Posted on 05/02/2003 7:14:53 AM PDT by NotQuiteCricket
The U.S. news media covered the war in Iraq the same way they cover the Olympics—with red, white, and blue trappings, human interest stories, bombastic theme music, and an almost total focus on American accomplishments at the expense of any international context. Around the clock coverage gave the illusion of telling and showing everything and made us forget how little we actually knew.
From watching television, few in the United States could, for example, tell you why the French opposed military action in the Middle East (other than because they are French) or discuss intelligently the political disagreements among the Arab states or tell you whether the number of civilian casualties in this war is greater or less than the number of civilians killed on September 11. In the last Gulf War, researchers at University of Massachusetts found that the more television news people watched, the less likely they were to be able to answer basic questions about the war.
We should not be surprised that the news media has taken an overwhelmingly pro-war stance. The media have historically embraced governmental goals during wartime and asked questions after the fact—if at all. The prevailing trend on the news networks—following the success of Fox News—has been toward an openly partisan approach. The most heavily viewed public affairs shows today are not newscasts but crossfire discussion programs which—whether from the right (mostly), the center (rarely), or the left (hardly ever)—seem exempt from traditional journalistic standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
Because they were making billions of Euros each year from contracts with the brutal Iraqi dictator, that's why!
It's worth noting that the dominant advertiser embedded in this article is Thomson, a French company.
Most newspapers, television news outlets and certainly Technology Review exist because someone has funded their effort. Those people fund a product for which they expect a certain return, they anticipate that their funding will have a value to them. Usually there are two customers; the reader and the advertiser. In some cases there is also an institutional backing, such as MIT or the Government.
There can be no doubt that MIT has expectations about the nature of the content of this magazine. There is no doubt that an advertiser, such as Thomson, also expects pro-Thomson benefits to accrue.
It is interesting to note that two of the most heavily antiwar factions were American academia and the French. Both of which are prime sponsors for this article.
It is also interesting to note that these two factions were thoroughly discredited in their major premises by the nature and outcome of the war.
So it is curious that the author attempts to make the case that the majority of Americans who now support the war are misinformed, yet they have a factually more credible basis for their support than the sponsors of this author.
I suggest the author reassess his fundamental premise,and this time remove his antiwar analytical biases which have filtered out the signal leaving only unstructured noise which can be construed to mean anything the author chooses
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