Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

- [Voiceover] Temperatures are generally in the upper 50's

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

to around the 60 degree mark and they'll be rising.

[reporters speaking over one another]

- [Voiceover] Thanks, I'm Bill Griffith.

We have an update on that crash

that was causing tie ups on

Southbound 163 near the 15.

[sirens wailing]

- [Voiceover] We spoke to the DEP's deputy commissioner

moments ago and he says that this

main burst simply because it's old,

100 years old to be exact.

[reporters speaking over one another]

- [Voiceover] Also good to know,

I think I remember the Roeblings

built the Brooklyn Bridge 125 years ago.

- In this country,

the most powerful country on earth,

is is so actually difficult to get information,

especially outside our borders.

Not to mention what's going on inside this country.

- [Voiceover] Four hours and 20 minutes ago

at 9:42 PM Eastern time

that would have put it at five.

- Public information,

the news we rely on to learn about

what's happening in the world,

to learn about one another,

is in the hands basically

of commercial enterprises.

- [Voiceover] And agreement on health care is close,

but support could still crumble.

- Giant media corporations like

Time Warner and News Corporation,

Disney, and so forth,

they get to decide what is news,

what is newsworthy,

and what is not newsworthy.

- [Voiceover] This is America,

how many of you people want to pay

for your neighbor's mortgage?

- What the press is pushing is distortions,

lies, lack of balance.

- [Voiceover] I have 900 channels on my TV

but 700 of them are selling the--

[reporters speaking over one another]

- The American public

knows far more information about sex scandal,

celebrities,

Hollywood,

than they know about economics and the environment.

That's by design.

- When was the last time, Governor,

that you were at a Wendy's and had a Frosty?

- Make no mistake about it,

it's to control people's ideas,

it's to control their imagination.

[reporters speaking over one another]

[intense music]

- They wouldn't say it in that way

but they would edit my pieces,

they would push me in different directions,

they would turn down stories that were more critical.

- We're in a profound crisis of democracy.

You can't choke off discourse

and have a free society.

- [Voiceover] This is what you get with drunkard kneeling,

it's gonna happen.

- [Voiceover] These are stories you will not be told

on radio,

in newspapers,

or on television.

[sirens wailing]

A clash between two worlds,

big media corporations

spinning public perception for profit

versus the defenders of truth

who stand for liberty and democracy.

- [Voiceover] And that's our news for tonight.

[light switching]

[flickering]

[subdued rumbling]

[car driving past]

[car honking]

- I'd often been asked if there was any pressure on me

because of the kinds of stories that I do.

I was always asked,

"Are there some stories that you can't do?

"Are there sometimes that you're not allowed

"to report on certain things because of advertisers?"

And my answer is always,

"Absolutely not."

[guns firing]

[intense music]

- [Voiceover] Two decades after the end of the Vietnam War

the United States lifted the trade embargo against Vietnam.

And CBS chief correspondent Roberta Baskin

looked into one corporation's search

for cheaper labor markets.

- The premise for the story was the fact that Nike

were subcontracting to these factories

on the other side of the planet,

but they weren't really taking responsibility

for how the shoes were made.

[plane taking off]

And I asked to follow the trail.

- [Voiceover] In August of 1996

Baskin and a CBS news film crew

flew to Vietnam to investigate

the Nike factories.

- We were able to kind of peek through the key hole

but we were not allowed inside.

We were barred.

[talking confusedly]

- Go!

[cars honking]

- One of the things that really shocked me

was to discover that the word Nike

had become a verb.

The word Nike meant

to abuse your employees.

[machines running]

There were incidences of physical abuse,

women who had their mouths taped shut

for talking on the line.

15 women who were systematically hit

with a top part of a Nike shoe

around the face and the neck.

[somber orchestral music]

It was this disparity between seeing

the corporate image that the company sells

and the reality in these factories.

"Just do it, or else."

[cars driving past]

- [Voiceover] Roberta Baskin's news report

about Nike abuses was broadcast on CBS

news television across the United States.

- CBS was very pleased,

submitting it for prestigious awards.

For me what was really

exciting about it was that

the phones rang off the hook.

[gentle orchestral music]

[yelling]

There was picketing of Nike towns across the country.

There were boycotts that were being organized

by students on campuses.

- [Voiceover] We are not a Nike school.

We are not a Nike school.

- I realized that it had touched them

kind a nerve.

