The US, UN & Iraq III

There was a interesting program on t.v. yesterday, and the topic was Iraq. The panel was made up of some high-flying VIP's, and they all agreed that most of us in the west do no understand the Middle East nor its people. For those of us interested in learning about the problems of the Middle East, it would be necessary to understand the viewpoints of Al-Jazeera. Otherwise, we are only sticking our heads in the sand. c.i.

News item for Perception:

LONDON (Reuters) - The head of the BBC launched a broadside against American broadcasters on Thursday, accusing them of "unquestioning" coverage of the Iraq war and blatant patriotism.

BBC Director General Greg Dyke said many U.S. television networks had lacked impartiality during the conflict and risked losing credibility if they persisted with their stance.

"Personally I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war," Dyke said in a speech at a University of London conference.

"If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism. This is happening in the United States and if it continues, will undermine the credibility of the U.S. electronic news media."

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=2624777



"He that has ears to hear, let him hear"

Have you heard it said, that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel? I wonder why they say that?

you got a frog in your pocket perception?

McTag

Just a bit of information about our news reporting here in the US---The major networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS normally have only 30 minutes of International news at Prime time in the evening with afilitates giving the local news periodically during the day for 30 minutes. The 30 minute segments are notoriously biased to the left. FOX 24 hr news channel has given a lot right wing balance to that left wing bias which was also given by CNN. During the war MSNBC suddenly noticed the shift in the wind and started giving more of the right wing views---they want to follow the money and they suddenly realized that the majority average citizen in the US is tired of having the left wing point of view "shoved down their throats" and found FOX very refreshing.

The real news comes from 3, 24 hr news channels on cable. CNN, MSNBC, and FOX. During the war all 3 gave a lot of play to Baghdad Bob and I was actually quite upset that we couldn't knock him off the air. Then I found out that Kofi Anon had OK'd a big expenditure of the "Oil for food" money for TV equipment. They obviously put that equipment to good use with multiple transmitters around the country with Antennaes hidden in mosques, schools and hospitals. Then it all came to a huge climax the night before they pulled down Saddam's statue. Baghdad Bob was giving his big lie one more time and they had a split screen showing a US soldier being interviewed and he was telling Baghdad Bob to look out the window as Bob was telling the Iraqi people that the US was stalled well outside Baghdad ---- never heard from "Bob" again. Too bad.

In the US, everything is driven by $$$$$$, and nothing else. c.i.

McTag

Regarding BBC----up until the war I had respected the BBC news as being factual and timely.

I was shocked to see and hear how biased the editorial comment of BBC front office was----far left.

Glad to say though that their news broadcasts are still factual and unbiased.

That guy Greg Dyke needs to listen to the BBC editorial comments----but of course it's at his direction and he will fire anyone who is not sufficiently left wing----ask anyone who knows anything about the people in the front office of BBC.

What would Perception do if he actually encountered the REAL left!! You think General Electric and Disney are gonna have "left" networks? Hmmm. Can anyone here think of a genuinely "left" mainstream news broadcast?

C. I.

Where does your retirement check come from?

perception if you go to google and type in (Fox news, bias) you will get 74,600 hits. take your pick.

Dys wrote:
perception if you go to google and type in (Fox news, bias) you will get 74,600 hits. take your pick.

Dys:
I just did as you suggested and this is what I came up with:



Started By: HiTech
Date: Sep 26, 2002 12:45 PM
For many years, myself and millions of other Americans have rightfully proclaimed and proved that there is a liberal bias in the media.

Certainly the major noncable news networks, i.e., - NBC,CBS,ABC - are horribly biased toward the left.

And the major cable, all-news channels such as CNN and MSNBC also have a liberal slant to the news. This has frustrated conservatives for many years because it simply is not fair. It is not fair because the media is a very powerful medium that can influence people's views of the world.

What is really laughable about CNN and MSNBC is that whenever they are questioned about their obvious and blatant bias, they deny it and attempt to ridicule their accusers. In their arrogance, they simply chose to deny that they of all people, are not objective and are biased and they simply refused to listen to the American people.

Then came FOX news. What a breath of fresh air! And what do we hear from the loony left now about FOX? "Fox is biased!", or "What an outrage!"

Bias comes in subtle ways. Bias from CNN and MSNBC comes in many forms. For example:

1. The way so called journalists ask a question and the tone of the voice. Their manner of reporting essentially boils down to the proverbial question "are you STILL beating your wife?"

2. How the news is reported.

3. What to report and what not to report.

4. In their token effort to provide both sides, they select articulate communicators for the left and bumbling idiots who are ineffective communicators for the right. (Although it could be argued even the best of the left is idiotic, but I won't go there)

I guess you would consider the BBC "far left" if your compass was Fox News.

You could conclude that the BBC was "far left" if your compass point was Fox News. Why not listen to other points of view? Just because our media doesn't allow us to hear it, doesn't mean we should not. Question, question, question. I want to scream this QUESTION from the highest mountain, the highest tree until people understand that it is most important for a free society to do this!

perception, I doubt very much we need to read other people's perception of their bias of American news media. We just need to watch what happens with news items such as Laci Peterson. They all jump on the same bandwagon, and report the same news over, and over, and over, and over...... c.i.

c.i.

Thanks for your reply. As regarding your post of Thu Apr 24, 2003 7:33 pm in which you state:



I am not sure I understand your question; perhaps you can be more specific. However, it seems that you are implying that Saddam should not have been removed from power because other nations have WMD OR are Tyrannies OR support terrorism.
Please do not allow me to speak for you. I look forward to your clarification.

