

And this is the likely reason bloggers blog, and whistleblowers risk their careers – and why I make impossible films.

And why I woke up yesterday thinking about Cat Colvin.

We are all in this together, trying to push the rock up the mountain in our own ways.

 I read a response to a William Rivers Pitt blog last week that summed up Marie Colvin’s why.

It quoted the Talmud:

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it”.

an essay by Robert Kane Pappas

The political flap over the prominent and well-funded breast cancer advocacy group -Susan G. Komen for the Cure – cutting off financing for screenings at Planned Parenthood – was spoken about largely on a political Left/Right basis.  

In her New York Times essay on February 7th, Susan Love, M.D. poses a different and perhaps more basic question. Her view is that the real race in cancer is “finding its cause”; and she takes up the question of the efficacy of mammograms, laying out how according to British researchers, early detection saved one life for every 400 women between the ages of 50 and 70 who were screened regularly over a ten year period.  In terms of preventing deaths this is a tiny percentage. 

Dr. Love explains that the underlying reason for this is that there turns out to be 5 or more types of breast cancer, some indolent, some virulent. The aggressive tumors have usually already spread by the time a mammogram finds them.  She concludes that early detection has its limits; the thing to do is to find the cause.

I have a few other ideas about this three legged chair of Politics, Medicine and Science. 

In the more than 5 years of investigation and filming molecular biologists and various researchers in connection with my forthcoming series on aging, “The New Fountains of Youth”, it has become clear that “cause” must be thought of in the plural, “causes.” Just as there is no one cause of aging, there is no one cause of cancer.

However in both aging and cancer research, the good news is that there are several nexus points (nexus genes), where scientists appear to be able to intervene. These genes control a cell’s – and hence the body’s – repair mechanisms. They inadvertently control aging, longevity, and speak directly to the question of the causes of cancer, and also, to the questions of why there are different types of tumors; why some women develop relatively harmless or curable versions of breast cancer, while others get the bad one.

People with ‘good versions’ of these genes which control the cells’ repair mechanisms may get cancer, but they tend to get a type or degree of cancer that can be treated.

 When I interviewed Nir Barzilai, M.D. Ph.D.,head of the Einstein Research Center on Aging,  for my series, he spoke of his study on several hundred centenarians and their children. Dr. Barzilai explained, in part, how they live that long. “Some of the centenarians look young, others, nothing will kill them, but they look old. A number of centenarians have never had a major illness, some of them smoked cigarettes for 90 years. Others get sick but they always get better.” They don’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s. 

 The trick is that both groups of centenarians have good versions of certain nexus genes such as “telomerase.”  Their telomerase gene has certain mutations, which helps the gene do a good job of repairing the telomeres at the ends of each chromosome, which in turn keeps the cell intact longer when it divides. In fact, the centenarians have better versions of several key genes that regulate many cellular processes, including apoptosis, a process in which damaged cells commit suicide as opposed to becoming cancerous. This is one reason people with good versions of these genes survive cancer and live on for a long time.

 To make a broad statement, the scientists have found that aging and disease are so closely related, that researchers now say that aging is the primary cause of all the major diseases. These genes control aging.  Control aging and you delay and ameliorate diseases. 

 Nutrition and exercise have a strong impact on aging because they also influence these key genes. Environment and chronic stress impact aging genes. Some individuals have an inherited mutation, which increases the likelihood of developing this or that pathology. These ‘causes’ or “Risk Factors” influence the body’s repair mechanisms, causing it to age slower or more quickly.  These genes protect us from cancer.

 Underneath all these factors, the primary cause of disease is aging. Tens of researchers have told me this. People who age more slowly either don’t get cancer or get manageable forms of it. This also applies to the other major diseases. They either don’t get them, or get milder versions of them.

 Simple but true.

 That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news.

 The third leg of the chair of modern medicine and science is politics. In particular, GOP Politicians politicize common sense points of agreement with regard to medicine and science. Clearly, at a minimum, scientists will be able to keep us healthy and active longer. Economically,. prevention and delay of disease is obviously the answer. Every single scientist I spoke with said this.

 The GOP will then talk about the budget deficit. Earth to the GOP – “Research Saves Money”, it’s infrastructure.

 The business of politics and the politics of business influence both the scientific and medical chair legs. There is nothing good about creating wedge issues in areas where the entire population actually agrees. The mainstream media often discusses science and medicine in terms of conflict and sensationalism, or they play along with fools who try to make it a left/right thing – “ big government bad” –  hindering fruitful research in the name of balancing the budget (i.e., playing to voting groups).

 Only 8 percent of research proposals are funded, which means 92% of them are not. The result is that scientists have to play it safer in order to get grants, which delays breakthroughs. To a man and woman, the researchers complained about this state of affairs.  And, other countries are in this game, they have scientists too. The political gamesmanship could export a blossoming industry.