- [Voiceover] Nike's labor abuses reached the media

and the shoe giant came forward

to limit the damages.

- We don't have abusive labor conditions in our factories,

and really never have.

- [Voiceover] With Nike in denial,

CBS news commissioned Baskin to do

a follow up investigation

working with a Vietnamese labor group.

- Roberta's work was mainly about

the corporal punishment.

We helped add another dimension to the problems,

the wages and the excessive amount of overtime.

[rhythmic rock music]

[ringing]

[clinking]

NIke's not the good guys.

Even though they've done a lot

of commercials saying they are,

but people at that moment realize

that they are not part of a good team.

- [Voiceover] As Baskin was putting together

the updated news report on Nike's labor practices

she received unexpected news from inside CBS.

- I got a call from my executive producer

who said, "The story is not gonna air,

"it's been taken off schedule.

"There's some sort of deal being made

"between Nike and CBS news

"for the upcoming winter Olympics."

The air went out of my soul.

[somber music]

[car honking]

- CBS News was paying an enormous

amount of money for the rights.

And so by definition they would be seeking out

commercial sponsors who would pour lots of money

into it so that they could recoop

the millions that they were paying

for the rights of the Olympics.

- [Voiceover] The 18th Olympic Winter Games on CBS.

- [Voiceover] As CBS revealed their Olympic coverage,

the deal between Nike and CBS was plain to see.

- The women's super ge--

- [Roberta] Correspondent after correspondent

are wearing these Nike jackets on the air

with a little CBS something or other,

you really couldn't read it,

in a big swoosh on the shoulder.

- Is also scheduled on the adjacent race course.

- That was the deal.

Nike had convinced CBS news

to turn it's correspondents into billboards.

It was heartbreaking.

[gentle music]

- The CBS news correspondents were furious.

They had to wear the Nike harkus

whenever they appeared on air.

It's just not done.

- [Voiceover] Baskin wrote a memo

requesting CBS management to take the Nike logo

off the correspondents.

- CBS had crossed this incredible line.

How do you trust serious stories

when you're seeing the reporter

wearing a bunch of logos?

Immediately the president of CBS news

responded saying,

"This was a breach of professional etiquette. "

It meant that I should shut up.

How dare I raise a question

about the integrity of CBS News.

[car driving past]

- [Voiceover] After questioning the deal with Nike

Baskin was removed from her position

as the chief correspondent of CBS News.

- It wasn't an ordinary transfer,

a change,

it was a demotion.

And it was a demotion that was

to send a message.

[door shutting]

- I ended up asking if I could get out of my contract.

The president responded,

"Great."

They were, you know,

happy to see me go.

- Hi, Mr. Southron.

I'm Roberta Baskin from CBS News.

- Yeah?

- I wanted to talk to you about

the problems that you're having.

- [Voiceover] To this day CBS Network

has buried both of Baskin's reports

on the Nike sweatshops.

- These are the kind of fundamental

conflicts of interest that

result in censorship,

that result in a narrow debate,

and they come directly from the fact

that we have made these historical choices

to allow corporations to own and control our media.

[subdued orchestral music]

- [Voiceover] Media today is dominated

by a handful of corporations.

This is a far cry from the original

ideals of the country.

[crackling]

As Americans fought for independence

from imperial rule,

the Revolution found it's inspiration

in an unexpected place.

[suspenseful music]

[hoof beats]

[guns firing]

[yelling]

- The United States was in many senses

founded by a journalist,

Tom Paine,

whoh called Americans to revolution

against a British empire that was thought to be

completely unbeatable.

[fireworks exploding]

- This country was really founded

on the concept that if you gave citizens

the information they needed

they could govern themselves.

- [Voiceover] The founders of the United States

gave citizens the fundamental right to a free press.

- [Voiceover] A revolution for freedom of information.

[crowd yelling]

- One of the primary reasons

for freedom of the press was that it was

the only way that people outside of power

could keep the government from becoming an empire.

Stop militarism,

stop the corruption,

the secrecy,

and the cronyism.

That was the function of freedom of the press.

[sliding]

- There is a reason why our profession,

journalism,

is the only one explicitly protected by

the US Constitution.

'Cause we're supposed to be holding

those in power accountable,

asking the critical questions.

[printing machine running]

- [Voiceover] One of the first steps of the new government

was to encourage the distribution of independent news

through subsidies.

[rhythmic orchestral music]

[printing machine running]

- [Voiceover] Read all about it!