Please keep in mind my argument implies the logical operator AND. Therefore ALL conditions must resolve to TRUE in order for one to find the entire compound conditional statement TRUE (i.e. The Nation subjected to consideration is a candidate for regime change). You seem to imply an argument using the OR operator, implying that only one condition (Tyrannical OR possession of WMD OR Supporting terrorism) resolve to TRUE for a nation to be subject to the above action.

Lastly your point citing the fact 9/11 was carried out by Saudis does not speak to a criteria of regime change necessitated by reason of state supported terrorism. A Saudi national's participation in an Al Qaeda terrorist attack does not prove Saudi Arabia's support or even complicity in the act.

JM

good for you perception, the fact that i recommmend a search that would find both sides of the issue speaks of my wishing an unbiased resource. that you selected one that only supports your view is also indictative of you.

Here's what really happened in US news reporting. Since the early fifties, NBC, CBS and ABC presented a nightly newscast. Some of us remember John Cameron Swayze hopscotching across the headlines and Edward R. Murrow's insightful interviews predated Larry King by forty years. In the sixties there were other giants Huntley and Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, and Barbara Walters among others and what they and their reporters did was present the news.
That's right, the news. Good news for the current administration, they put it on the air, bad news for the current administration, they aired it. How can you tell that they aired all the sides of the political realm? No one in politics liked the newscasters. JFK and LBJ railed against the reporter as did Richard Nixon. The liberal Hubert Humphry decried the bias of the media in the campaign of 1968 long before Spiro Agnew's famous nattering nabobs speech. Jimmy Carter, not exactly a neoconservative, was reported on with the same dispatch as was the fall of Richard Nixon. The three media giants aired nightly reports on the growth of the deficit and inflation rates of 21%. Jimmy gave a televised speech in which he derided the air of gloom the media had presented, but we all knew things were pretty gloomy. Conservatives forget that the left was getting theirs as well as the right. They say they are in favor of the First amendment but are offended by anyone expressing dissent from the party line. And they couldn't, still don't, believe that their hero Nixon had to wave bye-bye from the steps of that helicopter.
That's when they really started this drumbeat of liberal bias in the media, after Nixon's disgrace, but we've discussed all these issues elsewhere.
So now comes FOX as alternative, but alternative to what, the truth?
What's really nice about the current situation is that FOX doesn't make any bones about being a conservative voice, they and their owner know and admit they are, it's their viewers who deny that FOX has any bias. That must really be amusing to Mr. murdoch.
And it's okay with me if FOX and to a lesser extent CNN bark the party line with the flags waving in the background and the anchors deeply intoning doubts about any other media outlet, this is America, I've got more news outlets than I can shake a stick at. If I watch enough and read enough I will problably have a better handle on the truth than someone who onlys sucks on FoX's nipple.
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How come there isn't a liberal 24 hour a day news channel? That's a contradiction in terms. There isn't liberal news because liberals insist on seeing all sides of an issue, that our glory and perhaps our fatal flaw. Ask Bill Clinton how well the liberal biased media helped defend him during his term in office. ....
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NOW
how many here are in favor of an Shi'a Islamic government in Iraq and why or why not?

Joe

I am not completely against a Shi'a govt and figurehead,...

But, they must adopt human and civil rights. What concerns me about these Islamic gov'ts is the murder and mayhem and ethnic cleansing.

If some Shi'a faction could come to the table with a party platform that included equal treatment for all religions and laws that precluded hangings and beatings and indefinite jailings for religious infractions, I wouldn't disagree.

Joe Nation wrote:

How come there isn't a liberal 24 hour a day news channel? That's a contradiction in terms. There isn't liberal news because liberals insist on seeing all sides of an issue, that our glory and perhaps our fatal flaw.

Wrong----It's because most of America wouldn't watch it---they've had enough liberalism to last a lifetime.

Now about the type of gov't in Iraq----do you mean a Shia gov't like the one in Iran where the Ayatolahs control everything including the press? Tell me is that the type of gov't you mean?

C.I. wrote:

In the US, everything is driven by $$$$$$, and nothing else. c.i.

Do you have a dislike for money? Where does your retirement check come from C. I. ?

VNN wrote:

You could conclude that the BBC was "far left" if your compass point was Fox News. Why not listen to other points of view?

If you really want to know VNN I would like nothing better than to have just the facts as they know them to be reported to me----let me decide--thank you very much.

No---they won't do that----everyone including you wants to influence me--they perceive that as giving them a certain amount of power and that's what it's all about ---- not money----POWER.

As for your implication that I don't question---again you're wrong. All during any controversial subject being reported on----I survey as many sources as I possibly can (except Al Jazeera) and if I could understand Arabic I would watch them just to satisfy my curiosity. After my survey of any particular subject I found that FOX most consistently reported with the best accuracy---not always the most timely. When there was doubt they made a point of saying they could not confirm it several times mostly when they were reporting on an alleged discovery of WMD or when reporting US casualties or when reporting on particular battles or resistence.

All you folks who think you're getting the straight info from Al Jazeera----can you understand Arabic? When you get a translation---how do know if the translation is correct? Just like the bit today of arab kids insulting our troops in arabic and then laughing that our troops thought otherwise. How do you know they're not laughing at you? Do you question that VNN?