Posted on 07/13/2005 3:22:11 PM PDT by CorbyCard
The Live 8 concerts were tuned to a rare collaboration of politics and music. Organizer and rock star Bob Geldof used the July 2, 2005, event to pressure wealthy nations into increasing foreign aid to Africa. The international performance left the TV media seeing stars and unable to report on Live 8 as anything other than a “good cause.”
News people awed by celebrities delivered one-sided accounts about African poverty that were light on facts and heavy on promotion. Even after the event, journalists carried this skewed outlook to the G-8 conference harping on America’s “low” foreign aid and criticizing the U.S. stance on global warming.
The Media Research Center’s Free Market Project analyzed all TV news and news-related programs on the five major networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox News – for a two-week span leading up to the Live 8 concerts and ending just after the G-8 meeting.
* TV Leads the Cheer for African Aid: More than one third of all stories on Live 8 or the G-8 meeting that followed (43 out of 121) emphasized the concerts weren’t about money, when nothing could be further from the truth. Live 8 was perhaps the biggest fund-raiser in history, but journalists bought the hype.
* Meet the Press…Release: News people didn’t just promote Live 8; they relied on phrases spouted by concert organizers or found in Live 8 press releases. The concerts weren’t part of a fund-raiser; they were “raising awareness” as part of Africa’s “long walk to justice.” If the networks had been concerned with justice they wouldn’t have ignored the fact that Live 8’s predecessor, Live Aid, worked with the Ethiopian government of Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, who is still wanted for the crime of genocide. Only one story even mentioned Mengistu.
(Excerpt) Read more at freemarketproject.org ...
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