India and Pakistan at it again

[RawAlex]

Colin, while the media in many places has a problem with not covering all news (I live in Quebec, where the French media often doesn't seem to think anything happens outside of this province... )

However, I do feel that the American media is often "lead by the nose" to the news of the day - less of looking at the global picture, and more about reporting on what was served to them. Too much of the modern US media is victimized by the way that politicians, and specifically the White House, control the news cycle to get their stories out there... and as a result, other stories don't get reported at all.

Remember that most Americans still get their news from a half hour national news cast (combined viewership of CNN and foxnews in a 24 hour period during this war still doesn't even come close to the average audience for CBS evening news). The objective of the politicians is to try to jam as much favorable news into that time frame, by putting out as many press releases, reports, leaks, interviews, quotes, and public events to make sure that the media has too much to report - they want to put as many quotes and sound bites out there which will help shape the news of the day.

It happens in almost all countries with a free press. I feel that in the US, since the time of Bush Sr, there has been less and less "reporting" and more time spent just moving cameras from press event to press event. They take that tape and fill in the spaces with talking heads expressing opinion not fact - and that opinion is more often than not formed by the background material provided in the press conference. Not very much digging, much more "reporting what we were given".

With this aparatus in place, it is hard to get any coverage for a war in African countries, unless it reaches the level of genocide. Realize that the deaths of 72 people in what amounts to a civil war was buried far into the CNN site... (click on the small world news link that most people don't realize they can click, and then scroll all the way down the page) http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/03/27...reut/index.html

But, on the front page of the CNN site, you get a direct link to:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/03/27/m...reut/index.html

"The U.S. government has won back a tiny lump of 3.9-billion-year-old moon rock brought to Earth by the crew of Apollo 17 and stolen years ago from the government of Honduras, U.S. officials said on Wednesday"

A moon rock is more important than 72 lives? Apparently!

Alex



Last edited by RawAlex at Mar 27 2003, 05:50 PM