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About
<img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-25" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="Robert Parry" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Robert-Parry-150x150.jpg" alt="Robert parry" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Robert-Parry-150x150.jpg 150w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Robert-Parry.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />From Editor Robert Parry: We founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 as the first investigative news magazine on the Internet. The site was meant to be a home for important, well-reported stories and a challenge to the inept but dominant mainstream news media of the day.
As one of the reporters who helped expose the Iran-Contra scandal for the Associated Press in the mid-1980s, I was distressed by the silliness and propaganda that had come to pervade American journalism. I feared, too, that the decline of the U.S. press corps foreshadowed disasters that would come when journalists failed to alert the public about impending dangers.
Also by 1995, documents were emerging that put the history of the 1980s in a new and more troubling light. Yet, there were fewer and fewer media outlets interested in that history.
The memories of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were enveloped in warm-and-fuzzy myths that represented another kind of danger: false history that could lead to mistaken political judgments in the future.
Some of our early articles reexamined important chapters of the 1980s (such as the “October Surprise” controversy from Election 1980 and evidence of Nicaraguan contra-cocaine trafficking). Other stories explored more topical crises (such as NATO’s war over Kosovo and the impeachment assault on President Bill Clinton).
Author Norman Solomon and I produced a groundbreaking series on the real story behind Colin Powell’s legend. Another of my investigations examined the remarkable story of how Rev. Sun Myung Moon became an influential player in Washington.
Working with talented freelance reporters around the world, we also undertook important historical investigations, such as how the Nazis after World War II — crossing “rat lines” from Europe to South America — contributed to the region’s bloody repression.
Interruption
By 1999 and early 2000, we were looking at the reemergence of the Bush family dynasty. However, as Campaign 2000 was heating up, we ran out of money.
I was forced to make Consortiumnews.com a part-time enterprise and took an editing job at Bloomberg News. One of our last stories before that break described how the news media was exaggerating Vice President Al Gore’s alleged exaggerations.
Though operating on a part-time basis, we managed to churn out a number of stories in the months before Election 2000 and kept tabs on the recount battle with stories including how Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor telegraphed her political agenda at an Election Night party and how George W. Bush dispatched thugs to Miami to intimidate vote counters.
In November 2001, we were the first to note that the big news outlets which had conducted an unofficial recount of Florida’s ballots had buried their own lead, the fact that Gore would have won Florida if all legal votes were counted.
In 2002, during the buildup to war in Iraq, we also picked up the pace, questioning the Bush administration’s case about weapons of mass destruction and criticizing the flag-waving coverage from the mainstream news media.
As Bush’s Iraq invasion was underway in March 2003, I consulted with some of my old military sources who warned of the disaster ahead. The article was entitled “Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.”
Also in 2003, author Kevin Phillips cited the investigative work of Consortiumnews.com in his seminal book on the Bush family, American Dynasty. Phillips took note of our investigative series that examined the elder George Bush’s role in Republican dirty tricks during the 1980 campaign.
Resumption
To flesh out more about the Bush family’s rise to power, I left Bloomberg News in April 2004 and began work on my fourth book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. It was published in late September 2004.
In fall 2004, we also resumed more frequent publication of stories at Consortiumnews.com. One of those articles described John Kerry’s pioneering investigation of contra-drug trafficking in the late 1980s.
In recent years, we have added the insightful writings of former CIA analysts, such as Ray McGovern, Peter Dickson and Melvin Goodman, who saw a corruption of information inside the CIA’s analytical division that paralleled the perversion of journalism that was underway in the American press corps.
We have written extensively about the U.S. media imbalance, tilted by a well-funded right-wing media machine. Indeed, a founding idea of our Web site was that a major investment was needed in journalistic endeavors committed to honestly informing the American people about important events, reporting that truly operated without fear or favor.
Regrettably, the distortion of information remains a grave problem with millions of Americans brainwashed by the waves of disinformation coming from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the hordes of other right-wing media outlets distortions often reinforced by the careerist mainstream press.
Because of this media dynamic, many average Americans have bought into a propaganda frame that seeks fewer regulations on powerful corporations, lower taxes on the wealthy, tighter restrictions on unions, and fewer programs to help working Americans with problems ranging from educating their children to caring for the elderly.
Meanwhile, Official Washington is basing international decisions on a false narrative that excludes the real history of the past several decades. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush are hailed as honorable leaders, rather than viewed as politicians who countenanced gross abuses of power.
Even in the Age of Obama, government decisions are being made with only limited knowledge of what was really done by Republican presidents who have dominated the modern era. This ignorance represents not only a threat to a meaningful democratic republic but a danger to the world, as the “last remaining superpower” lurches about, half-blinded by its own propaganda.
While we are proud of the journalistic contribution that this Web site has made over the past 15-plus years and while we are deeply grateful to our readers whose contributions have kept us afloat we also must admit that we have not made the case well enough that our mission is a vital one.
Despite all that’s happened, including the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, many people still don’t understand that the fight for honest information about the past and the present is a battle for the future.
We could do much more with additional resources. If you can and wish to help, we would appreciate your donations, big or small.
You can contribute either by credit card at the Web site or by check to:
Consortium for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Suite 102-231
2200 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington VA 22201
Or you can use PayPal (our account is named after our e-mail address “consortnew@aol.com“).
Or, If you know someone with the means to make a large donation or someone who is involved with a public-interest foundation, contact them and urge them to consider a grant to Consortiumnews.com. Since 1999, we have operated as a 501-c-3 non-profit, meaning that donations can be tax-deductible. [For more information, such as our recent IRS filings and the IRS approval letter, go to “What Can Be Done.”]
