Posted on 08/20/2005 7:20:04 PM PDT by FairOpinion
WASHINGTON - As the battle for Iraq's future plays out half a world away, the American news media are caught in the crossfire at home.
War supporters accuse journalists of undercutting the troops by highlighting problems and ignoring progress in Iraq. War opponents also are unhappy. They say the media failed to question the need for war and sanitize the conflict by refusing to show gruesome scenes of carnage.
Opinions about media coverage split along party lines. A nationwide poll by the Pew Research Center in October 2003 found that a solid majority of Republicans - 55 percent - felt that the news media were "making the situation in Iraq seem worse" than it really was. Only 28 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of self-described independent voters felt that way.
"The daily attention to the negative might obscure the big picture, or it might be the big picture. My gut tells me it is too negative," he said. Noyes said he'd like to see more stories about the successes in Iraq - new schools, signs of normal life and other positive developments - along with the stories about car bombs and death.
He also worries about the impact on public opinion from negative stories.
"What is the enemy's strategy? It's to sap the public will by nibbling away at it," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
But the fact that this article was even written, shows that the MSM IS worried.
I was tempted to put this into Frontpage news, because it is major news that the MSM is worried. But I didn't, because there are arguments for it not being Frontpage news too.
But I would appreciate your taking a look and if you think it wouldn't hurt on a Sat night to be in Frontpage news, you can upgrade it, so more people can see it, or just leave it where it is.
Thanks.
I do have a certain amount of Schedenfreude. :)
They just don't get it.
They don't realize that the majority of people don't want to lose this war just to "get" President Bush.
The MSM is like a kid that has had its ice cream taken away from it. The Dems are dying, they are losing elections and the MSM's influence on managed information flow to the American public has declined drastically. As the liberal institutions they are, they are fast becoming dinosaurs, and very obvious ones at that.
They just cannot handle it.
A couple corrections.
Why did you excerpt it at all? It's pretty unlikely that we'll put a selectively edited story in front page news.
I've been taking a commuter train into Chicago for decades, hardly anyone reads the morning newspapers anymore, not anywhere near as much as they did 30 years ago.
I haven't watched an entire network newscast in over 20 years, and I'd have to be paid before I would do it again.
With the internet, the MSM is extremely nervous, but they've been hijacked by a bunch of communists, so they can only watch their influence decrease a little more year after year, like the Chinese water torture.
I thank the Good Lord for the alternative conservative outlets, we'd be destroyed if we didn't have them.
Yeah, the old, "Both sides are mad so we must be getting it about right" cannard. What a crock. Tell the truth. The liberals don't like the coverage because of their blinding hatred of the President. Americans can handle the truth, but they also KNOW that there is certain black and white truths, such as good and evil. The MSM daily question whether there really is good and evil, or just shades of gray. In that manner, our actions are morally equvilant to that of Saddam, Osama, or any jihadist.
THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE REPUGNANT MSM!
"It's pretty unlikely that we'll put a selectively edited story in front page news."
===
I never realized that. Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to excerpt Knight Ridder source or not, even if it's actually posted from another site, like Yahoo.
Since excerpting limits the amount one can post, I try to pick some of the more interesting parts, I didn't realize that's a problem.
But I appreciate knowing some of the criteria for frontpage news posting. Some things are obvious, others are more in a gray area.
The Independent also opposed the war on Yugoslavia, and did so fairly intelligently, I thought.
That's the parent paper of our New Zealand Herald - the UK Independent is also more left-leaning than al-Guardian. I can confirm that the Left in New Zealand (including the current Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark, who was still in opposition then) were up in arms denouncing Clinton of being an imperialist during Kosovo. Tell that to any US leftist you meet next time when he starts to say Clinton was loved.
In fact I can respect a consistent leftist media even if they are wrong. What I can't stand is the stance of US media which treats what every leftist politician in power says or does as gospel. One minite they appear to be centrist, next minute it is left-leaning.
Great for a tag line or tee shirt. Thanks.
Instead, they've only done more of the same, only louder.
It's fun to watch, and even more fun to occasionally poke 'em with a pointy stick, like this poll.
They won't recover from this.
In 2000 I began praying for the destruction of the liberal American media. Where are their star anchormen today?
Here's the list of restricted sources:
The criteria for front page articles here is not a firm and hard rule. Basically, it is for articles that you might expect to be on the front page of your newspaper. Big time stuff. It's also for articles that would appear on the front page of your newspaper if it wasn't such a leftist rag.
That leaves a grey area. And that's what keeps me employed. I move stuff there or take it off based on that kind of rationale.
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