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Because the IOC can’t seem to bring itself to administer a simple cheek swab test we have to continue to put up with this rolling travesty against women.
The legacy media’s performance is Pravda level of disinformation, bias, and shoddy reporting. Democracies need media to be objective and report the facts of what happenes regardless of ‘which side’ was involved.
For context –
You’d think they would get tired being wrong and laughed at all the time, but, they get full marks for their tenacious grasp on Stupid streaked with partisan politics, of course.
Hey media friends, did you all just here that slight popping noise? That was my cerebral cortex disconnecting itself from all of its higher functions after viewing this lovely clip on CNN about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. This is what happens when news is cobbled together out of speculation, innuendo and whatever the editors at CNN pull out of their ass.
Speaking of pulling things out of one’s anal sphincter, Fox News puts in a shiny second place performance by shamelessly fabricating nonsense about Noah’s Arc with regards to the important shipwrecked discoveries of humanity. It is nice that Fox services its base so adroitly with its biblical bullshit as opposed to the sciency-tinfoil hat bullshit that CNN recently extruded.
Manufactured stupid stories like this is why we need private and pubic broadcasters in the market.
Sometimes news just isn’t colourful or exciting. Those who relentlessly chase ratings will shamelessly confabulate stories in their never ending hunt for advertising dollars. This is where a pubic broadcaster can shine as it is still necessary to know what is going on in the world without having to chase flashy phantom stories that attract eyeballs, but not intelligence.
Set phasers to bloviate!
The problem with “Climategate” and the rest of the braying noises emanating from the general direction of the climate denialist camp is that their claims are false. Being factually incorrect is not a particularly deep concern for fox news, but in science it matters. It matters a lot. The ‘scandalous’ emails circulated through the media were presented stripped of context and manipulated to be viewed in the worst possible light. If one propagandist reporter had actually bothered to do their homework they would have quickly seen the emails for what they were, mere correspondence between scientists, no booga-booga conspiracy attached.
17 minutes is a long time for a video, but well worth the view if you at all interested in the actual facts of the manufactured Climategate hullabaloo.
The American public is starved for actual news. The conservative propaganda mill that masquerades as fox news is the premier example of a society that is becoming insular and uncritical of its policy and place in the world. For a country that purports to value the idea of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas, the US certainly seems to define Al-Jazzera outside the acceptable limits of discourse for the public.
“The network has been targeted by the US government since 2003, when former vice president Dick Cheney and former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld described it as tantamount to an arm of al-Qaeda.
Two of its reporters were later killed in Baghdad when US missiles hit its office. Al Jazeera and others voiced suspicions that the channel’s reporters had been deliberately targeted.
And, to this day, Al Jazeera, which, together with BBC News, has become one of the premier global outlets for serious television news, is virtually impossible to find on televisions in the US.
The country’s major cable and satellite companies refuse to carry it – leaving it with US viewers only in Washington, DC and parts of Ohio and Vermont – despite huge public demand.”
Ah, that must be the market making the correct decision about the needs and wants of its consumers. Or perhaps it is the politics that actually drive the market as a opposed to the cherished notion of supply demand.
“The station’s US push could hardly be more necessary – to Americans. By being denied the right to watch Al Jazeera, Americans are being kept in a bubble, sealed off from the images and narratives that inform the rest of the world. Consider the recent scandal surrounding atrocity photos taken by US soldiers in Afghanistan, which are now available on news outlets, including Al Jazeera, around the globe.
In America, there have been brief summaries of the fact that Der Spiegel has run the story. But the images themselves – even redacted to shield the identities of the victims – have not penetrated the US media stream. And the images are so extraordinarily shocking that failing to show them – along with graphic images of the bombardment of children in Gaza, say, or exit interviews with survivors of Guantanamo – keeps Americans from understanding events that may be as traumatic to others as the trauma of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Not surprising, as the forces of the status-quo do not need inflammatory images stirring up the population. Seeing the actual face of American foreign policy and what it is responsible for might waken the good altruism in the American people and have them demand a stop to the atrocities committed in their name.
“For example, the leading US media outlets, including the New York Times, have not seen fit to mention that one of the photos shows a US soldier holding the head of a dead Afghan civilian as though it were a hunting trophy.
So, for America’s sake, I hope that Al Jazeera penetrates the US media market. Unless Americans see the images and narratives that shape how others see us, the US will not be able to overcome its reputation as the world’s half-blind bully.
Indeed, Egyptians are in some ways now better informed than Americans (and, as Thomas Jefferson often repeated, liberty is not possible without an informed citizenry). Egypt has 30 newspapers and more than 200 television channels.
America’s newspapers are dying, foreign news coverage has been cut to three or four minutes, at most, at the end of one or two evening newscasts, and most of its TV channels are taken up with reality shows.”
The people of America are good decent people, but are purposefully being kept in the dark about what their role in the world is and how their corporations and government are acting internationally.
“Americans have a hunger for international news; it is a myth that we can’t be bothered with the outside world. Maybe Americans will rise up and threaten to boycott their cable and satellite providers unless we get our Al Jazeera – and other carriers of international news.
We would then come one step closer to being part of the larger world – a world that, otherwise, will eventually simply leave us behind.”
Hey, quick, how does a internal combustion work in layman’s terms. You have 1 minute to get in all the pertinent information. Go!
Obviously, decisions are going to be made about what content to keep and how to say as much as possible with the time allotted. Climate change is like describing an internal combustion engine in 1 minute, only that that the science behind climate change is much more complex. Our media is guilty of not doing their homework on Climate Change. Potholer54 gets us more up to date on what the science actually says, as opposed to media mistranslations and inaccuracies.
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