- This was actually America's revolutionary contribution.

The genius of the subsidies is that

it did not discriminating,

it's the content of the newspapers.

- The abolitionist movement

didn't start in Congress,

it started in those freely distrubuted

weekly newspapers.

And that was really where we began to

address the most fundamental sins

of the American experiment.

[chains clinking]

- It's simply information that is power.

It's information that frees us,

because when people get information

they then can decide what to do.

- [Voiceover] Today the founding vison

of America'a journalistic independence

has become deeply distorted.

- Media is the conversation we have as a society.

It's the way we learn about the world,

it's the way we learn about one another.

We see the range of public debate

constrained because there may be

many things that citizens of a democratic society

need to know about

that private corporations may not be

interested in telling them.

- [Voiceover] The International Silver Company.

[radio static]

[lighthearted music]

- [Voiceover] Just as newspapers had been

the driving force behind democracy,

the great hope of the 20th century

was the birth of mass media.

[applauding]

- We think Google and Facebook is a big deal,

imagine what it must have been like in rural Kansas

to suddenly be able to listen to a broadcast

from New York City every night.

- [Voiceover] And now we move down 45th Street

to the Music Box Theater.

- You people must have faith.

You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses.

Together we can not fail.

- It was apparent to people at that time that

the control over this medium was going to be

a form of social control.

[radio hosts speaking over one another]

- [Voiceover] With advertising money pouring in,

corporate networks pressured Congress to uphold

profit as the basis for American broadcasting.

- [Voiceover] Your cigarette taste.

- This was publicly owned property,

and lots of American protested

the we would turn over this scarce resource,

these extraordinary airways,

to a handful of private commercial interests

to make money by selling advertising to us.

- [Voiceover] From Hollywood,

the Rolly's Cigarette program.

- [Voiceover] In 1934

Congress passed the Communications Act,

sealing the future of America's broadcasting

as a for profit system.

- NBC, CBS, ABC,

these huge empires,

were built upon the gift for free

of monopoly rights to government property.

It was an extraordinary corporate welfare

that boggles the mind.

[gentle rhythmic music]

- [Voiceover] With broadcasting set up

as a commerical enterprise,

government regulations were put into place

to prevent monopolies.

- There was a cross party agreement

that commercial activity would be regulated

by the government.

No individual should have such dominance

of our media that they could

effectively define the discourse.

The great transition came in the election of Ronald Reagan

as president of the United States.

- [Voiceover] Government is not

the solution to our problem,

government is the probem.

[clapping]

- Ronald Reagan believed the answer

to any concern,

an question as regards how to create

a good media system

was to get government out of the way.

[gun firing]

[cheering]

- [Voiceover] In order to restructure media ownership

Reagan removed regulations.

[crowd chanting]

- [Voiceover] Driving the bears back

into permanent hibernation,

we're going to turn the bull loose.

[cheering]

- That whole model

was the idea that if you removed

all controls and regulations

and allowed the free market rip,

then everything would be fine,

everything would be wonderful.

In reality what it does is it allows

a handful of giant corporations to come in

and gobble up everything.

And these conglomerates don't see

journalism as actually being central

and essential to the functioning of a democracy.

Their main interest is making profit.

- [Voiceover] One merger symbolized

the takeover of mass media

by conglomerates seeking ever higher profits.

- [Voiceover] For General Electric,

here is Ronald Reagan.

- Good evening,

on this last Sunday before Christmas.

The Christmas season is a time for the family.

- People should remember that

Ronald Reagan was funded by large corporations.

And so suddenly we saw a radical transformation

of the media system in the United States.

[somber music]

- [Voiceover] General Electric and RCA,

two of America's biggest and best known companies,

in a dramatic move last night

the two announced plans to merge.

- We'll now have the strongest network,

we'll have a stronger defense piece.

This is gonna be one dynamite company.

[camera snapping]

- The concentration of mass media

in the hands of a very few,

very large international corporations

who have a lot of different businesses.

Defense business,

theme parks.

And news became a smaller and smaller

part of ever larger corporations.

- [Voiceover] The Reagan administration

approved General Electric's purchase

of major media holdings,

despite ongoing violations of industry

laws and practices.

[gentle music]

- [Voiceover] Meanwhile,

from General Electric

and from my family and myself,

a merry, merry Christmas.

Addy, don't you want to say merry Christmas?

