tarpilot

Amen to that, Incanus. I've had it happen to me, learned the hard way. News and journalism are about selling a product for the most part, and I find the current state of affairs appalling. But, we have to take responsibility for consuming this crap.
This is not to say that there aren't many dedicated professional journalists, trying their best to inform people in the most thorough and unbiased way they can, but they all have editors, etc.
I'm afraid that most of the time we are getting the "news" the way someone else wants us to see it, and the mainstream media is absolutely worthless to me. Kill your television.

erics76

In the same breath that natalie maines said that she was ashamed that Bush was from Texas, she also said that she fully supported the troops, and would help them however she could. You never ever hear that part, and it was in the same sentence. Incanus is right, y'all are mad at the wrong people. The media wants to make $$. Sometimes it takes a little cutting and half-truths and spin to make $$. They are the ones that should be held responsible for reporting what they want to, not the real truth.

AlpineRAM

I think it is problematic, at least, to draw the line between filtering out the unnecessary and giving a spin to information. Naturally the media wants to make people see/read/hear what they compile. They want to make a living.
On the other hand there are feelings hurt, economical damage done, privacy invaded by them. Over here media jurisdiction is one of the most complex fields, since it is torn apart between the rights of free speech, right to information, right to be protected against slander, right to privacy and a whole bunch more. I do notice that the media over here (especially the boulevard) do publish outrageous stuff and risk people sueing them. Usually you will find an article relating to the first one some time later, that will read like that: " The informations stated in our article XXX the XX.XX are contested by Mr XXX and we have to revoke the accusations ....." but this is somewhere in the back of the newspaper and quite some time after the damage has been done.
What does happen in the US media in a case like this?

AlpineRAM

Commatoze

[quote author=AlpineRAM link=board=10;threadid=19164;start=45#msg181859 date=1063019607]
....." but this is somewhere in the back of the newspaper and quite some time after the damage has been done.
What does happen in the US media in a case like this?

AlpineRAM
[/quote]

Lawsuit.... :

jfpointer

[quote author=AlpineRAM link=board=10;threadid=19164;start=45#msg181859 date=1063019607]
What does happen in the US media in a case like this?

AlpineRAM
[/quote]

It really depends on the subject matter. If it's one of the media's pet causes, they'll lie like dogs all day long and never correct it, especially in editorials. Examples might be global warming or gun control. If a fact from a story turns out to be incorrect, it's pretty much the same as you stated; they bury it somewhere inside where no one is ever likely to see it. Libel is pretty hard to prove, I think, and would most likely be concerned with damages, but if they were forced as part of a case to publish a retraction, it would also probably be buried somewhere inside. It might be front-page news in a publication's competitors, though.

AlpineRAM

Thanks Commatoze, jfpointer!

Would you say that the retraction gets much less publicity than the original misinformation? Over here it is that way. I never saw a retraction making it as big as the misinformation. Sometimes a kind of "damage report" on the stuff done by the competitor can be read quite prominently placed in a paper.

AlpineRAM

Mexstan

Y'all have heard (read?) me rant many times about not trusting what the media says. They are experts at twisting a point to make a story more 'saleable'. Every day in the media there are examples of this. Take for example a current and lately constant story, the Palestians and the Israelis. The Hamas crowd etc are never called what they really are; terrorists. The news slant is that the Israelis have broken the truce etc. The reality is that Israel has made many concessions to the terrorists while they (Arafat) have not complied with a single part of the 'agreement'. Who broke the truce? Not the Israelis. But what is the spin the media? It is the Israelis who get the blame for retaliating when the cowardly terrorists attack busses, women and children, soft targets. I can give you many more examples of how the media blatently distort the news, specially when it applies to Israel.
So who is to blame for all this published garbage? As stated earlier. The readers, because you swollow this junk hook, line and sinker and never complain to the media, TV etc. It is not so much the stupid actors with big mouths that have no idea of reality that make my blood boil, it is the media. Every day you, the readers keep quiet about the media spinning a story, the worse they get.
Better get off my soap box before I get really riled up!

Mexstan

I have just read an article that I have copied and pasted here. I think it supports what I said in my last post about the media.

