Shadows of Liberty

Part 1: New World Notes #312, 29:09 (February 25):

Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 2: More Media Monopoly: New World Notes #313, 27:40 (March 4):

Broadcast quality MP3 (38 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

A new documentary film examines how a few huge, for-profit corporations control the news media--and so control the "news."  Brief history lessons on the U.S. media alternate with close looks at particular stories the corporate news media suppressed.

Amy Goodman, Robert McChesney, Julian Assange, Janine Jackson, Norman Solomon, Daniel Ellsberg, John Nichols, Dan Rather, and several other commentators appear.

Adapted to radio by K.D.

Shadows of Liberty was written, directed, and produced by Canadian filmmaker Jean-Plilippe Tremblay.

In Part 1:

Topics this week include two stories investigated and then suppressed by CBS News: Nike's exploited workers and evidence suggesting that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy missile.  Plus the really free press in the early days of the Republic and the rise of media monopolies from the 1930s.

In Part 2:

How a wave of corporate mergers--each with the government's blessing--created near-monopoly control of the news. And the story of reporter Gary Webb. Webb was destroyed by the big corporate media after exposing the CIA's role in the crack-cocaine trade in the US.

Plus an essay by Paul Krugman on why the latest proposed media merger--Comcast and Time Warner Cable--is another really bad idea.