- The original sin was going to Wall Street.

The demands of Wall street will require

empty desks in your newsroom.

So why don't you minimize your actual product

and make more money?

Capitalism is not the best judge

of what's good for society.

When I knew it was time to go

the last speech I got from a CEO,

he had been selling cereal,

breakfast cereal,

before he was selling newspapers.

He came in at the bottom where he

gave a speech about product.

He never once mentioned news.

He never once mentioned

the role of a newspaper.

- We're now at a stage where

every journalist who isn't asleep

understands that corporate power has made it

impossible for them to do the job

as it needs to be done.

[subdued suspenseful music]

- [Policeman] Police, freeze!

- [Voiceover] One of the biggest news stories

of the 1980's was the explosion

of crack cocaine in the United States.

- The crack epidemic not only destroyed lives

in the sense that people were addicted

to this powerful drug,

but also it set off gang wars.

Certain communities like the African American communities

were disproportionately hurt.

Gary Webb,

he began investigating that.

- Gary Webb,

he thought being a reporter

was the best thing you could be.

The only independent force in the society

to establish truth.

[motorcycle driving past]

- What first caught his eye,

he's got Nicaraguans dirty in a drug deal

and they're not going down,

they're getting a walk.

Now if you're a reporter you look into that.

- [Voiceover] As Webb looked at the suppliers

of the crack trade in Los Angeles,

the trail led back to a US sponsored war

a decade earlier in Central America.

- The Reagan Administration wanted

to be proactive in

sticking it to the communists around the world.

President Ronald Reagan authorized the CIA

to spend hundreds of millions of dollars

building,

supporting,

directing the contras

against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

[helicopters flying]

- They are the moral equal

of our founding fathers,

we can not turn away from them.

- Sponsoring violence in a small Central American country

was far more important [guns firing]

than stopping drugs from flowing in to our cities

and our communities.

- [Voiceover] After a year long investigation

Webb's report broke new ground

by becoming the first major news investigation

published both in print and on the internet.

- As a consequence,

even though the San Jose Mercury News

is considered a regional newspaper,

it was able to get national traction

and even international traction on this story

because it was now on the web.

- We've got all the DEA under cover tapes,

we've got the FBI reports,

we've got the court records,

and they're all posted for people to see.

- By the way,

when you look at his research

and what he was doing,

and tracing it,

and he was hip enough to check it and know it was true.

[cheering]

- [Voiceover] By November 1997

the website was getting over

a million hits a day.

- [Voiceover] Thank you.

What is the word on the street now?

Have you heard about

the CIA?

Well you know what?

We have heard,

we have seen,

and now we are moved to action.

- [Voiceover] With the CIA on the defensive

and the public demanding answers,

the major national newspapers

waded into the controversy.

- You have the fact that

the San Jose Mercury News

being in Silicone Valley

was sort of challenging the gatekeeper function

that the New York Times,

The LA Times,

The Washington Post,

and other big papers,

had assumed was theirs.

[machine running]

- The Washington post weighs in and says,

"Gary Webb got it wrong,

"but we can't tell you exactly how he got it wrong

"'cause we haven't the fainted god damn idea."

It was accompanied by a piece that declared

that the African American community

was conspiracy prone.

So that sort of set the tone

that Webb's story would be dismissed

and to agree, ridiculed.

[paper machine running]

- You had major media outlets

going to the CIA and saying,

"Is this true?"

And the CIA would say,

"Oh no, this is not true."

And then the reportage was,

"Oh, well it's not true."

- This is nonsense.

Come on, come on.

I mean, come on.

Listen, listen,

there has never been a conspiracy

in this country.

- The fact is that the shoddy reporting on this story

was not from Gary Webb,

it was from his corporate back detractors.

[paper machine running]

- Now, I had a drink with a major figure

at the LA times

and I asked him about the crack back,

and he said, "Look, there were meetings

"in the building that they weren't gonna let

"a guy from San Jose, California

"come into their turf and win a Pulitzer Prize."

- [Crowd] Expose CIA.

Expose CIA.

Expose CIA.

- [Voiceover] As the press attacked Gary Webb,

the public protested.

- I got involved with the protests

because Gary Webb,

he had no hidden agenda,

he's not lying.

- And we gonna put the CIA

and this country on notice.

[gentle drum beating]

- [Voiceover] With the national media

calling for a retraction,

the Mercury News took down

the Dark Alliance website

and reassigned Webb to a bureau

150 miles from his home.