 What about the “private sector?”The scientists say that large drug companies do little basic research work. Their primary concern is developing patentable drugs, having them approved by the FDA, and marketing them.

 Moreover, major organizations like Susan G. Komen for the cure, groups which go after this or that disease, command major resources and funding, and tend to dominate what the media concentrates on and therefore what the public knows.

 Several scientists argued that aging research goes after many diseases at once and should be more heavily funded than it is. The business and funding of science and medicine make this obvious solution much more difficult to achieve.

 A couple of years ago Leonard Guarante Ph.D., head of the Paul Glenn Lab at MIT mused that he wasn’t sure what might happen if these discoveries produce a kind of silver bullet, ‘because various large organizations have a huge financial stake in the ‘status quo’ – from Big Pharma and the AMA, to large advocacy groups.

 If we use our heads and avoid the easy labels and surface discussions, maybe we can get a fourth leg for that chair, design a better chair, make it cheaper, and create a new 21^st century industry that could easily rival the computer revolution. I believe there is progressive high ground to be staked out here.

 To the scientists, the answer is simple.

 But the 3 legged status quo chair commands the narrative and the lazy media’s attention. Herein lies the problem.

 In honor of today being the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’ birth, let’s have this important scientific discussion without politics.

Are reporters merely stenographers?

Notes on the New York Times Public Editor Brisbane’s column  concerning the journalist’s job: is a reporter merely a Stenographer?

Judging from the public’s reaction to Brisbane’s column, one question among many, is, “how did Brisbane get that stupid (or perchance, uniformed)?” One incredulous reader asked, “Is this a joke?”

That same thought popped into my mind one morning in March 2001.  I was interviewing Jim Ryan, who at the time was the anchor of FOX’s morning show “Good Day New York.”  Jim had worked for the Associated Press, NBC and now Fox News for more than 30 years.

I brought up a story I thought should be looked into and asked him why I hadn’t seen it reported.

He said, straight-faced, “Oh you’re talking about enterprise reporting - there are times when a reporter might do that.”

Enterprise Reporting seems to occur infrequently. The term refers to digging into something or “asking a question” outside the scope of the highly managed way news stories are reported on a given day; the same stories which will be mirrored on every major network, cable  news channel, news radio, and in the national newspapers around the country on that day.

Jim smoothly implied that my question was really not particularly relevant.  I thought “Is he joking, or is it me who doesn’t get it?” I had been introduced to Jim by his cousin, an old friend of mine, at a holiday dinner.  Turned out we had both been brought up in Parkchester in the Bronx.  We ended up at his apartment over-looking Lincoln Center till 4 AM on that night.

Now on this day in 2001 I was taping at that apartment, partly because FOX doesn’t allow outside interviews of its Journalists on its corporate premises.

Watching his non answers, I realized: “He knows. He has to play dumb”. At the end of the editing process, I used little of the interview in “Orwell Rolls in His Grave”. In the scene that did make the cut – his expression tells the story.

The phrase that fits is called “self censorship.”  Most TV journalists will not keep a high profile job for very long in the Corporate News Media unless playing dumb becomes as second nature as driving a car. In numerous stories or particular lines of inquiry, unspoken boundaries are drawn and the reporters know them.  A certain term used is: “There’s no interest in that story”.

Who’s not interested?

Robert McChesney

Renowned Media Professor Robert McChesney explained how this  methodology of journalism came about.

“In 1850, if a Governor said something stupid the reporter would say I‘m not going to print that, it’s stupid. But as journalism tried to legitimize itself, there came to be a reliance on Official Sources. What that means is that people in power became the assignment editors of journalism, if they don’t want to talk about something it’s almost impossible for the reporter to bring it up”

The result is that the media narrative can be manipulated.  A certain source, often a tainted one, can propel a story into the mainstream.  Consider the run up to the Iraq war, the media repeats the story Yellowcake uranium, or an image, mushroom cloud and…

If those in power want to kill a story the technique is simply not to discuss it.

Vincent Bugliosi – the Charles Manson prosecutor who wrote the best-selling book “Helter Skelter”, and then wrote a book on the Supreme Court’s decision to stop the vote counting in the 2000 election – told me: “Whenever I write a new book, all the networks have me on. With this book on the Supreme Court Decision to stop the recount, none of them have called”.

Have any of the networks ever done an anniversary special on the Supreme Court ‘s decision to stop the vote counting in Florida, in the 2000 Presidential Election?  An historic event, a Court decision that was footnoted as “not to be used as legal precedent”.  Think the public might be interested in what actually happened?

Or how about a program on the episode of the vote recount itself, about the questions raised and the lessons learned?

The corporate media “is not interested in that story.”  The fact that the 5-week episode of the Florida Recount could be successfully relegated to the memory hole was the PRECEDENT.  It showed what you can get away with when you control the questions, and the Judiciary.

