"US Media Blues"

[MrChristo]

I recommend you see this documentary if anyone here gets the chance.

Now, straight up...disclaimer is that it's a French doco, and slightly anti-Bush in the lead-up to the election.....
...BUT...I didn't know it was French until after I watched it the second time...And it's less about politics than it is about one of my all time favourite 'hate' topic:
Journalism....and the fact that there is NO SUCH THING as unbias, independant jounalism in main-stream media.

Think about it....News is as much about ratings as any other tv show...hell, 'newspapers' are a medium all to themselves.
How do they make $$ ? Selling copies and advertising. The more they sell the more $$ ad's bring in.
How do you sell more copies??...By telling the people what they want to hear.
Obviously, same goes for network 'news', and 'news' channels.
'News' is now more about entertainment, sensationalism, and telling people what they want to hear than reporting facts.

Sorry...Bit of a rant there, but it does bring me to the point I wanted to make.

The symbolic razing of the statue of Saddam when US forces entered Bagdad.
Mobs of Iraqi people dancing with US troops and pulling down the statue for the world to see, right?

Bzzzz. Wrong. The documentary showed camera angles and shots that were never shown in the main-stream meadia.
The streets were EMPTY!! There was not another person within sight anywhere in the city!
There was simply a group of about 100 people in the square...Most of whom were US soldiers.
The "Liberated Iraqi's" were drivers and translators for the soldiers. :clap:

It was a 100%, totally staged for TV production.

Even down to the finer details....Before the statue was pulled down, soldiers first placed the US flag over his head, then the Iraqi flag.
Why? So the Bush government could choose which shot they would use for their re-election ad campaign. (A shot which I believe they used during the Olympics?? I could be wrong.)

Anyway...As I said, well worth a look if anyone happens to stumble across it one day.

Oh, it's mainly interviews with US 'news' people...I don't know who most of them are, maybe you guys will....
....John Alpert, Carl Bernstein, Thomas Curley, Laura Haim, Chris Hedges, Ted Koppel, Lewis Lapham, John MacArthur, Marcy McGinnis, Scott Ritter, Helen Thomas, Mustapha Tlili & Tom Yellin.

 

[Blitz]

It was a 100%, totally staged for TV production.

Even down to the finer details....Before the statue was pulled down, soldiers first placed the US flag over his head, then the Iraqi flag.
Why? So the Bush government could choose which shot they would use for their re-election ad campaign.

 

[danmurphy jr]

The whole war is choreographed, "embedded journalism", a staged combat parachute jump, bush, kerry campaign rallies, the moron landing on an aircraft carrier. It's called propaganda. The Nazis invented it. No, actually the ancient Chinese invented it. It's a waste of your tax payer money but they don't care, it's their money now. Newspapers contain what their advertisers want it to contain. TV contains what FCC wants it to contain.
This is only my personal layman's opinion and no reason for anyone to become impotent or lose hair over.

 

[Chanman]

It's called propaganda. The Nazis invented it. No, actually the ancient Chinese invented it.

what the??? Now we're the same as the Nazi's? Why you.....YA KNOW JACK SAYS WE'RE SUPPOSED TO GET ALONG :banghead: We invented gun powder, noodles- no Marco Polo brought that back to Italy from guess where- and we're adept@ math. What did you white ppl invent besides Country Western music & patio furniture? *mutters*jive talkin round eye mo fo

 

[kosar]

Last time I checked, Eminem was a 'round eye'.

 

[Blitz]

The whole war is choreographed, "embedded journalism".

If they didn't have the journalists there you would be yelling "What are they trying to hide"... as the old saying goes...damned if you do, damned if you don't...

 

[MrChristo]

If they didn't have the journalists there you would be yelling "What are they trying to hide"... as the old saying goes...damned if you do, damned if you don't...

But there's a difference between independant, neutral reporting, and living, sleeping, eating and being chauffered about by the very people you are reporting on.

Embedded journalism is exactly right.

They see only what the army (or whoever) want them to see.
They don't get taken to see a town where 50 civilians were just killed (example)...and when they are taken somewhere, it's already been sanitised.

I understand the dilema these reporters are in, because if they go out alone they are likely to get kidnapped or killed for being an American, but living within the ranks,you effectively become one of the ranks (calling the coalition forces "we"), and makes objective reporting impossible.

You doubt the tearing down of Saddam's statue was a 'production', Blitz??
Just because you've seen it 20 times, and cheered along, and felt a warm fuzzy feeling for those now 'free' Iraqi's doesn't make it so.

 

[marine]

"They see only what the army (or whoever) want them to see.
They don't get taken to see a town where 50 civilians were just killed (example)...and when they are taken somewhere, it's already been sanitised."

If they (media people) don't get shown what they want to see they simply make up a story about what they thought they wanted to see. So regardless, we are going to hear about children being killed and pet goats being shot.
Just ask CBS how it works.

 

[marine]

The really ironic part about this first post is, and I 100% agree, the media has and always will spin things in one favor or the other depending on the audience they are selling to.

Take this documentary for instance. They are appealing to the anti-bush, anti-war crowd by spinning their footage to give their opinion credibility.

I too can take a video camera at film a street at the break of dawn when everyone is still sleeping and then a year later I can say "Look, this was the day the statue of Saddam fell... no one was dancing in the streets"

Anything can be spun one way or the other. And you admit to that. And yet here you are touting that this "exported Michael Moore" media outlet is the god's honest truth.

