Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Fox News vs CNN

If you want to bash Fox News more power to you, but I think it's important to recognize that you don't want to do this in a way that obscures the fact that CNN is very similar.

I view it much like the Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are in the tank for the rich and they are proud of it. They blatantly reject democracy, lie, etc. OK, we know where they stand. Democrats sort of pretend to be different, but when push comes to shove there's not much difference.

Here's a story about CNN's pushy behavior directed against their own journalists in service to the brutal torturing government in Bahrain. Sure, Fox News has directed their journalists to lie in service to wealth. CNN wants their reporters to include lies in stories as well in service to this brutal military dictatorship that enjoys strong support in Washington. If you want to go crazy demonizing official enemies, like Iran and Syria, there's no problem. Demonizing friends of the state is a bridge too far.

Another thing to remember is that propaganda is not usually put forward in such a blatant form. Like the higher ups pressuring reporters to include lies in their stories. The filtering produces the propaganda without a cabal of powerful people pulling strings. One example is contained in some of the videos I show here where Michael Moore is interviewed about his movie Sicko. It starts with CNN's Sanjay Gupta just getting the facts blatantly wrong as he tries to discredit the movie prior to the interview. He got obvious things wrong, like the amount of money Moore claimed Cuba spent per person on health care. Nobody directed him to get it wrong. It was incompetence in service to CNN's corporate backers.

You have the vast majority of Americans that agree with Michael Moore on health care and you have the corporate sector representing the interests of wealth that opposes. CNN gets it all wrong in service to wealth. Interestingly as we learn in this video where former insurance company executive Wendell Potter apologizes to Michael Moore for the role he played discrediting Sicko, one of the people Gupta relied on was a paid insurance company stooge that was working to discredit the film and this of course was not revealed to the CNN audience. So maybe it was a combination of incompetence in service to wealth and organized disinformation in service to wealth.

Credit to Keith Olbermann for exposing a lot of this. But then he was suspended from MSNBC and now he's gone.

5 comments:

Examinator said...

Hi Jon,
I was beginning to think people didn't love me any more ;-) yuk yuk

The problem is as I see it is two fold
the most important isn't at first as obvious to the US citizen until one stands off from being an American and look with a incisive mind at to what is different about American public (consumers of news [sic]).
To wit I've included the following piece.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/patrick-pexton-what-about-israels-nuclear-weapons/2012/08/31/390e486a-f389-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_print.html

To someone from outside the US this is as I wrote on another site

[With all respect.., I would rate the piece as worthy of a high school 'journalism' (?) effort.
Who amongst us didn't know virtually everything written in the article and more? Then again he is writing for USA and it's citizenry not to mention under their paranoid military manufacturing complex and assorted Corporates' domination.

A trawl through the 'Guardian' archives goes a lot further actually discussing the nature of the nuke site, how the Israelis fooled the USA and the inspectors way back.....What this says about Israel's paranoia duplicity towards its friends I'm not entirely sure.

What is missing is the simple logic that the USA (probably Russia, France et al) has for years been able to monitor from space and via sophisticated seismic equipment can tell any underground or air testing of nukes anywhere in the world. Yet we're lead to believe by this article that the US et sec doesn't have very convincing evidence either way. What? A piss ant country with what 6 million people (same population of Iraq) like Israel which is the US's biggest recipient of aid, particularly military aid, hold off US dominance? I know the US myopic supply of weapons has a history akin to like a water buffalo with a bad attitude, (all bull and no long term smarts) …. But really...they (US) don't know ?

The only alternative is that if Israel has nukes they haven't tested them tested above ground since the 70's or underground since the late 80's … That I find very hard to believe.

As for his finish about if he was a child of the Jewish Holocaust ...relevance? Justification for what he knows ? (i.e. HE READS PAPERS OUTSIDE THE US PERHAPS)......]
The final and most banal comment about ' because it is hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be done' what a cop out! Tell the truth sir it isn't done because the powers to be (the military manufacturing complex, Commercial and Jewish commercial interests with whom they deal, don't want it done. They have already punished a media outlet of broadcasting an Israel “unfriendly” story by cancelling ads. There is little doubt in my mind of the US government (regardless of side) is a captive of these interests.