[computer shutting off]

- [Voiceover] In the beginning they were behind you.

- [Voiceover] That's right.

And then they caught a wild world of hell

from the establishment media

and now they're not behind me anymore.

- And here is this guy that had all these awards,

they scar that and broke a story

that everyone warned him not to break.

All of a sudden a journalist that sould be hailed

is treated like a piece of crap.

- [Voiceover] A year later the CIA released

it's internal report into the agency's involvement

with contra drug traffickers.

- There are instances where CIA

did not in an expeditious or consistent fashion

cut off relationships with individuals

supporting the Contra Program

who were alleged to have engaged

in drug trafficking activity.

- The contents of the report,

if you go in to the actual nitty gritty of them,

what you find is that there was a serious problem that

the US government knew about it,

and that the contras were far more guilty

of drug trafficking

and the CIA was more guilty of looking the other way

than even Gary Webb had suggested.

- [Voiceover] With the CIA's report about

it's realtionship with contra drug traffickers,

the media had a chance to vindicate Webb's investigation.

- The New York Times,

they do a story that is half kind of mea culpa,

"We should have done more with this,

"it was worse than we thought."

And half, "Gary Webb's still an idiot."

The Washington Post waits several weeks

and does a rather dismissive article.

And the LA Times never reports

on the CIA's findings.

So even though Webb was proven correct

he's still considered a flake

who got a story wrong.

[gentle music]

- When he was interviewing on another job,

they'd always say,

"Aren't you the guy who wrote Dark Alliance?"

And then they would kill the interview.

He couldn't make a living being a journalist anymore,

and that ripped his heart out.

- He's despondent about his inability to find work.

He got his father's pistol,

laid out a certificate for his cremation,

and then he shot himself.

- [Voiceover] Frankly you know,

if I have to stand up and take a beating

for putting the issue of government complicity

in drug trafficking on the national agenda,

I'll take that beating any day of the week.

I mean, I was glad to do this story,

I'm proud of what we did,

and I'd do it again in a second.

[gentle music]

- We killed one of the few

decent working reporters in the country.

By that we,

I mean the business I'm in,

media.

- [Voiceover] With the new technological revolution,

Congress began drafting new media legislation.

- The media conglomerates created the fantasy

that if they were allowed to own

dramatically more media

they could make dramatically better media.

Big is better,

effectively.

- Media corporations need that favorable policy

that's gonna allow them to grow

and make more and more money,

and politicians need that media

to give them the air time that they

couldn't exist without.

Who's left out of that deal,

of course, is the public.

[clapping]

- At that point behind closed doors

these media conglomerates are asking for the rules

to be loosened even more.

[clapping]

- [Voiceover] Fantasy became reality

for the media conglomerates

when President Bill Clinton signed

the 1996 Telecom Act into law.

- This law is truly revolutionary legislation

that will being the future to our doorstep.

[clapping]

- Telecom '96 really rang the dinner bell

for media conglomerates to come

and eat up every station that they wanted.

- [Voiceover] Following the Telecom Act

a wave of massive mergers swept through

the media industry.

- [Voiceover] A handful of entertainment stars

using mega mergers

are preparing to dominate TV [shattering]

and movie screens worldwide.

- [Voiceover] The combination of the two together

gives us the opportunity to become

the strongest creative company in the world.

- [Voiceover] The superlatives were flying

as Viacom and CBS announced

the biggest media merger ever. [shattering]

- [Voiceover] A new multi media giant

will soon control an enormous amount

of the entertainments.

Viacom is buying CBS,

parent of CBS News.

- When you think about the new Viacom,

you really only have to remember

a single number,

that's number one.

- [Voiceover] Capitalize on the convergence

of media, entertainment.

- [Voiceover] Almost as American

as apple pie. [shattering]

The world's largest provider of internet access

is merging with the world's largest media

and entertainment company.

- When media consolidation began to happen

the local broadcasters weren't able to compete.

Well guess who those local

radio station owners were?

They might have been a person of color,

or it might have been a woman.

This really just knocked people out of the game.

[wind blowing]

[ringing]

- We've totally detroyed the localism

of broadcasting purely to serve corporate interests.

There's nothing in market economics that justifies it,

it's pure crony capitalism at it's worst.

[siren ringing]

- In this high tech digital age

with high definition television and digital radio,

all we ever get is static.

