"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
Cat videos -- unlike NBC News -- don't impart conservative misinformation
Time magazine's selection of "You" as its "Person of the Year" has -- justifiably -- drawn criticism.
Writing for CJR Daily, for example, Christian Vachon argued, "By giving the award to 'You,' it effectively gave the award to no one. In doing so, it has insulted its readers with the assumption that they are too vain and gullible to know the difference."
Time's selection has been mocked by many of those it ostensibly honors (the magazine explained that it chose to honor online content creators "for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game.")
But perhaps the weightiest complaint came from NBC's Brian Williams, who suggested in an essay in Time that the democratization of the media comes at great "cost to our democracy":
The problem is that there's a lot of information out there that citizens in an informed democracy need to know in our complicated world with U.S. troops on the ground along two major fronts. Millions of Americans have come to regard the act of reading a daily newspaper -- on paper -- as something akin to being dragged by their parents to Colonial Williamsburg. It's a tactile visit to another time ... flat, one-dimensional, unexciting, emitting a slight whiff of decay. It doesn't refresh. It offers no choice. Hell, it doesn't even move. Worse yet: nowhere does it greet us by name. It's for everyone.
Does it endanger what passes for the national conversation if we're all talking at once? What if "talking" means typing on a laptop, but the audience is too distracted to pay attention? The whole notion of "media" is now much more democratic, but what will the effect be on democracy?
The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we fail to meet the next great challenge ... because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart.
In November, Williams offered a more concise version of his complaint: "We're choosing cat videos over well thought-out, well-reported evening newscasts."
We don't argue with those who call Time's selection a cop-out or a pander; nor do we argue with those who think that, having selected Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush in recent years, Time would have done well to recognize a progressive leader: Perhaps Nancy Pelosi, who led her party to control of the House of Representatives and is about to become the first woman to be speaker of the House as a result. Or maybe Time should have decided it was time to honor those who have been right about the Iraq war, and spoken the truth about it, rather than continuing to favor those who have not.
But as tempting as it is to bash Time's choice, Brian Williams' reaction to the decision makes us wonder how off-base Time really is.
"We're chosing cat videos over well-thought-out, well-reported evening newscasts," Williams sniffs.
Which well-thought-out evening newscasts are those, exactly?
Just days before this year's midterm elections, Brian Williams led NBC's Nightly News with a report on Sen. John Kerry's "botched joke." Voters looking for a serious, substantive newscast to help inform their decision would have been just as well off watching cat videos.
Maybe Williams was thinking of his "well-reported" piece about the release of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, when he told viewers that Republican Rep. Frank Wolf "might not get the credit he deserves," as "[t]he whole Iraq commission was his idea," adding that Wolf "came up with the idea for the Iraq Study Group after ... returning from his third trip to Iraq after having seen how much the situation there had deteriorated and how violent Iraq had become."
In fact, Wolf returned from his third trip to Iraq and wrote an op-ed that, rather than explaining the deterioration and violence in Iraq, argued that "real progress is being made." Wolf did suggest forming an independent group -- to explore the "underreported but significant successes" in Iraq and "assure Americans -- no matter what their positions are on the war -- that every effort is being made to protect our troops and realize our goal of a secure and peaceful Iraq."
True, those watching cat videos instead of Williams' broadcast might not have learned of Wolf's role in forming the ISG. But at least they wouldn't have been told falsehoods about it.
Or maybe Williams was remembering his report about melting ice in the Arctic, in which he claimed, "There's no official explanation. Scientists can't say yet whether global warming is the culprit for the recent reported ice melt in the Arctic" -- despite the fact that the scientist who wrote the NASA study to which Williams was apparently referring called the melting ice "the strongest evidence of global warming in the Arctic so far."
At least cat videos can be entertaining.
Williams' worry about the democratization of the media likewise falls flat:
The danger just might be that we miss the next great book or the next great idea, or that we fail to meet the next great challenge ... because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart.
The danger, according to Williams, is that if we don't all continue to get our news from Brian Williams and a few dozen other national political journalists, we'll miss the "next great idea" because we're too busy "listening to the same tune we already know by heart."
After years of being told by journalists that every prominent progressive is dishonest and "inauthentic," while conservatives like Bush and McCain and Giuliani are straight-talking regular guys; after constantly being told that Republicans are strong on national security issues even as they screw up Iraq and the war on terror at every turn; after countless brainless narratives about "slick" Clinton and "fake" Gore and "angry" Dean and "elitist" John Kerry and "calculating" Hillary Clinton, "singing the same tune we already know by heart" seems to be the perfect description of how national political reporters like Williams do their jobs.