Anti-American Propaganda From the Great White North

Well, how is America doing in the war on terror as the 9/11 anniversary approaches? It depends on who you ask. According to the presidential speech, America is doing pretty well, all things considered. President Bush told the nation that his administration is now pursuing a three-fold strategy in post-war Iraq.

"First," the president told the nation, "we are taking direct action against the terrorists in the Iraqi theater . . .Second, we are committed to expanding international cooperation in the reconstruction and security of Iraq . . .[and] "Third, we are encouraging the orderly transfer of sovereignty and authority to the Iraqi people."

And pursuing that strategy has borne fruit, the president noted, ticking off victories like the deaths of Saddam's sons, the elimination of 45 of the 55 most-wanted in the coalition's deck of cards, and various improvements like the restoration of electricity and other utilities to much of the country.

That's the way the President of the United States sees it. But that isn't the way his critics do.

I read with astonishment a column written by Canada's Toronto Star's self-described 'editorial page editor emeritus' Haroon Siddiqui. Reading it gives some insight into why Canada is fast becoming the destination of choice for anti-US terror cells.

According to the view from the Great White North, thanks to George Bush, terrorism is "thriving where it didn't before, namely in Iraq, as the assassinations of a top United Nations' diplomat, the top Shiite political leader and others testify."

Assessment:

In 1993, agents of the Iraqi government were arrested when US investigators uncovered a plan to assassinate former president George Bush in Kuwait. The weapon of choice was to be a car bomb. Saddam Hussein personally financed the Palestinian terror organizations, paying bounties to the families of terrorists killed 'in action', so to speak.

Trust me, terror existed in Iraq long before the US invasion in March.

It is important to remember, as we go through this piece of blatant propaganda, that it emanates from the editorial department of Canada's largest newspaper.

According to Siddiqi, America has already killed three times as many innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq as were murdered on September 11. Siddiqi doesn't give any supporting documentation.

(I am curious how Siddiqi could separate the innocents from the terrorists in Afghanistan from his office in Toronto? I am sure the US Central Command would find that trick useful).

In any case, during the war with Iraq, America was so concerned for civilian casualties it developed a special, GPS-guided anti-tank weapon -- a 2,000 pound block of cement. It was deployed against tanks that were deliberately deployed in civilian areas, near hospitals and beside mosques. Instead of exploding, it just squashed the tank on impact.

That doesn't sound like a nation unconcerned with civilian casualties running amok to me -- and I am a Canadian. (Something I say with considerably less pride than I did only a few years ago)

But to read what Canada is reading this morning, one would assume the United States is no different than al-Qaeda. "Thousands of other innocents have been snared, in the West and across the world, in the wide net cast by the war on terrorism," according to Siddiqi.

Once again, one has to ask, how the heck does he know that? Unfortunately, not many people will ask, they will just assume that its true because they read it in the Toronto Star.

They also learned this morning that, "America is good at war, disastrous at making or keeping peace. It is incompetent at managing conquered turf and people. It is appallingly ignorant of foreign cultures, languages and politics."

And the Marshall Plan was a failure? Germany remains a dictatorship? Japan remains a Shinto theocracy?

Thanks to George Bush, Siddiqi writes, "Afghanistan remains at the mercy of warlords, bandits and a regrouping Taliban. Iraq is spinning out of control."

How can Afghanistan simultaneously be at the 'mercy' of the Taliban, etc., (and it be Bush's fault), when until the Bush administration removed them, Afghanistan really WAS at the mercy of the Taliban?

If Iraq is 'spinning out of control' now, was it 'under control' when saying you'd didn't like Saddam's mustache put you in danger of a visit to the shredding machine?

The poison continues to flow; "Future historians may study the series of unending disasters unfolding there under American watch for clues as to the rot at the core of the American empire when it was at its zenith."

The "rot at the core of the American empire" -- this from Canada's largest newspaper! But Siddiqi is just warming to his subject . . .

"They might wonder why a nation that mastered technology, food production and the guns and gadgetry of law and order could not provide electricity, water and security to a destitute people."

Only Americans could have managed to turn the initial goodwill of liberated Iraqis into outright hostility, just as the Bush administration turned the worldwide post-Sept. 11 sympathy for America into ill will."

Bad old Americans! Only they could be hated for spending their own time, treasure and blood to liberate a people that nobody else cared about. It is America's fault that some Iraqis are blowing up their own infrastructure because they share the same blind hatred of the United States that Siddiqi is fomenting on its border.