A veil of distortion and lies

and misrepresentations and half truths

that obscure reality.

[helicopters flying overhead]

- In times of war the press

loses all critical distance.

Journalists see themselves as

first and foremost, patriots.

The result is essentially

the dissemination of propaganda.

- [Voiceover] in the word's media capital,

on September 11th, 2001,

the unthinkable happened.

[cheering]

- The people who knocked these buildings down

will hear all of us soon.

[cheering]

- The terrorist attack of September 11th,

as tragic as it was,

was almost like a godsend to the Bush adminsitration

because it gave them the reseondete

that they were looking for

to invade Iraq.

[printing machine running]

- [Voiceover] To link Saddam Hussein to 9/11

the Bush administration turned

to the intelligence community.

[bell ringing]

- You have to remember this is not

an inductive proccess,

it's inductive.

You decide to go to war

and then you go find the justification.

And this is exactly what happened.

- Look, I ran Iraqi operations.

We didn't have any information.

[paper machine running]

- [Voiceover] With no evidence

of Saddam Hussein's role in the attacks,

defectors starting emerging from Iraq

with exclusives for US news outlets.

- There was an Iraqi by the name of

Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri.

He claimed to have evidence of you know,

biological and nuclear,

and various kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

- He also talked about various facilities

being under Saddam's main palace,

he talked about nuclear facilities

being disguised as water wells.

I mean, he was their best corroboration

that Saddam was stock piling weapons

of mass destruction.

[subdued techno music]

- Saddam has resumed his efforts

to acquire nuclear weapons.

Among other sources we've gotten this

from first hand testimony from defectors.

- We know where they are,

they're in the area around Tigrett and Baghdad

and east, west, south, and north somewhat.

[paper machine running]

- [Voiceover] The success of their propaganda campaign

would depend on one news outlet.

[cars driving past]

- I watched this from the inside.

They created a stage and broad journalists

into the audience dutifully

took notes and reported it.

They believed all the crap they were fed.

- The New York Times

is the intellectual and political opinion leader

in the United States.

Sucking up to government in the most

outrageous ways.

Constantly trying to placate

the military intelligence complex.

- There's a story in the New York Times this morning.

- Read in the New Tork Times today.

- [Voiceover] And I want to trip to The Times

and I want to talk about this week.

- [Voiceover] Closer to aquiring nuclear weapons.

- We don't want the smoking gun

to be a mushroom cloud.

- The smoking gun

that could come in the form

of a mushroom cloud.

[gentle music]

- [Voiceover] With the mainstream media

convinced of the necessity for war,

the administration took their case

to the world stage.

- The coup de gras

and the most brilliant propaganda maneuver of all

was Colin Powell's absolutely fraudulant

presentation in front of

the United Nation's security council.

- Let me share with you what we know

from eye witness accounts.

We have first hand descriptions

of biological weapons factories on wheels

and on rails.

And Saddam Hussein has not--

- Much of the fabricated information that was passed on

by the quote on quote, "defectors"

form the basis for Colin Powell's accusations.

He didn't have any hard evidence,

but you should have seen the

press fall all over themsleves

as soon as he was done saying that this

had been a definitive case for war.

- This irrefutable,

undeniable,

incontrovertible evidence today.

Colin Powell brilliantly delivered that smoking gun today.

- [Voiceover] He just flooded the terrain with data.

- He has closed the deal.

[paper machine running]

- CNN, FOX,

CBS, ABC,

the giant echo chamber that creates

public perception in the United States

were giving out the administration lines.

- [Voiceover] Show down Iraq.

if America goes to war,

turn to MS NBC.

- If you looked at the television screens

with these graphics,

and drumrolls,

and countdown to Baghdad,

and this kind of stuff,

it was a raw and open

celebration of American power.

- This hour American and coalition forces

are in the early stages of military operations

to disarm Iraq,

to free it's people,

and to defend the world from grave danger.

[missile launching]

[exploding]

[guns firing]

- [Voiceover] After the fall of Saddam,

Al Haideri,

the INC's defector,

finally had the chance to show the world

the justification for war.

- Mr. Haideri couldn't bring these guys

to a single place

that he claimed had housed the weapons

of mass destruction programs.

The media fell hook, line, and sinker

for the administration's case for war.

And in fact,

certain publications appear to have been deliberately used

and openly receptive of

information that the Bush Adminsitration

produced that was wrong

but that bolstered it's case for war.

