From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V6 #255 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Friday, November 12 2004 Volume 06 : Number 255 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [RS] Taking the ... [Vanessa Wills ] Re: [RS] Taking the ... [Vanessa Wills ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:19:52 -0500 From: Vanessa Wills Subject: Re: [RS] Taking the ... << if they didn't have much to say about it, then certainly there wasn't much to it>> Would that this were actually a useful principle to apply to any of the mainstream media. :-/ Why doesn't the Post or MSNBC actually do some investigation? In both of those articles, they simply parrot the rhetoric of party officials (both Republican and Democrat). Why don't they go out there and get the story? Why are they letting party officials tell *them* what the story is? I think that's all anyone is saying. We want our media to work a little harder, not just serve as apologists for the politicians. If the mainstream media were really interested in serving the people, it would investigate these claims of voter fraud and engage with us rationally about this issue. Telling a growing segment of the population to shut up and stop asking questions is again, not journalism, but something else completely. - --V On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 22:34:05 -0600, kunigunda wrote: > Hmmm...Was just trying to find a mainstream news source rather than a little > known website or one with obvious bias. Actually, I always thought the wash > post was biased left. That's why I listed it, thinking that if they didn't > have much to say about it, then certainly there wasn't much to it, other > than wishful thinking on the part of the Bush haters. > I understand being upset about the election results, but not the vehemence > shown by some in attempting to discredit the process without having concrete > evidence. It's just kinda scary that cooler heads can't prevail. Reminds > me of the same frenzy occurring in the dark ages when they burned so-called > witches at the stake!! > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6463505/ > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kristen Myshrall" > To: > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 9:39 PM > Subject: Re: [RS] Taking the ... > > > >Logic must prevail even though our hearts don't want it to. Here is a > less > > >biased/paranoid article. > > >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41106-2004Nov10.html > > > > > > Hehehehehe...less biased...the WASHINGTON POST?!?!?! > > Thank you...that was the best laugh I've had in weeks! - -- "Oh yes, I know, the obligatory pieties about "healing" have begun; not least from the lips of the noble Loser. This is music to the ears of the Victor of course, who wants nothing better than for us all to Come Together, a position otherwise known as unconditional surrender." --Simon Schama, http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1343956,00.html "If we're to be damned, let's be damned for what we truly are." --Captain Jean-Luc Picard ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 01:39:59 -0500 From: Vanessa Wills Subject: Re: [RS] Taking the ... On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 22:22:10 -0700, Donald Frick wrote: > PLEASE! Someone enlighten me as to why NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox are > biased. I take no position either way - no one, on either side, has > provided me with an argument based on FACTS. For the most part, the problem with the mainstream media is not so much that they're not giving the Right Answers, as that they're not even asking the right questions. Although we have sometimes the appearance of critical evaluation, actually so much is taken for granted that instead of asking, Should the U.S. be carpet-bombing Fallujah or should it not? the media asks, How will carpet-bombing Fallujah help promote democracy in Iraq? already assuming that the right action is being taken, and we have only to evaluate its many virtues. There are instances in which mainstream media sources simply lie, but this is not what's most common. The media decides which stories are important and which aren't. It decides which aspects of these stories are important and which aren't. And it often seems that their decisions do not line up very well with considerations of a) what American citizens need to know in order to have informed opinions about the actions of their government, or b) the knowledge many Americans would like to be able to get from U.S. mainstream news sources, instead of having to read English, German, Canadian, or Australian media if we're to have anything like a hope of getting a perspective on the U.S. government that is not just more or less the U.S. government's own words, dutifully repeated on the nightly news and unsullied, as it were, by critical evaluation. I think it's actually pretty unhelpful to talk about liberal bias, conservative bias, etc. Through a combination of laziness, eagerness to please the powerful (be they politicians or corporations), and the political views of those who control it (like Rupert Murdoch, for example), the mainstream media has become largely impotent at best and mendacious at worst. I'd like to stress that *mostly*, I think our mainstream media is lazy. Yes, they will embed themselves in a combat situation and in that sense, there are reporters who do difficult work. But journalism is an intellectual enterprise, as well, and our media owes it to the public to be much more curious about our government's motives, intentions, and actions. FOXNews is an exception to the rule that laziness is the biggest problem in the media: they seem to intentionally weed out those aspects of a story that are most likely to shed doubts about the administration. You would, for instance, be hard-pressed to find in FOX's coverage mention of the fact that the U.S.'s first targets in Fallujah were hospitals; this, despite the fact that this is a major part of the story, has the potential to exacerbate a humanitarian