As Bob Somerby chronicled at the time, Brian Williams was positively obsessed with Al Gore's wardrobe decisions in 1999 -- and with what those choices supposedly revealed about him.
This is somebody who is worried that if we don't all get our news from him and his fellow members of the Gang of 500, we'll miss the "next great idea"?
We'll take our chances.
One of this column's regular themes is the need for all progressives, not just those for whom the media is a primary or professional focus, to hold the media accountable when they get things wrong. Last week, we noted that the reaction to Jeff Greenfield's CNN report on Barack Obama's middle name and style of dress gives us hope that "progressives may be ready to do something about" the media's constant repetition of negative (and often substance-free) caricatures of progressive candidates.
Many of the most insightful and effective progressive media critics (full-time and part; professional and amateur) do their writing and organizing online, giving us more than a little reason to reconsider our initial dismissal of Time's POY choice. We've mentioned some of the following before, and we're leaving off more worthies than we're including, but anyone interested in the media should be reading at least some of the following:
- Atrios, the personal blog of Media Matters' own Duncan Black
- Dan Froomkin, who writes an online column for The Washington Post and is deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog project
- Bob Somerby's Daily Howler
- Digby's Hullabaloo
- Firedoglake
- Eric Alterman's Media Matters-hosted blog, Altercation, and his columns for The Nation and the Center for American Progress (CAP)
- Eric Boehlert, who writes a weekly column for Media Matters
- Greg Sargent's The Horse's Mouth
- Beat the Press, Dean Baker's American Prospect blog about economic reporting
- David Neiwert's Ornicus
- CAP's blog Think Progress
- Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
- Anything by Charles Pierce
- Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
But if progressives -- or neutral observers -- want to stop the media's relentless peddling of bogus, frivolous attacks on progressive leaders and policies, it isn't enough to criticize journalists for their transgressions. Progressives have to make a conscious effort not to validate those attacks. As Somerby wrote this week:
[W]hen we talk about what is "appealing" and authentic," we enter extremely subjective territory. And oh yeah -- we validate the type of discussion the mainstream press corps is eager to have. Once we allow this type of discussion, they can create any novel they want about who's "authentic" and who isn't. And surprise! As an upper-class and corporate institution, the press corps will increasingly tend to judge that Republican candidates seem "authentic" -- and that the Dems do not.
[...]
Here at THE HOWLER, we don't really have a favorite between Obama, Clinton, Edwards and others. We say this -- let them battle it out. But it's extremely easy to criticize Clinton (and Gore before her) for being somewhat guarded in public. During Campaign 2000, for example, why did Gore sometimes "seem to measure every word and gesture, calculating whether they will get him into trouble?" Simple! He seemed to do that because he had to -- because, the way the game was being played, if he got one syllable out of place, the press corps would land on his head like a mountain, turning it into a vast referendum on his deeply disturbing lack of character. Hillary Clinton has also had to play by these gong-show rules. She has absorbed an astonishing amount of abuse in the past fifteen years, and (like Gore) she has done a miraculous job of soldiering on despite it.
[...]
If Dem and libs have an ounce of sense, we will resist the press corps' desire to craft discussions about "authenticity." It's just a cover they adopt -- one which lets them lower our discourse to the place where they can type their novels. And, as an upper-class, corporate cohort, they will always tend to say that the Republican is really the "authentic" person. If you're a Democrat or a liberal, Hillary Clinton has died for your sins. That doesn't mean she should be the nominee, but she deserves your respect, as does Gore. Each has taken a ton of shit -- while our "liberal leaders" have stared into air.
Which of the hopefuls is most authentic? We have an answer to that: STFU! If we Democrats have an ounce of sense, we'll steer the discussion toward serious topics -- topics which are less subjective. In the past fifteen years, the public has generally agreed with Dems on the vast range of major issues. For that reason, Republicans wants to talk "authenticity" -- and so does your script-reading press corps.
Somerby is right. Destructive and baseless narratives about progressives spread not only because Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity repeat them, not only because Republican operatives promote them, and not only because too many political journalists can't seem to get enough of them.
