It’s mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop... Senate passage came on Thursday, Oct. … - Norman Solomon

For several decades, Helen Thomas covered the White House as a reporter for United Press International.... and when the specter of war grew large in 2002, she didn’t hold back. “It’s bombs away for Iraq and on our civil liberties if Bush and his cronies get their way,” Thomas said... during a speech at MIT. Looking back on a long career, she said: “I censored myself for fifty years when I was a reporter.” Although we may want journalists to keep their personal opinions out of news reporting, we might expect to be provided with all the relevant facts. This is rarely the case. A lot of key information gets filtered out. The process is often subtle in a society with democratic freedoms and little overt censorship. “Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip,” George Orwell remarked more than half a century ago, “but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.” No whips are visible in America’s modern newsrooms and broadcast studios. There are no leashes on editors, reporters, producers, or news correspondents. But in mainstream media, few journalists wander far... Conformity becomes habitual. Among the results is a dynamic that Orwell described as the conditioned reflex of “stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought . . . and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.” p. 21

A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not give it a second thought... Often the biggest lies involve what remains unsaid. For instance, U.S. media rarely mention such key matters as the promise-breaking huge expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders since the fall of the Berlin Wall... or the more than 800 U.S. military bases overseas -- in contrast to Russia’s nine...

In contrast to state censorship, which is usually easy to recognize, self-censorship among journalists is rarely out in the open. Journalists tend to avoid talking publicly about constraints that limit their work; they essentially engage in self-censorship about self-censorship. In the highly competitive media environment, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist, or even a social scientist, to know that dissent does not boost careers. This is especially true during times of war. The rewards of going along to get along are clear; so are the hazards of failing to toe the line. p. 22