In early 1998, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a series of meetings involving the upper management of the San Jose Mercury News and its reporters and editors. The topic of the series of meeting was "Truth and Accuracy in Reporting," and the first meeting occurred on the day before the Lewinsky scandal hit the headlines. Although I have fundamental disagreements with Jerry Ceppos, the Executive Editor of the Mercury News, there is no question in my mind that Jerry and the other executives of the paper are very much concerned with putting out a truthful and accurate newspaper.

The Mercury News is a part of the Knight-Ridder media chain and this past year Tony Ridder moved the corporate headquarters of the chain from Miami to San Jose. The Knight-Ridder chain is part of the Commercial Establishment running this country and serves that Commercial Establishment. No matter what they would like to do, Ceppos and his fellow executives are constrained from reporting the news and from presenting the journalistic analyses the Commercial Establishment doesn't like.

It was clear to me after sitting in on those meetings in early 1998 that the reporters and the editors of the Mercury News were honest and objective and were constantly striving to get to the truth of the matters they covered and reported on. The problem is that the paper's reporters and editors produce the local news alone and depend upon the Knight-Ridder chain, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the news services for much, and usually all of the paper's state, national, and international news coverage.

My own observation of the local news indicates the Mercury News coverage is honest and objective. My own study of national and international news indicates that MOST of it is honest and objective. However, after studying the specific wording of over a thousands news articles I have concluded that SOME of the national and international news is highly biased, that is, DISTORTED, towards the Commercial Establishment's point of view. Moreover, this DISTORTED national and international news is published again and again in an effort to INDOCTRINATE people to a particular point of view.

This is dangerous to the future of democracy in this country because this DAILY INDOCTRINATION is very subtle and goes unnoticed. It is a poison supplied in miniscule amounts that will eventually kill our democracy. When you add to this the fact that SOME national and international news and journalistic analyses are being BLACKED OUT or IGNORED and the reader is equally ignorant of this, then you begin to realize the trouble we are in. We are not only being fed poison, we are denied the information we must have to recognize it as poison.

There are no blanked-out sections of our daily newspapers, our radio newscasts or television news reports to tell us that certain kinds of information is being denied us. There are no skull and crossbones on the articles containing the poison we are fed each day. The Mainstream Media and the Commercial Establishment exploit the credibility of our print, radio, and TV media to spread the poison and to convince us that we are getting all of the news that is fit to print, talk about, or show.

Commercial interests which are actually endangering the rights of Americans to pursue happiness and well-being are not being covered. The growing radical wing in this country is not being covered. In some cases it is possible to clean out disease-ridden areas by tearing down building and exposing these areas to the cleansing light of the sun and the cleansing movement of the wind.

In my view, this is what we need to do with respect to UN-AMERICAN Commercial interests and to UN-AMERICAN political and economic movements. What do these people believe in and what are their goals. This information is not be covered in the Mainstream Media.

This doesn't mean we need scare headlines or other forms of manipulation to get the message across. We simply need three kinds of information.

1. Fair and objective coverage of an economic position or political viewpoint
2. "Anti" articles written by people attacking that economic position or political viewpoint.
3. "Pro" articles written by people supporting that economic position or political viewpoint.

There are no easy ways to identify INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN DISTORTED FOR INDOCTRINATION. It is much harder to identify INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN BLACKED OUT or IGNORED. We have to work at it every day.

Those people concerned with the survival of democracy in this country should establish Watchdog Information Portals in every city and town in this country. We need to search out the information that has been distorted, blacked out, or ignored in local, state, national, and international life. We need to organize the Portals so that the Common American Citizen can get on the Internet and easily get answers to questions. The organization of the portals is critical. In each case, we need to show all the three kinds of information, and then let the Citizen make his or her own judgement. This is what the founders meant by the term "a well-informed electorate."

Subsequently, we need to link the Watchdog Information Portals together into fabrics of information covering local areas, regions, states, the country, and the world. As we move upward into larger and larger areas, the need to organize our information becomes more and more critical. The Mainstream Media have had almost 200 years to get their structure set up, I suggest we have a much shorter time to do the same.

Another critical problem is getting the news out that an easily accessible, credible and alternative information source exists on the Internet.