The implicit relevant point is that American's are generally so jingoistic they are more often than not wilfully ignorant/ disinterested in anything that doesn't pertain to the US or them personally. The horrific implications of the Israel/ USA V the “Arab” (sic) (Iran is Persian...not Arab) world conflict is more obvious to the rest of the world but not the average American....they believe they'll be safe (they're not 911 AGW etc) .

Once one accepts this limitation 'America’s exceptionalism' all the other disasters/ limitations are emotionally justifiable. Keep in mind unless we guard against it the sales maxim holds true “ emotion decides and logic simply justifies”. If one assumes one is superior to others then “people who don't conform to my conflated criteria keeping them in their place (subservience) becomes logical.” i.e. I got rich by hard work (sick) therefore anyone less than me is deficient in some way and needs punishing or my patronising.

Sadly the party system (either side) encourages this.

Examinator said...


Jon out of topic But this is tooo ....something .....too American?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175588/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon%27s_bases_of_confusion/#more
As if ripping it up will help the Iraqi's. Turn them over to them.

Examinator said...


Jon
On a more serious view look at this
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/24928
Realistic view of the media

Jon said...

Ex, I'd suggest that Mearsheimer and Walt explain pretty well why there's no interest in Israel's nuclear weapons program. I suppose you are familiar with their book "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy". Lobbying groups that seek to further Israel's interests are well funded and effective. Not so for lobbying groups interested in furthering Iran's interests.

Examinator said...

Jon
sadly no, I'm not aware of the book. I'll don my pith helmet, safari suit and hunt it down TODAY … thanks for the heads up.

I guess the point I was making about your article is that the US media generally tends to be the one of the top two in world, I've look at ( For business and interest reasons, I scan 10-12 papers from different countries around the world almost every day) for what can only be described as 'jingoism' and proffering the notion of US exceptionalism ( our way is the best). Perhaps the least critical.
For example sake Assange gets COMPARATIVE little coverage. Almost no coverage of the implications.
Chomsky alerted me to that about years back when talking about East Timor. From memory 3 column inches in 10 years of unbelievable ethnic cleansing. The disaster is being repeated in West Papua. One could make the same point about Cuba. Once the USSR collapsed (which by the way didn't do so because of Reagan he just happened to be there at the time) Cuba constitutes a threat? Haiti?

Vietnam was by any objective means was a military defeat yet the US up until comparatively recently was still winning the war in the movies. The US laws about media libel are well Bloody ridiculous…. Telephoto lenses over fences and 'money shot' of famous parents consoling, disciplining their children...The notion of NEED to know is so overwhelmed by WANT(voyeuristic titillation) to know is ( The Hilton brats ...the Kadassians ? WTF ? I'd like to see Chad argue for them in his capitalist meritocracy !)

Journalists V reporting? The former are opinionated entertainers. What they aren't always well informed/ knowledgeable or objective.

Note all the above traits are visible in other nations press but what I'm talking about it the matter of degree.
As a rough measure Think of it on a sale of 1-100 most westernised papers are say 40-60 range the US is is more like 70- 90 range. It lack of objectivity is akin to the Chinese Press the only difference is who is pulling the strings, why and methodology ..The Chinese is the government for control/power of a few authoritarian constriction. The US is for control of profit for a few the method is emotional distraction focus on trivial.
One could hardly say that this election is giving in depth informed objective analysis it's controlled (manipulation) personality based ….big on color but light on substance... the how is near as damn it non existent and the why is pure emotional...look at the out put of the super pacs regardless of side.
Sadly the system was flawed to start with i.e. designed to keep power in the hands of the R&P and it has been pushed further to the margins of any plausible definition of Democracy.
The system was never designed to cope with mass media, multi nationals, Massive corporations or the mega rich . Even comparing then $ to $ today.
In short it's well past it's use by date.