 

[MrChristo]

The really ironic part about this first post is, and I 100% agree, the media has and always will spin things in one favor or the other depending on the audience they are selling to.

Take this documentary for instance. They are appealing to the anti-bush, anti-war crowd by spinning their footage to give their opinion credibility.

I too can take a video camera at film a street at the break of dawn when everyone is still sleeping and then a year later I can say "Look, this was the day the statue of Saddam fell... no one was dancing in the streets"

Anything can be spun one way or the other. And you admit to that. And yet here you are touting that this "exported Michael Moore" media outlet is the god's honest truth.

Sorry marine, but that's not right at all. (The statue part anyway!)

The footage was taken from a building top above the square while the statue was being pulled down. You could clearly see it happening. And you could also clearly see that besides this group of 100 or so (mostly American soldiers) there was NOBODY ELSE around.

It was a continuous shot, panning from the statue to the streets and back. No trick editing here I'm afraid.
No idea how you brought Michael Moore into this? :shrug: ....But the statue 'story' IS truthful and perfectly clear for everyone to see.....Just not the people who watch nothing but mainstream media

In fact, as I semi-stated before that was the only real 'truth' in the doco. The rest was mainly conjecture and arguments between US media personalities.


So regardless, we are going to hear about children being killed and pet goats being shot.

But that's just it. We don't! (Well, very rarely!)....Maybe we are starting to, but we definatyely heard of no such thing in the first month or so of the campaign.

I disclosed the 'spin' of the doco at the very start of what I wrote. I know fully what it's writer/producer/director's views were.

Some of us here actually like to see both sides of the story tho (even if they are both distorted!), rather than relying on Fox to give us the evening entertainment of showing coalition forces blowing the crap out of things 20 miles away!...(But don't dare go in there and report what happened from the place on the wrong end of tank and mortar fire! :sadwave: )

 

[danmurphy jr]

Every reply in this thread is valid. I guess it bothers me that the same kind of propaganda heaped on me today has been going on forever.
This invasion has given the media a product to sell advertisers. We now have experts on this that and the other thing. Until this Falujah thing Iraq is on the 2nd or 3rd page. Afghanistan is gone until some kid gets killed or his mom gets arrested for demonstrating.
The government has got to end this thing before the citizenry does it for them. There is no more embedding because it's not very popular anymore(also kind of dangerous)

 

[marine]

I brought moore into it because he is a very good example of how you can take an item and 'spin' it to suit your needs.

Take the number "2" for instance. Someone could come up with a list of things that the number two is good for and make a case for it to the best number around. (i.e, 2 people make a couple in love)
I can take the number 2 and make a list of all the bad things 2 has done (i.e, it takes 2 to tango, world war two) and make it the most evil hated number in the world.

I dunno, maybe I take it too personal, beats me... Watching the news I just hear time and time again about soldiers killing some kid and his pet pig/goat/camel and the only time I have heard that the coalition has killed known terrorists is when the Gov't lets us know.

Maybe I am mentally disturbed, but when I watch Fox news I see much more tolerance to other viewpoints by the people on tv than i do on cbs.
I am not talking about the amount of material covered one way or another, I am talking about TOLERANCE of someone's views. CBS people will jump right down your goddam throat if you even whisper that bush should have been reelected.
Its all a spin, one way or another. I get my news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
He may lean left hard, but at least he has some tolerance and is willing to point out the retardation of both sides.

 

[MrChristo]

I agree completely that you can spin anything anyway....Hell, people get paid BIG $$ to do just that.

Also agree to a certain extent abot the tolerance of views....I better clarify that....I believe 100% that EVERYONE is entitled to their own view....But I think that's where I'm kinda coming from here.

Not everyone's 'view' is [well] informed. (Definately not suggesting this is the case for you, marine). Some people simply have a 'view' because they think they should....Because they are told to.
Some people simply don't go out of their way to look at any facts, and when they see a FACT, they simply dismiss it as not matching their 'views'.

Watching the news I just hear time and time again about soldiers killing some kid and his pet pig/goat/camel and the only time I have heard that the coalition has killed known terrorists is when the Gov't lets us know.

I would have thought we got told about US/coalition casulties MUCH more than Iraqi casulties...even tho they run at anywhere between 5 and 10 times the rate (depending on who you believe).

Besides, those camels are living creatures too you know (lol!!)

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

The only diff between New York Times reporting and Algezeera is NYT hasn't stooped to referring to the terrorists as freedom fighters "yet".

On any given day I can find Algezzera quoting NYT--don't you ever ask yourself why?? Seriously!!!!!!!!

 

[danmurphy jr]

Rent a 1984 movie "Red Dawn" What do you call yourself when someone invades your country?

 

[Eddie Haskell]

One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist. We honor George Washington as an American hero. Tony Blairs great, great, great, great, great, grandfather called him an insurgent, radical, outlaw, treasonous, revolutionary criminal.

Ed

 

[ferdville]

Edward - you are making sense.

 

[Eddie Haskell]

As usual.

Ed

 

[ferdville]

i knew I should never have complimented you!!!!!!!!!

 

[Eddie Haskell]

Why is it that for once I completely agree with one of your posts and you go ranting and raving off the deep end.

Eddie