Unless and untill we hold the media accountable, nothing will ever change.
This might be of particular note to those in the San Francisco, CA Bay Area.
This was the newspaper that a couple of weeks ago issued a description of a suspect that gave every vital statistic about him except that he was black.
Knight Ridder's coverage has been shamelessly biased. I have been saddend and deeply disappointed in its one sided outlook. They could do better.
Latest from...
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/
HUGE IRAQI MAJORITY SUPPORTS CONSTITUTION
... so much so that the election commission is "investigating "unusually high" vote totals" of over 90% in some provinces, and and the NYTimes plays it up as "possibility that the results of the referendum could be called into question". Actually, no; there is no evidence at all to call the election into question. None:
"The statement made no mention of the possibility of fraud, but said results were being re-examined to comply with internationally accepted standards. Election officials say that under those standards, voting procedures should be re-examined anytime a candidate or a ballot question got more than 90 percent of the vote."
If merely crossing the 90% level of support is a cause for suspicion, then you would find many Congressmen and many inner-city precincts are in the 'suspicious' category. So the numbers are not the issue, the issue is simply is there any potential of invalid votes.
These allegations of voting fraud are not based on evidence but the knee-jerk whining from the same Iraqi Sunni front groups that have given implicit support to terrorists while undermining the US and Iraqi Government. They should be given the same credence as other anti-democratic forces would get in our country if they decried a "phony election" without evidence.
Consider the lack of motive: The measure had support that was strong enough that there was no doubt it would command a majority. (This is possibly why turnout was moderate in some Shiite-dominated provinces, the people there knew their vote wasn't critical. In provinces where there was a chance the measure would fail by getting 2/3rds rejected, there was a strong turnout.) It was pointless to rack up large majorities there.
There is no attempt to share the actual positive results here, just sow confusion through partial and distorted reporting. Another example of a media that slights good news in favor of negative bias.
Every monday, the Conta Costa Times picks a prominent liberal figure of the Bay Area, and awards her (yes, it's usually a her) a spot on the front page known as the "Monday Profile." It's usually some 'activist' of one type or another. Also, although the Contra Costa Times is supposed to serve Contra Costa County (hence the name, Contra Costa Times'), they accept (and often publish) letters from Berkeley, which is in Alameda County, because they tend to be more politically aligned with the newspapers apparent goals.
"Unless and untill we hold the media accountable, nothing will ever change."
I held this paper accountable years ago by cancelling my subscription. They still call me and I get to hold them accountable all over again!
At some point I ended up on their mailing list and took to stuffing their self-addressed envelopes with trash and mailing it back to them so that they would have to pick up the postage.