Lack of Skepticism Leads to Poor Reporting on Iraq Weapons Claims- new report by FAIR which points out how the media is jumping to conclusions and getting the facts wrong in the Iraq war. It's like I keep saying, don't trust any heady sounding news report until some time passes, because the facts don't usually come to light right away.
When are facts facts? Not in a war- God bless the Guardian. Excellent follow-up to the above article, examining the "Claims and counter claims made in the first week of the media war in Iraq." This is all I've ever asked for in the media. Skepticism. Research. Synthesis. Conclusions.
This Is Gulf War 2- awful pictures you won't want to see (and probably won't if you only watch American television) of the Iraq war. Not as one-sided as you might guess, images of Iraqi injuries and deaths as well as images of American deaths and POWs.
U.S. Trying to Stop U.N. Session on War- members of the UN General Assembly are trying to arrange a vote to condemn the U.S. attack on Iraq. It seems that there's a fair chance that they would get enough votes to pass the resolution. And in a diplomatic move that's become utterly predictable, the US is trying to pressure these countries to vote against the resolution.
U.S. Is Assembling a Civilian Team to Run Iraq- "The United States is preparing to establish immediate sole control of postwar Iraq, initially without recourse to the United Nations, with a civilian administration under the direct command of the military, according to senior administration officials." Military-controlled occupation by a foreign nation = freedom and democracy.
Bush Drafting New Executive Order on Declassifying Documents- so what stance do you think Bush takes on declassifying government documents? He takes the "don't declassify" and even the "REclassify" points of view. You just gotta wonder what skeletons this administration has in its closet (I mean apart from the horrific ones that we already know about).
The Secret Weapon: CIA- the CIA is involved with the war on Iraq? I am shocked and awed.
"ENLARGE YOUR COALITION! GUARANTEED!"- concluding on the lighter side. Yet another clever spam spoof that takes the crap that we all get emailed every day and twists it into a skewering political satire.
Point-Counterpoint: The War On Iraq- from The Onion. "It's funny cuz it's true."
A friend of mine was interviewed today by a CNN "journalist" (for a reason that I'll let Ashcroft find out after hours of post-prayer dilligence). He complained to her about the censorship that passes for media coverage these days.
She agreed and added that she had seen REAL FOOTAGE of the Iraqui conflict. She said that the government dictates what is aired.
Not that this is news to any of you, but, perhaps with perseverance, our voice might make the journalists come out of the closet.
Or maybe I'm wrong about it all: maybe the truth is unpatriotic. In which case, God bless CNN.
Posted by: Shawn at March 26, 2003 05:29 PMLying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it. Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters. All brought to you by Jake Sexton, The Most Beloved Man in America ®. contact: jake+at+lyingmediabastards.com |
Media News |
November 16, 2004Tales of Media WoeSenate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first. And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate. Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly). The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know. Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media? Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once... Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners. Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker. More Media News |
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"8:45? And here I am yapping away like it's 8:35!" |
Snapshots |
Mission: MongoliaJake's first attempt at homemade Mongolican barbecue: Failure. What went right: correctly guessing several key seasonings- lemon, ginger, soy, garlic, chili. What went wrong: still missing some ingredients, and possibly had one wrong, rice vinegar. Way too much lemon and chili. Result: not entirely edible. Plan for future: try to get people at Great Khan's restaurant to tell me what's in the damn sauce. |