We appreciate whatever help you can provide. Thanks.
Robert Parry, Editor
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 as the Internet’s first investigative magazine. He saw it as a way to combine modern technology and old-fashioned journalism to counter the increasing triviality of the mainstream U.S. news media.
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Thank you for your work. I have just completed reading in Consortiumnews the damning criticism of the man and movie “J. Edgar,” and have forwarded it to a younger civil servant now relatively new to federal service as a caution regarding the powers available even to administrators at relatively low levels. The temptation to bend the offices one holds to one’s personal direction is often great, and Hoover’s career appears to be a case to study.
I will follow your group’s work now and in the future with very great interest.
Hello – I believe it would be more accurate to refer to Gary Webb’s death, rather than to his suicide. [ On this seventh anniversary of journalist Gary Webb’s suicide, we are re-posting one of the stories that Webb’s brave work forced out, albeit without a satisfying ending.]
Other than that, I have to say that you do impeccable work and I will be making my contribution any minute now.
The very best,
EXCELLENT work; And Thank You. It is heart warming during a very chilling time to see you’ve hit upon many key academic items that since the election of R. Nixon have systematically built and empowered the Fourth Reich that eventually on 9-11 pulled-off the biggest and filthiest coup upon our government in the history of our dear country. Reporting Truth in the face of the Fourth Reich’s terribly lying brainwashing propaganda machine is indeed truely difficult and often soul taxing; But it is such REAL Patriots that history will records as the TRUE beacons that heard and answered the many warnings and calls by our greatest Patriot Forefathers such as Thomas Jefferson, to be vigilantly on guard for the very worst threat to our Democracy: Domestic enemies from within and the careless self-important Ignorance among our citizens those enemies foster and depend upon.
The essence of our government is supposed to be free honest and fair debate and representation by people who act in the interest of those who elected them–not inflammatory name calling or arguing about who the “real” patriots are (aren’t we ALL patriots?) I find any reference to Naziism distasteful. If you want to call the right’s power crusade plutocracy then now I’m OK with that. Because that is a true label for what is happening and it is going to ruin our country.
I appreciated this FIghttheReich comment and wanted to know if there is site or hashtag along those lines. Is there a way we can legally fightthereich?
Dear Editor Robert Parry
We are very gratefull for your article about Reagan and Rios Mont.
We have no resources, is it possible to ask for permission to republish this article.
Sincerely
Wow, just what we need. Another hard-left opinion rag masquerading as if it were an actual “news outlet”. LOL! Too funny…
-Sundy
You have to read the entire piece. It says “to become a challenge to the mainstream news media”. Nothing disingenuous about that.
Independent Investigative? yah.. and not the least bit biased.. Ha..
Typical liberal drivel..
I’ve been coming to consortiumnews.com for sometime now. Honestly it’s one of the better sites on the web and I know it will be here for years to come. It’s a great place to get story ideas for my site The International Human Press. Keep up the awesome work guys!
Thanks!
Dear Robert Parry,
I am about to send copies of the below letter to mostly people who write for The Progressive populist and I would like to get your permission to suggest that they contact you for the history of how the Republicans took control of the media.
Thanks,
Deek Crowley
Wayne,Maine
To anyone with ability and a sense of fairness:
A small percentage of voters read alternate publications like The Nation, The Progressive, The Progressive Populist, etc. Some may even know how the mainstream media was taken over by the Republicans. These voters mostly won’t be fooled by slick ads and know a vote for a third candidate without instant-runoff-voting could help elect a Republican, the candidate of the rich.
But most of the 99% don’t know this and believe the lies and lies of omission of the media. Their vision of reality is shaped by a media controlled by the 1%, yet half of them vote for the party of the 1%, the party that hurts them the most. Unless an effort is made to warn these misguided people, too many of them will be suckered by all the expensive dishonest ads the 1% with all their money will throw at them and once again vote for the party of the 1%.
Why not warn the 99% about what’s really going on and how not to be fooled. One way is to write concise, simple emails about each thing the public needs to know in a way that entices the recipients to forward them and those recipients to forward them, etc. Most people are likely to read an email from someone they know. The emails could be sent to all the people on liberal email lists – MoveOn, Sierra Club, Unions, etc. They could be put in alternative publications, both online and in print, to be forwarded. If the emails are written well enough, maybe enough people will want to forward them and a majority of voters will get to read them.
Below are three examples of what people need to know:
“HAVE YOU BEEN MISINFORMED BY THE MEDIA?
Did you ever wonder why the media never calls the Republicans on their lies? It’s because the Republicans control the media. (add a brief history of when and how the Republicans did it. For details, contact Robert Parry at consortiumnews.com. )
“DON’T BE SUCKERED BY SLICK TV ADS
The 1% will spend tons of money on TV ads promoting their candidates and attacking the candidates of the 99%. A good way to counter all that money is to count the ads to see which candidate is promoted and which is attacked by the ads. The candidate with the most ads for and the least ads against has to be the candidate of the 1% and your worst enemy if you’re not rich.
“DON’T WASTE YOUR VOTE
Some day we may have instant-runoff-voting so we can list a third candidate 1st and the Democrat 2nd and not waste our vote. Now a vote for a third candidate is, with very few exceptions, a vote for a candidate with no chance and a wasted Democrat vote which could help elect a Republican, the candidate of the 1%. We desperately need instant- runoff-voting.�
You get the idea. Please do your best to see that this is done. If nobody does it the 1% with their Republican stooges, their media, their money and their slick ads will once again sucker the voters. I would do it myself, but I’m an old man with a bad memory for details and am unable to do it.
Deek Crowley
Wayne, Maine
207-685-4284
deekcr@roadrunner.com