- [Voiceover] Ladies and gentlemen,

the President of the United States.

- King, John King.

This is a scripted.

[laughing]

- Thank you, Mr. President.

- [Voiceover] You can not go against

the White house and survive.

You're finished.

- April.

Did you have a question

or did I call upon you cold?

- I have a question.

- [George] Okay.

[laughing]

I'm sure you do have a question.

- The whole idea in Washington

is to marginalize people

who go against the consensus,

and they do it very well,

you don't get invited to the party.

- For me to blame the reporters

is to miss the point,

you have to blame the owners.

These are the people who are responsible

for the conduct of the people who work for them.

[somber music]

[plane flying overhead]

- [Soldier] I want everybody to get back,

in the back of it now.

- It is my belief that wars

really are started by the mainstream media.

It is my belief that the press getting

too close to the government,

actually we are talking about

a sort of interbreeding

or intermeshing between

the structures of the mainstream media

and this structure of the military intelligence complex.

[helicopter flying overhead]

- The impact is that we've got all of these

innocent people in Iraq that have died,

we've got thousands of American soldiers

and British soldiers that have died.

They died for a lie that was so easily uncovered,

but it wasn't allowed in the biggest news outlets.

- These private corporations are making

profit off the killing.

They push for more war,

it builds their audiences.

They limit the discussion about

whether war should continue.

The bring you the General versus the Colonel,

or the pro war republican versus

the pro war democrat,

and they have these extremely limited debates.

When most people are outside of that spectrum,

most people are against war.

[gentle music]

[children yelling]

- The rapid consolidation of media

across broadcast,

also into film,

book publishing,

created a situation where

instead of having the democratic media system

that the founders anticipated,

with thousands of different owners

of small weekly newspapers.

You no longer had Tom Paine,

you had Rupert Murdoch.

- [Voiceover] Rupert is any agenda that you want to shape.

For example, take the war.

You're having a global media enterprise,

and if you shape that agenda at all

in terms of how the war is viewed?

No, I didn't think so.

I mean, we've tried.

[laughing]

- [Voiceover] Tried in what way?

- Well, we basically supported our papers,

I would say supported the Bush policy.

- News Corp and others have eaten out

nearly every single independently managed newspaper

with the United States.

That is something that is quite dangerous,

in putting it's business interests

and it's political interests over

the top of all that.

- [Voiceover] In order to prevent media monopolies

the Federal Communications Commission

was charged with regulating the media.

- The most important job the FCC has

is looking out for regular citizens

and making sure that whatever media policy is made,

that it's the best for the public

and the best for democracy.

- I'm available for questions.

- [Voiceover] So.

- Colin Powell leads the drum beat for war,

and his son Michael Powell was attempting

to lead the war against diversity,

of voices at home.

[gentle techno music]

- [Voiceover] Once in office

Powell waged war against the last remaining

rules on media ownership.

[water spraying]

- Here is this agency that very few

people knew about.

And they were trying to push through regulations

that said, "In a town

"the newspaper, radio,

"and television could be owned

"by one person."

By a media mogul,

someone like Rupert Murdoch.

- This is what people feared the most,

that all the content for TV,

radio,

and the newspaper,

coming out of one shot.

A one size fits all,

one news room community.

- [Voiceover] There was almost no public scrutiny

until Michael Powell called network coverage

of the Iraq War, "Thrilling."

- There were these millions of people

and they hear the FCC guy

is calling the coverage "thrilling"

while he's trying to obliterate the last remaining rule.

And it just tapped into this anger

that people were feeling about the war.

- [Voiceover] Despite millions of people

protesting against the FCC,

Michael Powell didn't get the message.

♪ Mass communication

♪ Is the end of democracy

- Even when people did say,

"Hey FCC, we're the public,

"we don't want you to do this."

The FCC turned around and did exactly

what those mega corporations wanted it

to do in the first place.

[cheering]

- [Voiceover] With vicotry at hand,

the media giants publicly expressed

their gratitude.

- And it was pretty stunning.

The head of Viacom,

the Sumner Redstone,

he repeatedly said,

"Having a republican in the White House

"is better for my company.

"And I vote Viacome

"and for that reason I endorse Bush's election."

[siren wailing]

- These large conglomerate companies,

they contribute to political campaigns.

They expect to get something for their money.

Deciding on their own and for their own purposes

the news we see and hear.

