Saturday, April 30, 2005

The oh so biased news

I'm offering you an article this morning that I frankly acknowledge is depressing. But I encourage you to read it anyway. In his article entitled "The psycho 'prime-time' news conference", Mike Whitney writes about the selectivity of the mainstream press in deciding what to report:

Thursday night's press conference gave us with a solid example of how elite interests dominate the news cycle.

Consider this; at the same time Bush was braying about fixing the Social Security system, the violence in Iraq was reaching a crescendo (13 bombs went off in Baghdad on Friday killing 50 civilians and 3 American servicemen), the convicted fraudster, Ahmad Chalabi, was assuming his new role in the Iraqi cabinet as oil minister in the new Iraqi government, and the journal "Science" was releasing a report confirming that "Climate scientists have found the heat exchange between earth and space is seriously out of balance -validating forecasts of global warming". (Adding that if carbon dioxide levels continue to grow things could "spin out of control")

None of these topics found their way into the presidential press conference. Instead, Bush was given an open platform on prime-time TV to assail the most successful government program ever initiated, which, by conservative estimates, will be solvent until 2051.

Does this sound a bit one-sided?


Here's what really troubles me:

In virtually every area, Iraq, energy, Social Security, the economy, foreign policy etc., Bush's numbers are on the downhill slide. Never the less, the "Big Brother" strategy of keeping him in the spotlight, championing the elitist agenda hasn't changed a bit. The palpable arrogance of the Washington cabal is so extreme that Bush's popularity could dither in the single-digit range and he'd still be featured prominantly on the daily news. He's simply "their guy" and all the bullhorns are in their stable.


Of course you know what I think. I think the press needs to hold the reality of global climate change before our faces until we get it. If a threat to the very survival of the human race isn't more important than giving a spoiled frat boy the constant attention he craves, then I don't know what is.

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