Abscence Of A Pearl Harbor Moment

[JR]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 17 2003, 02:44 PM
JR: it isn't about what you PERSONALLY do, it is what americans on average do - and they get their news in a half hour around dinenr each day and then watch dateline NBC or 20/20 and think they are informed. That is where the average american finds out what is going on in the world.

Yes, CNN covered the story of the protests... and gave as much coverage to the responses from Condi Rice and GW etc... balanced coverage from an american point of view, I guess.

It isn't about "our news is better than your news", and if that is what you think, you miss the point. The point has to do with the control of the news media by the politicians - not direct ownership or direct ordering, but by controlling the news cycle, they control what the american public in general sees, hears, and understands. They spin stories to create public opinion - and the media are often the willing lapdogs attempting to fill up time in newsmagazines and "debate" programs that don't debate anything.

Alex, thanks for you good bit of information about "how the average american finds out about the world"

i think most average americans would disagree. if fact, i am not sure where your "average american" statistics are from that tell you what they do exactly to "tell themselves they are informed"

BBC is in every home that has cable TV as far as i know (i have never had cable in the US that did not have BBC). Same with CNN. Same with all other local and national news programs.

i am still not 100% sure why you feel the "average Canadian" or the "average Briton" or the "average Eskimo" is MORE informed, does more to inform themselves or why they for some strage reason has a better perspective on life, the universe and everything. I dont know why you feel there is this massive conspiracy on the part of the Government of the United States to "control the news cycle" - and thus the opinions, beliefs and minds of US citizens.

of course i guess its all easy to say when you cannot do better than making vague and unsubstantiated remarks about "the average american"

you continue to talk about the "government controlling the news cycle" - i really dont understand that. i dont understand what information you think is shown on CNN that is not shown on BBC for example, or visa-versa. i was not aware that the government controls what people see. Was the US government controlling what people saw when CNN and BBC and other journalists were reporting on Desert Storm in Iraq directly from the Al Rashid Hotel in Bagdad (which was hit with a cruise missile)? What the government controlling what people saw in Kosovo when they were busy blowing up bus loads of civilians? exactly where does your government conspiracy (presumably a Republican conspiracy) begin and end?

You just said again that the US Government controls what the "american public in general sees, hears, and understands". thats where Colin is saying that you start to sound like the typical 14 year old gallery submitter from Helsinki on GFY.

You are saying the same thing over and over but in different ways.

1) american news cannot be trusted or believed
2) american people cannot be trusted to have an opinion because if they do, it was the direct result of being brainwashed by the government
3) foreign news sources are more credible than that news which can be seen in the US
4) the opinions of Americans are less credible than those of non-Americans.