Spiegel, Focus, Zeit and perhaps Stern as newsmagazines - Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche for economics for economics
Speaking of bias and news manipulation- did you read the story of the gay prostitute who was planted in the White House Press Corps by the administration? Gannon?
Just wondering if that story got much of an airing in the US.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416370,00.html
"The Bush White House is the most opaque - allowing the least access for reporters - in living memory. Every news organisation has been intimidated, and reporters who have done stories the administration finds discomfiting have received threats about their careers. The administration has its own quasi-official state TV network in Fox News; hundreds of rightwing radio shows, conservative newspapers and journals and internet sites coordinate with the Republican apparatus.
Inserting an agent directly into the White House press corps was a daring operation. Until his exposure, he proved useful for the White House. But the longer-term implication is the Republican effort to sideline an independent press and undermine its legitimacy. "Spin" seems quaint. "In this day and age," said press secretary McClellan, waxing philosophical about the Gannon affair, "when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist." It is not that the White House press secretary cannot distinguish who is or is not a journalist; it is that there are no journalists, just the gaming of the system for the concentration of power.
Yes on every news network, again and again McTag. Are you kidding? It was perceived to be an embarrassment for the adminsitration. It has also had considerable airing here on A2K.
I stiil haven't made heads or tails about it.
No matter what--it's quite weird.
What a guy! We traded Helen the Crone for Jeff the Nude Army Prostitute.
(A good trade...)
<LOL>
err, so we don't have to support Helen just cuz she's a woman, the way we were supposed to hooray over Condi just cuz she's a woman?
<checking today's PC police rules>
No. Women in general have done very well. Women in positions of power are old news...not notable.
Albright, Senators, Congresswomen, CEOs, entrepreneurs...
Blacks--women or men, frankly--haven't done so well until recently in the GOP. Bush's cabinet looks more like a demographic reflection of this nation--and that has been a long time coming--and to me, at least, worth a little happiness. I consider the rise of members of different groups on merit to be a good thing for everyone.
But, you don't have to like it if you don't want to.
Like I said, checkin' the PC rules.
I'm glad I could help you. You really should get some information on what is PC, and what isn't. Let me know the next time you're stumped.
Fox--
I didn't know Elder had written a book. This one, I'll have to pick up.
Number 1 really surprised me--about twenty years ago. Unil then, I hought black racism didn't exist.I don't understand how he could arrive at 6. Interested to see how he explains 10.
Hope I can find time to read it. I assume you have. Could you shed any light, briefly, on 6 and 10?
I don't own a copy and it has been awhile since I looked through it, so I'm working from memory here but basically his take on health care is that everybody in the U.S. has access to it whether or not they can pay for it, so there is no 'crisis', and he further says most of the problems will be fixed if the government puts the problem back into the hands of the people. I.E. it doesn't have to be done the way it is now and it shouldn't be.
#10, I can't remember his precise take, but I think it was something to the effect that good people unable to defend themselves become easy victims for the bad guys who have plenty of ability to victimize, and gun control only restricts the good people. It is one of those good intentions producing unintended bad consequences things.
Thanks. I've heard him talk, and thought he was pretty straight-forward about several issues--but those sounded a little difficult to reconcile.
Thanks for the heads-up abt the book.
I didn't have opportunity to read it word for word, actually, and I am not very familiar with him. I did like what I did read though.
nimh wrote:WhoodaThunk wrote:The point being ...
How condescending to submit your approved news sources.
Perhaps you'd like to suggest an approved reading list, too?
The point being, I believe, that a website that appears to be that of Al-Jazeera is probably not - always good to catch something like that before you start going on false assumptions, right?
Important to keep in mind before forming or strengthening your take on either the subject or Al-Jazeera on the basis of it, I mean. <shrugs>
Precisely Nimh. Especially having been fooled myself.
Jesus wept.
I thought we had a theme going back there:
A free press is part of, and a prerequisite for, a healthy society.
In the light of the Guardian article, and as evidenced by the Gannon scandal, a free press does not exist in the US.
McTag--
That's sort of crazy. We've heard 27 versions of the Gannon thing. Just because the McTag approved version isn't in the Guardian--suddenly the US doesn't have a free press?
<purses lips>
Well, not sure who "we" is, McTag - but I would have thought that the sheer diversity and multiplicity of the American press guaranteed some freedom - and a variety of viewpoints!
Not so sure about Great Britain - you have the Murdoch blight... but - again, you have such a big population, and I assume a multiplicity of viewpoints?
In Oz, with our small population, we are dominated by the Murdoch/Packer media barons. I know my media analysis here is out of date, cos Just Wonders caught me in an egregious error in another thread (blush) - so I daren't say who owns what, since I know I am out of date.
Up until now, we have had some protection and some insurance of diversity since government regulations forbade companies from owning more than a certain number of outlets - so you couldn't have most TV AND newspapers, for instance. The current conservative federal government has signalled its intention to overturn this - and it will have both houses from July. I think this a disaster for diversity in Oz media. But - we have never - cos of sheer population size - had anything like you guys enjoy!!!! One of the most fabulous benefits of the net, for me, has been getting easy access to media worldwide - what a feast!
I noted, though, on a documentary about the Pentagon and the media, that the US has, it seems, a lot of "vertical ownership" - ie a lot of examples of a few comapnies owning TV AND newspapers AND publishing houses. The program commented, in passing, that this is tending to narrow diversity of viewpoint in the US - especially as many folk do not know that the same companies are providing their material through so many different channels.
Don't know what Americans think of this?
Right-wingers fulminate against "liberal bias" in the US press yet from outside, it looks like precisely the opposite is true.
There is multiplicity, to be sure, but the main national outlets seem to be the province of the conservatives.
This is the passage in The Guardian I was referring to:
"The Bush White House is the most opaque - allowing the least access for reporters - in living memory. Every news organisation has been intimidated, and reporters who have done stories the administration finds discomfiting have received threats about their careers. The administration has its own quasi-official state TV network in Fox News; hundreds of rightwing radio shows, conservative newspapers and journals and internet sites coordinate with the Republican apparatus."
My point is, when the administration will go to the lengths they did in the Gannon affair, and manage their message in the news that way and by other means, and the press is complicit or supine, then how can we say that the press is free and operating as it should? It is clearly not doing that.