crisis, and is a fact about the current offensive in Iraq that should make any reasonable person pause and ask herself whether she could really answer the question, What are our government's intentions in Iraq? Again, the point is not that I think the mainstream media should reach exactly the same conclusions that I do, but I find it deeply disturbing that they are *not even asking the questions*. Imperialist bias is probably the most helpful category to apply to much media coverage of world affairs. It is taken for granted that American intervention in world affairs is a good thing, and that American interests are ultimately the ones that matter, and that it is ok if other people's interests are sacrificed in order to further American interests. In particular, the bad things that happen to non-Americans are frequently seen as somehow not as bad as the bad things that happen to Americans. In FOXNews.com's coverage of the conflict in Iraq, for instance, we see them presenting actual Iraqi casualties in a Baghdad carbombing as though they are on a par with *potential* non-Iraqi and in particular, U.S. casualties although they do not report that any such casualties occurred as a result of that particular event. Right now, if you look at the frontpage of FOXNews.com, you will see their Fallujah headlines. We see numbers of U.S. troop casualties. We are not told what the casualties are for Iraqi civilians. We are given a story about one man that the U.S. troops saved. I am glad that hostage was freed. But there is no mention anywhere on the frontpage about what is an important story out of Fallujah: the first targets were hospitals. The U.S. bombed one hospital and occupied another. A journalist would investigate: why target hospitals if you're trying to help people? While much of the mainstream media has confronted this issue by simply parroting the U.S. government's explanation, FOXNews has avoided the topic completely. We're given an image of the U.S. helping, and are told nothing about the U.S.'s other more morally dubious actions in Fallujah. According to the Associated Press: "One key reason to take Fallujah hospital early was likely to control information: The facility was the main source of Iraqi death tolls during the first U.S. siege of Fallujah in April, and U.S. commanders accused doctors there of exaggerating numbers." But of course, that's not a story that has been picked up by FOXNews or indeed, ABC, NBC, or CBS. (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2004/11/08/international0523EST0453.DTL) Of the six headlines about Iraq (in the red box on the left of the screen), three mention U.S. victims. A fourth mentions 17 killed in Baghdad, without citing their nationality. The story consists of four sentences. Two of them stress that non-Iraqis *could* have been hurt. Half of the story is devoted to asserting that non-Iraqis were in the area. The mere possibility that non-Iraqis could have been hurt is given nearly as much (if not as much) journalistic weight as the fact that 17 people actually died. FOXNews covers the story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138252,00.html "BAGHDAD, Iraq b A car bomb exploded in the heart of Baghdad (search) Thursday, killing 17 people in a crowded commercial area, police said. A police captain on the scene, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the blast had narrowly missed a U.S. convoy that passed by seconds before. The explosion gouged a giant crater near Nasser Square (search) on Saadoun Street, a densely populated commercial area with major hotels housing foreigners. An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw five dead bodies in the rubble, including a decapitated corpse. Police said at least 17 people were killed." - ---------- Agence France Press covers the story: http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?ID=33449 "BAGHDAD, Nov 11 (AFP) - At least nine people plus the bomber died, many burnt alive, when a car bomb exploded in a Baghdad traffic jam Thursday as attacks across Sunni areas of central and northern Iraq wounded more than 80. The bloodshed came despite frantic attempts by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to maintain order in Sunni towns enraged by a three-day-old offensive by US and Iraqi government troops on the insurgent bastion of Fallujah. Curfews on seven cities in or near the Sunni belt reinforced a state of emergency across most of the country. In Baghdad, flames raged around one vehicle with four children trapped inside after a car bomb ripped through a line of vehicles in the capital's main shopping street at the peak of the morning rush hour, police and medics said. "It is a car bomb in Saadun street," Major Mohammed Fuad, from the Saadun police station, told AFP. "It happened on the crossroads of Nassar Square where there was a major traffic jam. More than 10 cars are burning and many of them have people still inside." Shop fronts were totally destroyed and one car dangled perilously from the roof of a five-storey building where it was thrown by the force of the blast. Wounded civilians, many with their arms or legs broken, lay in the street awaiting ambulances, which had to battle through the heavy traffic that typically clogs the roads of central Baghdad. "We were driving very slowly because of the traffic jam and a car in front suddenly blew up," recalled Hussein Ali, still stuttering from shock. Doctors at three nearby hospitals told AFP they had received nine dead and 25 wounded. Witnesses said the bomber also died." - -- "Oh yes, I know, the obligatory pieties about "healing" have begun; not least from the lips of the noble Loser. This is music to the ears of the Victor of course, who wants nothing better than for us all to Come Together, a position otherwise known as unconditional surrender." --Simon Schama, http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1343956,00.html "If we're to be damned, let's be damned for what we truly are." --Captain Jean-Luc Picard ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V6 #255 ***********************************