These narratives spread because journalists like Jeff Greenfield and Jeanne Moos (presumably unintentionally) legitimize right-wing efforts to equate Barack Obama with Saddam Hussein by treating it all as a big joke. Were Greenfield and Moos really suggesting that Obama's name is a reason to dislike him? We assume they were not. But their focus on the topic only encourages others to continue their focus on the topic.
These narratives spread because progressive pundits join in, as when MSNBC's Flavia Colgan repeatedly suggests that Hillary Clinton will have an "authenticity" problem because she used to wear what Colgan describes as "Coke-bottle glasses." Does Colgan think Clinton's long-ago choice of eyewear is a good reason not to vote for Clinton? We don't know; probably not. But it simply doesn't matter. Her comments legitimize disliking Clinton for such ridiculous reasons. They encourage other media figures to keep focusing on such foolishness. Her intent simply doesn't matter; the content of what she says -- and its effect on our discourse -- is what matters.
And they spread when "liberal" columnists like Joe Klein write the "left wing" of the Democratic Party has a "hate America tendency." And when "liberal" columnists like Richard Cohen write, as he did in 2003, that "[o]nly a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman" could doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Three years later, Cohen would have the audacity to complain about receiving uncivil emails from progressive critics. No, really. He did.
Progressives are right to be outraged that the likes of Ann Coulter and Debbie Schlussel and Glenn Beck are given a forum by the nation's most powerful news organizations.
But they should also take action when those who are ostensibly speaking for them in the media start to sound like Beck and Coulter. How can we expect Coulter not to dismissively compare progressives to the French when Richard Cohen does as well? How can we expect Chris Matthews not to obsess over Hillary Clinton's appearance when Flavia Colgan does too?
when we let the dismisive and irresponsable ones here and other boards continue to repete them without challenge. Here on MMFA there are those who's only responce to something written is 'so what, it's all garbage look at the pretty shiny thing over there' and some do not take them on on the core ideas they are trying to spread based on lies and innuendo. I guess that can make some uncomfortable but damm it it needs to be shove right back into their faces.
You are media critics, and there certainly a place for media criticism. However I sometimes think the progressive blogosphere is too devoted to detecting one more lie or distortion from this or that pundit or hack.
More time should be devoted (maybe not here) to discussing good stuff that's not otherwise being covered.
you make a good point......
It is true that this site does devote its time to mulling over the lies and distortions of the so-called media (which we must not forget is almost all CORPORATE owned).
This site doesn't claim to be a news source as much as it claims to be a source to correct what is told to the masses what is supposedly news
It's really up to us as individuals to know the difference between reality and everything else.....
No serious person can ever say that the likes of Rush, Bill O, Ann, Beck, Savage, etc can be seen as anything but their own punchline to a really bad joke....... yet they are given airtime and seen as somehow mainstream
To say the least, this is a very bad time for America and the world, as long as these people are seen as legitimate!
the good stuff that's going on.
But when there's a cancer on the nation, you've got to treat the disease first.
If the disease is not dealt with, then nothing good can happen?
Heck, when I first learned that I had been selected as Time magazine's Person-of-the-year, I sneered aloofly...
I considered the "source", and immediately felt insulted.
I felt as though I had just been flushed down the toilet, like the Koran (wasn't that a big "Time Exclusive", or was that Neewsweek... who cares really).
I wondered how best to express my contempt for the award...
I immediately thought that I would send someone in my place to accept the worthless prize, as a sort of statement... like when Marlon Brando sent that Native American chick to accept his Oscar:
"On behalf of Mr. Brando I would like to express my unappreciation to the genocidal race of pale-faces for selecting him for this award..."
No.
Maybe upon being awarded, I'd turn my back and drop my head in shame during the National Anthem, and raise my right fist in an antagonistic display against my oppressors, like those Brothers did at the olympic games...
No... they'd misunderstand... everybody would misunderstand.
I could tear at my own clothes and cry out "I have no Time!", like Jolson's dad did (so Jewishly) when he learned his son wasn't going to be a Cantor, but a Jazz Singer.
No, if I tore my own clothes, I'd cry all right... but only because I hate it when I tear my clothes.
I got it!
The perfect gesture to express my contempt for being Time's POTY...
I'll accept the award on-line, on the Internet Wire!
Sure, the very "medium" that's strangling those worthless rags to death... the very thing that they mean to kiss-up to with the award in the first place... "YOU, YOU on the Internet Wire... YOU who are ignoring us here at Time, and killing our circulation..."