And the Bush administration managed to turn 'sympathy for America into ill will' -- how? By not apologizing for putting its buildings in al-Qaeda's way?

Siddiqi doesn't explain how the war against the terrorists that continue to threaten new and deadlier attacks 'created' 'ill will' where there had been 'good will' before.

That is the principle of the Big Lie. Just repeat it over and over, and soon it will be come the accepted truth. Especially if you use the right sounding rhetoric.

The anti-American vitriol from Canada's largest newspaper provides example after example of how the propagandist can paint a monstrous lie with a thin veneer of truth and make it sound plausible to a receptive audience.

"There's the continued incarceration of 680 unnamed people at Guantanamo Bay, and of an undisclosed number of others in secret locations abroad, without charge or access to counsel, in violation of the Geneva Conventions."

I don't recall al-Qaeda being a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. Since al-Qaeda is a terrorist group without borders, how is this applicable?

The only way America could adhere to the Geneva Conventions would be to only shoot the al Qaeda terrorists in uniform. (Hey, Siddiqi! Put your turban on a second!&quot

"There are the secret arrests, prosecutions and deportations from America of hundreds of Muslims, mostly poor Pakistanis, virtually none of whom had any terrorist connection. They were made sacrificial lambs to Attorney-General John Ashcroft's god of revenge."

Maybe so, but since Ashcroft deported those 'sacrificial lambs' (all here illegally, by the way) back to Pakistan, how many terrorist attacks have there been inside the United States?

How dare the Americans deport suspected terrorists? Once again, how does Siddiqi know that 'virtually none of them' had connections to terror? Answer: He doesn't - but facts are seldom a problem for a skilled propagandist with a major hatred for the United States of America.

Just read some of al-Qaeda's publications -- may I recommend the Toronto Star?

jfpointer

[quote author=Mexstan link=board=10;threadid=19164;start=45#msg181871 date=1063022739]
Y'all have heard (read?) me rant many times about not trusting what the media says. <snip>
So who is to blame for all this published garbage? As stated earlier. The readers, because you swollow this junk hook, line and sinker and never complain to the media, TV etc. It is not so much the stupid actors with big mouths that have no idea of reality that make my blood boil, it is the media. Every day you, the readers keep quite about the media spinning a story, the worse they get.
[/quote]

The problem is, it doesn't do any good to complain. None whatsoever. <sarcasm>They're all so much smarter than us, you see.</sarcasm> Your example that I snipped to save space is the perfect illustration of this. Anyone with half a brain can see that Hamas, et al are responsible for breaking the truce, and consistently and intentionallly target civilians with their attacks. Anyone with at least a bit of common sense can see that this makes them terrorists, not freedom fighters (I'm borrowing Reuters' term). But try to make your average reporter or university professor grow half a brain and/or talk some sense into them. Can't be done. It's like talking to a brick wall. Me, I have a truck to pay for and a garage to finish building. I don't have time.

LE

I find it entertaining to read all of the responses to a statement made by an American actor from overseas, and I cannot help but notice that all of us (myself included) have spent probably 100 times the effort to "analyze" it. It took JD probably all of 2 minutes to say what he said. It has taken me at least 15 minutes to read all of the responses to this article. I would think that even though we do not necessarily agree with what ol Johnny is saying, we are very fortunate to be able to express our opinions, just like JD or any other American can. This is why we are involved in the war / conflicts we are in. Regardless of education (I went to school with a ton of people who only went to college because McDonalds would not take them) it is our primary and fundamental right as Americans to be able to say and express our opinions. His comments may not be popular or accurate. On top of the fact that he very well may be one of the dumbest people on the planet. All that aside, the foundation for our country guarantees anybody the right to speak as ignorant as they want. Kind of a cool concept if you think about it. As usual, I hope I have not offended anyone, and for the record I enjoy JD movies. His politics may be less valid than the ever, but I doubt he is a terrorist or an activist. LE

hotdram

Quote from LE
Off topic, but you didn't happen to attend the Naval Academy did you?

WHIFF

[quote author=hotdram link=board=10;threadid=19164;start=45#msg182379 date=1063105929]
Off topic, but you didn't happen to attend the Naval Academy did you?
[/quote]


You mean Canoe U.?