Seymour Hersh dismisses America’s media giants

The following arrived by way of a Guardian interview conducted by Lisa O’Carroll:

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Their reticence is important because:

The Obama administration lies systematically, [Hersh] claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

Sadly:

He isn’t even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.

But Hersh is sure of one point:

…he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

Plus ça change… Hersh’s solution:

“I’ll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can’t control,” he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don’t get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say ‘I don’t care what you say.

And:

“I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let’s start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won’t like this — just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” he says.