Ok, that's how I'll accept the the worthless prize... but where... which of the gazillions of on-line portals of information from which I now have (thankfully) as my sources of information on the new Internet Wire, on the People's Wire...
Where should I post my sham acceptance?
I'll go to the watchdog's website... the fact-checker's website... yeah, I feel it only right, seeing as it's "media" watchdogs and fact-checkers (and me, and YOU) that are killing that worthless hack "media"...
Yeah...
Here goes:
"On behalf of Mr. Brando... no... I mean, you bunch of pale-faces can stick this award up your... no...
I turn my back on you, you "media" hacks, and I raise my fist... no...
I have no TIME! (and I won't tear my own clothes, so instead, I'm tearing up the latest issue of Time... the POTY issue... I never buy the rag myself, but this one, I stole it from the Doctor's office... RIP!)
...R.I.P TIME, R.I.P."
Oh heck... I'm overcome with emotion... it is after all the first award I've ever won... (changing my tune... becoming weepy, and grateful)...
"You like me (YOU) Time magazine... you really really like me (YOU) Time magazine!"
I recently wrote to my local paper, which uses syndicated columnists for its op-ed, asking why they pick people like Thomas Friedman to represent the left when he was an avid war supporter. I suggest we all write our local papers and question the use of these self-serving, pompous idiots.
If there is one thing I would suggest that this great Website do, it is to post every week or two an "action item," and have the Media Matters community fire off an e-mail to the offending right-wing gasbag. Blast their e-mails with about 500 negative and nasty comments.
I don't know.... would this be effective?
One thing you can be sure of....the far-right will not listen to the voices of reason.
there's a lot of information "our citizens need to know". guess what homeboy? you're correct, but the fact is they're not going to get it from guys like you. the media in this country buried almost all of the contrary evidence on the wmd that were supposedly in iraq, including the mobile bioterrorism labs and the aluminum tubes [which could not have been used for the nuclear purpose claimed]. and the media went right along for weeks with the "dean scream" nonsense, which was the phoniest garbage from the beginning. the media also has never called bush to account for his continuing lie that we had to invade because saddam "wouldn't let the inspectors in". i do read a daily paper, but i don't consider it my only source.
Yeah, I think dingbat Brian Williams thinks the only source of information any blogger gets is only from other blogs. And, of course, blogs must always be worthless.
Williams is a corporate blockhead trying to pass himself off as a "man of reason."
There is a serious distinction between information and fact (what they used to call "news" until the present bunch corrupted that word)...
...and commentary or opinion.
So this hack williams (and notably that hack george will... and for that matter, Sen. McCain too) rails against the "blogs"... which I guess to be a complaint against opinions and commentary, or too many of the danged things anyway...
What a bunch of idiots they are, standing on the platform stupidly looking at their watches, having missed the train completely...
While you and I rocket down the tracks of information otherwise known as:
The Internet Wire (the People's News Wire!)
Wanna know what's going on in Congress?
Go here [link to thomas.loc.gov]
...it's the Library of Congress's website, "Thomas" by name... link to the House or the Senate from there... to all the Commitee pages thereof, to all the Reps and Sens too...
Link to the Congressional Record (the blueprint of our Laws!)... to the U.S. Code and the Code of Federal Regulations (our Laws themselves! Know the Law!)...
Link to all the Federal Departments and Agencies, to all the Press Releases and the myriad of other information they post online... to the Supreme Court and all their Opinions.
Oh wait... I'm sorry... did you prefer to get your information from the hacks williams and george will?
(the one guy chosen because he looks like a male model in a Sears catologue, the other because I guess he's what your supposed to think a "professor" looks like)
Yeah right, I much prefer listening to the hack williams for my source of information, over the Internet Wire... the People's News Wire!
24/7 and lightning quick! As soon as somebody can upload it, I can access it... from a million portals... a billion portals!
Oh wait... I'm sorry... you prefer ABC and CBS and NBC (the hack william's employer)... and CNN and MSNBC and FOX (FOX? rupert murdoch and roger ailes?)...
What's that... six portals of crap... industrial waste coming out of a pipe... that's the spigot you drink from?
Yeah, right.
As for commentary and opinion, I either read it or I don't (like the op-ed page and 'letters to the editor' parts of the paper)...
Mostly I don't care for opinion and commentary (I have my own, thank you just the same)... I like the Internet Wire (I love it!) for the information, not the opinion and commentary...
And if and when I'm hungry for another's opinions and comments, I'm pretty sure I can do a lot better on the Internet Wire (the People's News Wire!)...
...a lot better than dialing up williams, and george will.
They should get online... have their own "blog"...
...so I can not access it.
Brian Williams is concerned that we listen to "the same tune we already know by heart." Isn't that a perfect description of network TV news? It sure is to me, which is why I no longer watch it.
Thank you Jamison Foser.
We got an editorial in our local paper yesterday, from the dean of ivy league Cons, George Will .......
The king of the elitist "prissies" sneered at the bloggers and even included a quote from Brian Williams.
"the dean" continually writes about the foul mouthed bloggers. not fit for the women folk and youngsters on here.
...we are the pamphleteers.
Welcome to the new journalism.
Well said, and a great start for the inundation of Corporate Crap - er, "news" that we will get during your break!
Let's see... what's my choice.. "Coke-bottle glasses" or "ex-alcoholic, ex-coke addict, failure as a businessman turned religious fanatic" ... hmm .. man, this is really, really tough.
Are they shooting for "granny glasses"?
Either way, pretty incriminating.
that's not the choice you're given by the MSM.
It's "coke bottle glasses/shrill/calculating" vs. "resolute/steadfast/man of faith/ non-intern penetrating".
I'm heading out to the Ca. central valley (Fresno) to the in'laws for Xmas where I'll spend the weekend among some very nice, decent people who think George Bush is a really great president.
As usual, I'll try to keep things civil and not pry into people's decision making process, but between my visits there and living in Orange County, I've figured out a few tips on how to become a Republican.
1. If you read a newspaper, make sure it's only the most conservative local you can get your hands on.
2. Open and forward all email propaganda, especially those with very vague sources cited for any statistics.
3. That ol' geezer across the street who starts drinking at 9 am on weekdays? Good source for current events.
For you living behind the Orange Curtain
Dem02020... Could you be more concise? No doubt you have a valid point, but I couldn't keep up with the stream of consciousness thing.
We should demand salient reporting from our media. I was told by a local TV reporter that he left information out of his on-air report because of a lack of time allotted in the broadcast. Yet when the newscast concluded, the talking heads bantered about trivial BS for 2 minutes. Those 2 minutes would have been better used to include relevant information in a real news report.
Fact is we should all be media critics, and never simply accept what is uttered within the frame of "news" without filtering the information through our own ethos.
This was a breakthrough post for MM. Much more "authentic" than anything you've done before. It contains the word STFU! Fabuleux, mes chers! And I appreciated the "cat video" very much. (BTW, you should correct to "Orcinus" but I'm sure you know that already.)
The only thing that moves me to do more than nod my head in agreement is the reference to "those who are ostensibly speaking for (us) in the media". We all know that they are not speaking for us. We also know, or we can know, who they ARE speaking for, whether it be Rupert Murdoch or some other conservative conglomerate. If you figure in the preferences and the omnipresence of this or that commercial sponsor, then you get the s--t soup we have.
And I don't think we can change this by simply piling on this pundit or that talking head. I mean, take Brian Willilams. He is cute, if you like that sort of thing, and he has a nice voice. What else does he have? Does he have any educational credentials in the policy field? No. Does he have any special expertise gained in any other way? No. He is an ACTOR, mouthing lines written by someone else; and his particular role is to PORTRAY "authenticity", "intelligence", "judgment", and so on.
We're all able to reconstruct for ourselves the process whereby talking heads and news divisions acquire "credibility". But MM is sitting on a massive, massive indictment of the fake quality of that cred. And I don't think we will ever get anywhere with the MSM until we use that indictment in the political arena to PULL BROADCAST LICENCES, using the regulatory power written into those licenses to take something worth hundreds of millions of dollars away from an a--hole like Murdoch, and give it to someone else that will do a better job pro bono publico (meaning this literally, and not as meaning "for nothing" which is what lawyers think it means).
Obviously I nominate Murdoch as the first target. If you don't at some point challenge news organizations on this ground, they will never have any incentive to stop their slide into utter "infotainment". I hope that there will someday be a really over the top left wing TV channel that can counterbalance some of the present BS, just for the purpose of causing Cokie Roberts' head to explode (on film please).
As Atrios said: I want a dirty f--king hippie on my teevee. Better yet, I want - just for balance! - Che Guevara and Subcommander Zero, calling for the heads of the RW pols and the TONGUES of people like Brian W and Noron.
Just for fun - of course -
"Comrades! The news..."
