Buying the War: Screening Party, Discussion, Interviews

Newsmakers, news viewers and all those affected by the news (yes, you) are invited to come together to watch Bill Moyers on PBS (and eat popcorn) at the new anti-war storefront.

What: Screening of Bill Moyers' documentary "Buying the War"
Where: Anti-War Storefront, 658 Monroe Ave. (a few doors west of Archimage).
When: This Wednesday: 4/25, 8:15pm.
The Show will air on WXXI.

Prior to the show we will join a conference call with Bill Moyers and other groups that are watching the show. Please arrive at 8:15 if you wish to join the conference call sponsored by Free Press. After the show we will have a discussion.

This event is for newsmakers and news viewers. This includes, amongothers, national and local, mainline and alternative. What role did our local media play in amplifying the distortions coming out of the national corporate media in the build-up to the Iraq War? What are the forces behind corporate media that prevent dissenting views from appearing on an equal footing before its too late and wars are started? Media critics, activists, and others need to discuss strategies and tactics to hold our local media outlets accountable for distortions such as the Iraq War coverage. But more importantly, we need to create a media that serves to change the conditions that facilitate all sorts of wars, in Iraq, in poor communities, against immigrants and people of color. While Moyer’s documentary focuses specifically on Iraq war coverage, we hope the piece will stimulate discussion on all these important questions.

A first step to accountability would be to demand that the Rochester’s local media outlets step up to the plate and acknowledge the mess they helped create. Locals can duck this national issue, but the tail we paste on that donkey is all one donkey. This, we imagine, may be an opportunity to let the local media know that they are less heroic in our eyes than their own.

Bitter medicine, maybe, for overlarge egos, but very healthy.

We are inviting local mainstream media. Will they attend? Maybe. Probably not. (would I if I were them?) But who cares!! We can interview them anyway! We'll stand in for them or maybe somebody will provide a cardboard cut out figure that we can voice over!

At the very least, there will be popcorn.

Come join the fun! Maybe we can make the big time and put something on UTube! Wow! Unlimited potential!

Critics write:
"but what comes out of watching this show is a powerful realization that no investigation is needed by Congress, just as no hidden information was needed for the media to get the story right in the first place. The claims that the White House made were not honest mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors."
David Swanson, on AfterDowningStreet.org and Truthout

"While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong."
Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher