John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Charlie Glass, and Seymour Hersh on the failure of the world’s press

The late journalist Edward R. Murrow might well have been rolling in his grave on April 21. That’s because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a lecture that day in Washington, DC to journalists at the Department of State’s official Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists.

For the Bush administration to use the memory of a person who stood up to government propaganda is ironic to say the least. Secretary Rice told the assembled journalists that “without a free press to report on the activities of government, to ask questions of officials, to be a place where citizens can express themselves, democracy simply couldn’t work.”