I'll never forget when Mike Wallace interviewed Eldridge Cleaver (who died a Republican in Algeria I think). He asked him about a threat the Panthers had put out against Strom Thurmond.
MW: "Now, Eldridge, you threatened to cut off the head of Strom Thurmond. What possible good could that do? What was the purpose of issuing such statement?"
EC: "Well, Mike, the purpose of that was to take Senator Thurmond's head..."
Cecrops, I read your post, which I didn't have an opportunity to read prior to posting mine, and found some common themes.
I'd like to add though, about the ownership of stations, that I don't think are are any licenses that can be pulled. For example, even though Fox claims "fair and balanced," they know that there is no actual requirement for that. Propaganda is legal.
So let them, let their ratings live or die by that. They are struggling right now, which is why Scarborough has changed his message, to keep viewers.
The real lesson for us is that we need to do the same thing. (Repubs are probably saying that about internet organization as well- hey we need to do that). We need to buy the media outlets. Buy them. The LA Times was for sale for cryin out loud.
It's all who owns it. CNN was actually great when Ted Turner ran it. That can happen again. Why is it not happening yet, is my question.
Clap...clap...clap....clap.
This article is one of the more succinct I have read on the subject, with all the blogs. It hits it so clear and so hard. And your painstaking, bitter memory of every recent charade broadcast on television is so genuine. Like this:
..."countless brainless narratives about "slick" Clinton and "fake" Gore and "angry" Dean and "elitist" John Kerry and "calculating" Hillary Clinton, ..."
Yes, I'm nodding my head. And I'm remembering every one, remembering each time I thought, no the media will be fair this time, they remember their regret about the dean scream coverage and they'll be fair to Hillary or Pelosi. But like a balloon deflating, next time comes and they do the same thing. And your article laid it all out and explained it all beautifully.
And whats more, you expose those like Williams, who are caught red-handed objecting to this new democratic distribution of real information, and vividly show the public that Williams' goal was never to provide us with the truth to begin with. In a way this Time cover is a trap, a way for us to flush out the corporate sell-outs, if they dare say anything.
And I guess Williams' remarks are evident of the impact of the blogs. If bloggers were powerless, nothing would be said by anyone.
Bloggers are like american citizens handing out pamphlets on the street in the 1800's. Or like (the former) Russian citizens under the Kremlin, meeting together, talking, writing, passing reading materials to each other, bypassing the state media which they dismissed out of hand. It's something everyone including TPTB, were aware of years ago. When everything became corporate, streamlined, commercialized and controlled, we were told we still lived in a free country because we could still vote, could still read newspapers, and if we didn't like what we read we could pass out our own materials on the street or door to door. Of course, everyone knew that wasn't feasable. In fact, the establishment counted on that. But then the internet changed, the bloggers appeared, U-Tube appeared, and presto....we're doing just that. How it must shock the Brian Williams' of the world.
That's why net neutrality is so important now.
I have to tell you, my latest rude awakening was the AP/Reuters story on Gates' visit with the "troops." It was picked up by all the msm. The CV was set...the troops are asking for a surge. But kos was kind enough to link the real transcript from the DoD (I encourage all to read it if you haven't), and it clearly showed soldiers telling Gates there ARE no more troops to send and that's why they're all on their 3rd and 4th deployment. They're not stupid. It was also obvious Gates was leading them on that question. He brought it up not once but twice because the soldiers kept changing the subject on him. None of that was in the media.
Again, thank you Mr. Foser for your article. And for illustrating not just the "what" but the "why." The why is that the media is corporate and upper class now. And an additional why, which you illustrate in your article, is that the media pundits and newscasters are trying to control the message as hard as ever, because of the threat they see from the rise of the blogs.
Thank you.
[link to www.dailykos.com] This though was my early Christmas present. Young people bringing up verboten subjects I have been thrown off "progressive" boards for two years now.
Depleted Uranium. 911, what really happened. Iraqnam. The coming North American Union. And of course corporate media.
I have stumbled into a conversation with a bunch of former cheerleaders and linebackers who, a few years after graduation from high school, can't understand why that "geek" from chemistry class seems to be doing so well at her new job or how that "nerd" from the marching band turned out to be so gorgeous after he started a rock group whose CD is now climbing the charts. As they slog away at assistant manager jobs at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, they're relieved they aren't geeks and nerds.
Just one small thing:
David Neiwert's excellent site is called Orcinus, not Ornicus.