by Brenda Norrell

There is a news revolution underway, evolving in much the same way that the Civil Rights movement evolved. People got fed up, stood up and said, "We're not going to take it anymore." It is the same way that the Indigenous revolutions exploded in the south, from Che Guevara to the Zapatistas, with the cry: "Ya Basta! Enough is enough!"

If you so much as glance at CNN, you know there is a media crisis bringing about the continuation of US war and torture, misinformation and the distortion of facts.

The most glaring example is CNN's tactic of focusing on one criminal case, or one famous personality. The single victim which is the focus of the obsession is usually white. On the other hand, the evil-doers who are targeted are usually people of color.

And it is distraction.
As long as TV viewers obsess over one individual or one crime, they can not ask the real questions: Is the US in Afghanistan because the US has found a fertile ground for its drug smuggling operations? Where has the US strewn depleted uranium and Agent Orange? Why did the Obama administration allow CIA kidnappings to continue and suppress the US torture photos? How many innocent people are murdered around the world by US drones? Who profiteered from the sale of swine flu medications?

Of course, it is the holiday season and no one in the US wants to think about these topics. Still, around the world, news reporters who have lost their jobs continue to work without pay and publish their articles on the Internet.

Many people write and ask me how to finance an online newspaper. I don't have a clue. I don't know any way to publish the truth these days and make a living from it. Eventually advertisers or financial backers will seize control or demand their agenda. The articles, too often, become a series of personal vendettas and politics.

Although the economy has become the scapegoat for the dying US news industry, newspapers didn't go broke just because of the collapsed economy.

The news industry became bankrupt because it became a system of whores, selling themselves out a little at a time, until there was nothing left.

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