[reporters speaking over one another]

- Is an inescapable conclusion

that we must reach if we are to

have a better society.

The only reliable,

durable,

and perpetual guarantor

of independance is profit.

Thank you.

[clapping]

- Every aspect of our lives,

from what we buy,

what is sold to us,

who produces it,

all those things are connected.

it's not only a monopoly of wealth,

it's a monopoly of information as well.

[gentle guitar music]

- [Voiceover] In 2007,

with the FCC reviewing it's media ownership rules,

the public came forward.

- Millions of people wrote to Congress,

wrote to the FCC,

emailed,

spoke out at forums.

You'd have a forum of 1,000 people,

this was unheard of,

saying, "No."

One media mogul can't own the radio,

television,

and newspaper in a city.

- Here was an example

where the public had intervened

and gummed something up.

- [Voiceover] Under new chairman Kevin Martin,

the FCC announced public hearings

on media ownership in cities

across the US.

- We have some of the most

entertaining people on the planet,

but we don't know a lot about what's

going on in the world

because the way our world is,

we have something.

[cheering]

- Four companies controlling the 6%

of four places of your markets.

That is not diverse,

it is not competitive.

[cheering]

- Look where I am,

we are concerned citizens.

We're tying to believe that we matter,

don't make fools of us.

[cheering]

- And I beg the FCC to help us.

- [Voiceover] You can switch from channel to channel

and see the same thing.

- It's very clear that this country has become

profits over people.

[cheering]

- [Voiceover] Despite overwhelming public opinion

against more consolidation,

Kevin Martin sided with the media conglomerates

and removed the cross ownership ban.

- The two democratic commissioners have voted.

- What Kevin Martin did was demonstrate

his absolute thoroughgoing contempt for

doing his job and representing the public interest.

Embracing entirely the interest of wealthy

corporate benefactors, period.

Pure and simple.

[gentle rhythmic music]

[car driving past]

- I think the people that own the media

would be much happier if we were a nation

of mindless consumers

rather than a nation of informed,

active citizens.

[fireworks exploding]

[birds singing]

- To seize this moment we have to ensure

free and full exchange of information.

That starts with an open internet.

I will take a back seat to no one

in my commitment to network neutrality.

Because once providers start--

- It's simple,

it's net neutrality,

it's non discrimination,

and it's a basic principle that politicians

pay lip service to it.

That if the same players like AT&T,

Comcast, and Time Warner,

are able to take over the internet

through lax public policy,

that we'll lose even the internet.

[cheering]

- [Voiceover] Despite his election promises,

President Obama has brought in new

internet pricing rules,

going against the principles of a free

and open internet.

- It is by making publishing cheap

that permits many more people to become publishers

that permits many more different voices.

That's where the internet has really excelled.

Blue Helix has published a lot of information

about war,

about militaries, how they behave,

intelligence organizations.

And that information often come as a surprise

to the public.

It's because the public has been lied to.

- [Voiceover] Come on, fire.

[gun firing]

- [Voiceover] We have moved the envelope for

what is acceptable for people to publish.

- [Voiceover] The United States do something

to stop Mr. Assange.

- [Voiceover] We're looking a that right now.

- Mr. Connels says he's a high tech terrorist,

others say this is akin to the Pentagon Papers,

what do you comment?

- I would argue that it's closer to being

a high tech terrorist

than the Pentagon Papers.

[rhythmic rock music]

- The greatest fight we have had

in bringing the First Amendment to the world

was in the bringing the First Amendment

to the United States.

- [Voiceover] This guy's a traitor,

a treasonist,

and he has broken every law of the United States.

- [Voiceover] Will the internet remain free

or will a few companies be able to control

and monetize it?

That's the debate of the era.

[children playing]

- We have to stop,

recognize that our media is in crisis,

and ask ourselves,

what is the media that we want?

- We want more information,

access to more information,

we have fewer people who control the information.

- Can't allow this country to go down for the count

'cause some guys in Wall Street can't make

money producing garbage news.

- The media is that kind of issue

where if we want it to be better

we have to fight for it.

- These are the critical battles

we face right now

in th United States and frankly,

in the countries around the world.

How we respond to this moment

will be every bit as definitional

as how the Founders responded to their moment.

- This is really about having a conversation about

what kind of decisions we want made in our name.

That's really what will save us,

is when we really know what's going on.

Not filtered through the lens

or the microphone of corporation.

[rhythmic rock music]