I don't know...we sure have seen a hell of a lot of gatherings of Arabic folks burning U.S. flags and images of Bush. There appears to be LOTS of folks at these events. And they seem to be quite bent on violence. It seems everday there's some such riot in every nation in the Middle East and through Central Asia.
I'm sure that is true. There are plenty of anti-US demonstrations and plenty of people who don't like us. The job of the news, however, is to keep us watching. Images of Arabs going about their daily lives don't make for good television. You would think that by all the coverage it gets on the news that a fairly large percentage of Americans are sex offenders. Every other day there is a story on TV or in the paper about sex offenders in neighborhoods, schools, being watched by the police, being arrested and on and on. From all those reports, you'd think that your neighbor is a sex offender. That simply isn't the case. I have a friend who worked in media (news radio specifically) for many years. He told me that his boss used to remind everyone that "our job is to scare people." The idea was that you wanted people so afraid to miss the news that they were compelled to keep it on. If you ever saw the movie Scrouged with Bill Murray, there is a scene where he shows a promo ad for their version of A Christmas Carol and he goes on a rant about how he wants people to be terrified not to watch it. That is what most people in the news business want - for us to be scared not to watch. The more pictures they can show that piss us off or scare us to death, the better for their ratings and the higher their ad rates go. It's capitalism at its ugliest.
The Palestinians cheering was NOT a hoax, as was pointed out in this thread before (with link). I also personally heard from people in Germany and Denmark who have seen Arabs celebrating the attacks. We should not underestimate the hatred many people have in them. Unfortunately, it is not just 20 or 100 people. There are a lot more.
To clarify, I did not mean to say that a majority of the Arab or Muslim world is behind such attacks. But it is also not just a tiny number of people.
Equal time... http://www.warroomcentral.com/images/indians.jpg I ripped that from Limbaugh's site (of all places) when I was desperate to put an image (of somthing besides the WTC) up on the first day of my site. The caption is his. I gave him full credit of course. Is it just me, or are you feeling a little diffrent about Kashmir lately (and I don't mean the Led Zepplin song)? Demonstrations against militant Islamisists are nothing new in India. Funny how the two pariahs of the region, Israel and India are also the only democratic governments. Love them or hate them, at least they have free elections...
Jeff, Do you really think that they actually want us to be too scared not to watch? I have not heard of that theory yet. It makes people feel good to see other countries support them, why not show marches in support? Maybe they do, but maybe what we remember are the celebrations against us? Maybe your mind's eye recognizes that it must focus on threats more than support? Or maybe the media recognizes that we are more concerned by threats and that is why they show this? IMHO, I do not believe that the decision on what to air is driven by 'ugly capitalism'. I think that they determine what is news-worthy, and what we are interested in. Personally, I saw video of Arafat giving blood and the picture of the Palestinian women kneeling at a memorium for the attacks as much as I saw the cheering Palestinians. If you want to stand on a soapbox, make certain that the reports are not biased by the media's political views. I think that is far more dangerous. That is one reason that I like to read other country's newspapers on the internet.
Cohen, Look what just happened with the India "False Alarm" Hijacking. There was no false alarm, just a bunch of dumbass media people trying to get the story out. Im sick of the media blowing everything out of proportion. During the attack on the WTC, I was crapping in my pants with all the stuff that was "said" to be going on...car bombs, other flights hijacked ect ... All we live off is the media. We don't live off the facts. We scour the internet, the newspapers to hear what they say. They control what goes on in the world, not the terrorist or the government. Makes you wonder with the things like the rodney king, or the riots in cincinatti. Maybe there wasn't unjust, only media people trying to get the biggest story out. The sad thing is, this will lead to censureship of the media (who would have ever dreamed that majority of the American people would agree in strong numbers to give up their rights and privacy at airports) Anyways, enough venting.
Space Ghost, Who was the 'dumbass' on the false hijacking? Didn't the pilot had locked the cockpit door to keep the hijackers out and the Inidan government respond with commandos? Where was the media getting their information from? Anyway, I certainly did not defend all of the media's actions, or even its accuracy. I porposed other reasons as to they are inaccurate, misleading, or lack perspective.
I'm saying that it is a known fact in the industry. Ask any person who has worked in the media (broadcast media in particular) what their job is. They will tell you. Ratings drive the industry. The higher the ratings, the higher the ad revenues. Why do you think that they run the most controversial "reports" during sweeps week? There is certainly an element of news-worthiness to the decision making but that is only a small part of the process. For example, if someone is arrested for child molestation, that is usually one of the top stories. If he/she is exhonerated of the charges, that is lucky to make the news at all. Isn't the second story just as newsworthy? Shouldn't we all know that this person wasn't really the right person? Understand that this isn't to suggest the reporters are necessarily at fault. Most of the time, it is the people in charge that make the decisions on what is worthy or reporting. But, just watch an average news cast on any given night locally. Don't you wonder why they still show a house fire or a car fire on tv if they manage to get it on camera? Fires are still one of the biggest draws for the news media because it is a spectacle. Probably the most classic case of ridiculous journalism was during the floods caused by Allison. You had these idiot reporters standing out in the middle of waist deep water saying, "You should NOT go in the water!" I mean, it was nuts. Trust me that the media believes its job is not just to report the news but to create the interest surrounding the news. They prioritize based on how scary, graphic or titilating it is. There is an OLD saying in the news business, "If it bleeds, it leads" meaning if it is a story with violent content (i.e. bleeding), it gets the highest priority. That saying doesn't exist for nothing.
Like it or not, not everyone is behind the US for this, for various reasons. There WERE people cheering in the street, there are Pakistani's protesting against their leader for siding with the U.S. Americans aren't liked and not everyone will feel sorry for us.
gr8: I don't think I was debating that. My issue isn't with the validity of the claim that "American's aren't liked." Anyone naive enough not to believe that isn't paying attention. My argument is that much of what we are seeing in the media is shown to keep us watching. It is the nature of media and its desire to increase ratings, not a way to help protect us or keep us informed.
Jeff, I will not entirely disagree with that statement, but certainly there are different degrees of how it is applied. For instance, the nightly, national news may often start with a less sensational but more important political story out of DC. The more sensational local news may put the gory stuff first, then move on to the less sensational stories. Regardless, if they applied this rule ALL of the time, all we would see is 'COPS' when we turned the news on, and you would have to go to the Net for your weather forecast. There is a mix of sensational news with the non-sensational, important news in every newscast, and the balance (or imbalance) varies. Also, what you call 'ugly capitalism' I perceive is more like 'give the people what they want'. If we want to see the fire or blood first, maybe that is because there is something in us that makes this the most important, relevant news for us. But the real question here is whether we were mislead. Your strongly titled example of 'a HOAX!!!' may not have been a good selection to prove your point. I have only seen the 1 video and 1 still photo from a different area entirely where Palestinians were celebrating, but the multiple reports of the PLO confiscating cameras of other reporters raises sufficient skepticism of your claim. Again, I would be more concerned with reporting bias due to political or moral views than to playing the ratings game. I think the former leads to many more instances of false or misleading reports than the latter.
Jeff, I was a journalism major, so I am somewhat biased. I think there's a misconception that journalists are muckrakers or troublemakers. Yes, the bloddy story will lead, but like it or not, that is what interests us. I know we all got sick of the OJ story, but that was the first thing talked about at the water cooler during that period. The media is a reflection of us, not the other way around. I commend CNN and other sites to bring us full coverage of the events. I wanna see what the reactions were in Afghanistan and other countries abroad. The media doesn't Make the news, they report it.
