CMD Takes Manhattan

John Stauber addresses guests at a recent CMD event in New York City.

CMD executive director John Stauber was joined by legendary journalist Bill Moyers at a "No Fake News!" reception for the Center in New York City. Sixty people filled host Sarah Stranahan's apartment, where Stauber recounted the Center's history and Moyers described the crisis facing the country and journalists, and the Center's important role.

"I really do think the oxygen is going out of our democracy," Moyers told the group.

Bill Moyers speaks to guests.

"From the internal collapse of our truth-telling system, the corporate press [and] commercial journalists, with some exception, are largely taking the lowest common denominator."

"[N]ot a day goes by that I don't go to their website for a stirring encounter with the truth of America. You should visit their website," Moyers said of the Center. "They do the best journalism about what is really happening in this country to our media system. I couldn't exist as a journalist without it nor would I want to as a citizen. It arms me with the information that I need, reporting that I need to make the case I want to make about our society. You cannot underestimate the importance of truth-tellers in our society in an age when the truth is swept under the bed, kept in the closet, or recycled to come out as government spin and corporate propaganda."

"When I grew up, I heard many sermons from preachers who used the New Testament, the Christian testament to talk about 'you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,'" Moyers continued. "When I graduated from the University of Texas, and went to commencement in that outdoors plaza underneath that huge tower, you could look up and see the words inscribed across the granite at the University of Texas, 'you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' That is right, but if you don't know the truth, what's the implication. And it's very hard today to find the truth.

"What they are doing - the importance - they are the alternative media now, because they are devoted to getting as close as possible to the verifiable truth. And they are devoted to telling us who it is whose hands are on the strings that are manipulating the corporate media, the commercial media and the ideological media. John, what you are doing is utterly indispensable," Moyers said.

While in NY, Stauber stopped by the Air America Radio studios to discuss video news releases and fake news with Katherine Lanpher and Al Franken during a live broadcast of the Al Franken Show.