But if the public is interested in a story, won’t the prospect of advertising revenue associated with such programming make the networks broadcast those stories? Normally, large numbers of prospective viewers (manna to advertisers) drives programming. But in this case, that programming would inherently pose very basic questions, and not giving these questions a platform and voice is even more important than advertising revenue.

This is the paradox which proves intent.

The Anchors and Wise Pundits will then titter: “The Nation went through a lot, what is the public value of dragging us through this or that story again”

Really?  Are you joking?

According to a report published today on The Raw Story, Harvard professor, Lawrence Lessig, speaking at an Occupy D.C. rally earlier this week, urged the Occupy movement to reach out to members of the Tea Party and bring them into the movement, saying:

“What is inspiring about this movement is its potential… to rally our country around an idea that we all believe fundamentally: this government is corrupt.”

He went on to say:

“[2008] is the first time in American history where we have seen a collapse followed by no fundamental re-regulation of the financial services sector, because [the financial elite] have the power to block change from either the Democrats and Republicans.”

and continued with

“You can build this movement to unite America around this idea that the time for crony capitalism must come to an end…There is no one on the left or the right who defends the system of crony capitalism, they just practice it. And you, the movement you’ve begun, can begin the recognition across America of why and how we need to end that corruption. You do that by framing this in a way that [the Tea Party] can hear you, and inviting them in to your conversation by explicitly bringing them in.”

To read the entire article on The Raw Story, click here

Journalist and East End Resident, Richard Wallace, attended a Conversation wtih Harry Belafonte at Bay Street in Sag Harbor on Saturday, October 15th (as part of the Hamptons International Film Festival).  Outside an Occupy the Hamptons Rally took place.  In his coverage of the event for thenextsiliconevalley.com, Richard singled out Orwell Rolls in His Grave for mention, saying:

“Meanwhile, Sag Harbor’s Occupy Wall Street rally on Saturday followed a distinctly local spirit and script in the picket lines outside the theatre, but they did manage to strike a  resonant film festival chord in placards promoting the timely-as-ever documentary about the media, “Orwell Rolls in His Grave by Sag Harbor resident and film maker, Robert Kane Pappas to the Hampton’s International Film Festival that runs here through Monday.

A few days ago, it was just a matter of speculation about OWS finding its way to the Hamptons. This weekend, it became a global event.”

To read the entire article click here

by Robert Kane Pappas (originally published on Buzzflash.com on September 29, 2011)

I have to meet with a Wall Street friend later today – partly to seek funding for my latest documentary – and I am going to wear a suit. Usually, I come as I dress, which is casual; but today I am going to put on a suit, just in case I decide to join the demonstration.

For me, it goes back to the 2000 Presidential Election recount and “The Brooks Brothers Riot” in Miami-Dade County, Florida on November19th. Something happened that day. What looked like a spontaneous demonstration of local citizens about unfair counting practices was actually a few dozen GOP operatives from out of state. New York Republican Congressman John Sweeney was quoted as saying – with regard to the recount – “shut it down.”

Canvassing Board members were pushed, shoved and intimidated. They then cancelled the recount. Bush and his top aides remained silent about these tactics. The underlying attitude was, “we’re taking this election, period – laws be damned.” Later, Bush and Cheney jokingly referred to the incident in a celebratory conference call with supporters.

The information I remember receiving from Network coverage was that white men in suits were protesting the canvassing board. The impression was that these fellows couldn’t really be paid rioters because they were so nicely dressed. No one was arrested.

These people were thugs, but several identified in the video record were later hired by the Bush administration. One went on to work for Koch Industries.

Yesterday, on CNBC, I heard the demonstrators referred to by one host as “hippies.” On various programs, I heard them called wackos, druggies and radical lefties. Unlike the Brooks Brother Rioters, many Wall Street demonstrators have been arrested, some have been pepper sprayed.

I think demonstrators should begin wearing suits to the demonstration. Maybe even pose as Wall Street workers who have come to “see the light,” have come to realize that unchecked corporate power and corporate “personhood” is harming their children as well, even if indirectly.

So, see you on Wall Street. I’ll be wearing a nice navy Brooks Brothers suit.

What gets me is the ability of these people like Dick Cheney to be legitimized by the corporate media as they trot out a book.  Or, as in the case of Karl Rove, a criminal is given a platform by the News Corporation’s Fox Network, and in doing so, a natural impression is created, namely: ‘this guy can’t be really bad –he’s a regular on a program.’

My all time favorite was watching Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor being interviewed by Matt Lauer – it was soon after the Bush v Gore decision.  She was pushing her new book about her childhood.  Not once, not a single question, not even an allusion to what had just transpired was posed. 

I was making “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” at the time.