AzJeff

Spoonfeeding the Media

PsycheDelia

for a pretty sensational media censorship story read the first chaper of greg palast's book 'the best democracy money can buy', and his account of how no media outlet in the united states would carry his story of electoral misconduct in florida before and during the 2000 elections till after the last chad was recounted. and of course anything by noam chomsky, who might get a little repetitive, but still has a lot to say.

and for unbiased media news and opinions you can try commondreams.org (a little leftist from the commentary, but check out the headlines section) or zmag.org (also very leftist, but hey, it provides a balance to the likes of fox!). both sites have links to other media websites, all very friendly to users of slow internet connections, and not all left-leaning.

i try to balance my news sources through the day by listening to amy goodman's democracy now in the morning (left liberal) and then switching to some talk radio (rush limbaugh et al - hyper conservative) and then going to the mainstream media. and through the day i check out non-american news websites. it takes work, but you can get a balanced picture by the end of the day!

Liquidrage

No, trust me. You are not in the minority here. Far from it.

I don't believe it is "overly-one sided". But there is a slant that differs in degree depending on the source.

Some US networks could be seen as "overly-one sided" such as Foxnews however.

In the past 8 hours I've seen an Egyptian anchor-woman on MSNBC blasting US foreign policy without rebuttle. A "town meeting" style interview on MSNBC with about 15 Egyptians that totally went off on US foreign policy. No rebuttle.
That no rebuttle is important IMO. It means that the last piece that stuck in your mind was a blasting of US foreign policy.

I've seen CNN debate the ethics of showing the now infamous footage of the dead soilders. Including statements saying that CNN is not in the business of glorifying war, that there is a need of showing what war really is like. And defending al-jazeraa saying that many other stations around the world released those pictures.

The media is the media and I don't expect them to be perfect. However, I do think we have some of the least one-sided media outlets in the world in this country.

As far as the internet, it is anything but one sided IMO.
Between google news and yahoo I feel I'm getting very fair and as unbiased as possible coverage.

On the radio I listen to NPR which I feel is rather neutral and tries to give time to all sides of the issue.
Of course if you listen to Rush "one-sided" would be an understatement.

smugg

But the journalists aren't there to protect our government from protests! I turn on the news to get informed. What I or anyone else does with that information is not the business of any media outlet. It's only a democratic process so long as the public is involved, after all.

What I don't see being discussed, though, is the fact that Donald Rumsfeld (and I only single him out because he was one of the first to speak out against al-Jazeera airing the footage) seems torn. On the one hand he says he supports the troops he helped put in harm's way, but he gets squeemish when it comes time to honor them. Death is, after all, what happens in war. Who would he rather have witness the sacrifice of his country's soldiers: the people of those soldiers' home or their enemies?

The news isn't there for discourse, either. Unfortunately, there aren't many meaningful forums in popular media for discourse. Town hall meetings and shows like CNN's Crossfire.

I personally miss Politically Incorrect...

Kamchatka

I couldn't agree with you more that the footage of the POWs and corpses should have been shown on American media by now.

I also agree that the decision was made in order to avoid the negative impact it would have on U.S. public opinion.

I'm just not sure that we agree on what that negative impact would be. I believe that it would have roused the public into outrage against the Iraqi regime.

On the other hand, I have seen the tape, and it may be that the propaganda involved was rousing public outrage by not showing the images, because, while the film was somewhat upsetting, the suggestion by the talking heads that it was so outrageous that they felt we could not handle it may have been more so in the machine's estimation.

PsycheDelia

i miss bill maher too! though i hear he is on back on cable somewhere with a new show he was plugging it on jay leno the other day - i don't have cable so i don't know.

PsycheDelia

heard rush limbaugh today quote a line from 'a few good men' to explain why the tape was not shown on the american media: "you can't handle the truth"

then again, it might not have been rush limbaugh - all the crazies on talk radio sound the same!

Kamchatka

Agreed.

Buddrow_Wilson

I agree with that statement. There are still issues that disturb me, however.

Thats a plausible hypothesis, but either way its still dishonest reporting and far from "journalistic integrity".

Yes, Rush we should be shielded from the unpleasant truth. The American public is too sensitive, we might cry or something. Thumbs up to that one, you pompous ass.

What about MSNBC and their wall of US Servicemen Pics and reading the messages sent by the family? Does anyone else find this particular practice so troublesome from a news source as I?

queue

Could someone link me to a site that televised the dead Iraqi soldiers or Iraqi POW's?