Erasmussimo said something on the prolonged conflict thread which I thought would make a good topic in itself.

Stating my personal opinion to start things: I think this angle is interesting, because I've always considered the media to have more of an agitating influence. The Vietnam war was the most heavily covered by the media in US history, and was also the longest war. I've seen the media wave pictures of people suffering overseas...the obvious message, "We must do something!" Then, when our military forces enter turn around and third guess every decision "what a clumsy effort!". So, from my perspective, the media has little pacifying influence to speak of. It often beats the war drums and then undermines the effort it was promoting.

My husband recently spoke with a man at a DARPA convention who was originally from Belgrade. He told of things he saw as a boy that the ethnic Albanians did to the Serbs which I can’t even post here. Unbelievably horrific things that make a Freddy Kruger movie look mild. He believes that the only hope for peace over there is for a long enough period of time without war to transpire (he reasoned that 60 years would be enough). Then, each side which remembered why they hate the other would die off and there would be hope of living in peace. Otherwise the wounds are too deep for anyone living to let go of. I don’t think that images of atrocities make people respond with a peaceful sentiment. They make them respond with feelings of vengeance. The stories of babies thrown out of incubators inspired Americans to back the Kuwait war effort, as did images of our beaten soldier POWs. Radio Rwanda inspired genocide.

Also, I’m not making a case for censorship here. That isn’t the intent of this thread…although I do think the media often acts irresponsibly to get the “big story” and often leaves out the context to the point they have it wrong.

The questions: Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite? Examples also, if you have them, please.

Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite?

Great question Mrs. P one that is sure to bring out thoughtful analysis from all parties.
I think that the question raised can have multiple answers based on context and audience. Obviously the easy answer is that it enrages more than pacifies. Media reports have fueled intense emotions throughout the history of media; messengers in ancient Greece, pamphleteers in colonial America, yellow journalism, and now the age of internet and sensationalist cable 24/7 news channels.

I'll try and focus on the harder aspect of the question, pacification. The only application that I can speak of first hand concerning the media having a pacifying effect, is the fairly recent use of embedded reporters. While they show war up close and often brutal, those who pay attention and take the time to watch unedited footage in it's entirety (in other words, what's normally not shown on the evening news) will have a chance to see the professionalism and conduct of our forces. I can speak with authority that this type of media reporting comforts many military families, unfortunately, though it's available, few outside the military circle avail themselves to it.
Military bloggers (MilBlogs) tell the same stories in print and photos, sharing tales of courage and bravery, and respectful eulogies for the fallen. Aside from a few special reports that I have seen, I can't say much of the same for the MSM cable news outlets. Sensation, inflame and profit seems to be the order of the day, whether the truth gets it's time in the sun or not.
I highly recommend reading Michael Yon for an objective view of current events in Iraq. Yon is an author, journalist and former soldier who has spent the last year in the Mosul area self-embedded with my last outfit.
The trend of unbiased truth coming from non mainstream sources is becoming more prevalent as time goes on, compared to the public distrust of the MSM, and the decrying of it as either blowing trumpets for an administration, or conspiring against it.

Since most people get their news from the traditional media, it agitates the populace in opposite directions, further widening the divide between the us's and the them's.

Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite?
Very interesting question. I agree that imagery of war can have powerful effects on people -- but let's not make the mistake of classifying images of war as good or bad. The fundamental idea here is Jeffersonian: give the people all the facts, and let them decide. There is no reliable way to decide what kind of images are good or bad, so let's just make sure that all of the images are readily available.

Do some images have an agitating effect? Of course! Images have emotional power. The images of Saddam's statue being pulled down were powerful. The images of mangled bodies are powerful, too. Images incite emotion, and emotion affects people's decisions. What's wrong with that? I admit that I am much the proponent of rationalism and would prefer that policy be made with cool heads. But the fact is, a democracy is run by the people -- dumb, emotional, prejudiced, ill-educated people. We have to live with their decisions, and so the best thing to do is to give them all the information.

Now, we do need to worry about the prejudicial effects of biased reporting. Fox News' coverage of the invasion of Iraq was all waving flags, charging tanks, soldiers handing out candy to kids, grateful Iraqis kissing American soldiers, and so forth. The Arabic TV channels showed a different war. There's simply nothing we can do about that. About the only thing that any individual citizen can do is gather information from as many sources as possible. And perhaps it would be better to avoid the sources whose information is clearly biased.

I'll close with a favorite story of mine. It concerns the photographs you can see here. The events depicted in these photos took place on January 18th, 2005. I happened upon them and was shocked. Even more shocking was the absence of any reference to them in the MSM. I did some searching and found that they were carried by a few American newspapers and magazines, and did get some play on Internet sites, but few Americans I asked had seen them. While in Europe a few weeks later, I asked a number of Europeans about the photos. Yes, almost everybody had seen them in Europe -- they were on the front pages there.

Particularly ironic is the fact that these pictures surfaced a day or two before the inauguration, and while we didn't see them in the MSM, we did see lots of pictures of Mr. Bush dancing with Mrs. Bush. I therefore assembled a composite picture juxtaposing the little girl screaming with the Bushes dancing. It was a nice study in irony.

Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite? Examples also, if you have them, please.

I think it all balances out. I don't see that the media prolongs or worsens war and I don't see that an enlightened citizenry makes any real difference to the out come of war.

Taking Vietnam as an example of the latter; that war was horribly unpopular and generated vast demonstrations but these had no real impact on the course of the war which dragged on for a decade.

And, looking back through history to the days before the media, back to the religious wars of Europe or the horrors of the colony builders, I don't see how any one can use modern atrocities to mean anything at all with regard to the media. The media has brought such horrors to the attention of the public but its not encouraged them nor made them go away-

Essentially the media is a good thing though, no matter how outlandish or unreasonable the journalists personal bias may be. By and large, the media forces us to look at what we do. It forces us to accept responsibility for our actions and the actions carried out in our name.

moif, I think that you vastly underestimate the power of popular resentment in ending the war in Vietnam. If you read Henry Kissinger's books on that period, he makes it very clear that popular resentment of the war placed enormous pressure on him to bring it to a quick end. Moreover, the war was ended by Congress, not the administration. The Congress, responding to the wishes of the people, put a stop to the American participation in the war. They threatened to cut off funds, and so in the end Kissinger negotiated pretty much a complete surrender.

The media played a big role in all this; the classic Vietnam photos still reverberate.

An additional thought on the original question: what is the difference between agitation and enlightenment? Is not that difference entirely based on the political preferences of the speaker? Did the Vietnam images agitate the American people into ending the war or did they enlighten them into ending the war?

Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite?

The media can have either effect. I agree with Erasmussimo, once the media was disillusioned with the war in Vietnam it had a profound influence on winding it down. I would add that the independent elements of the media (mostly press) had an important impact from the beginning in educating the protest community.

The media can also have the opposite effect. In the current war the main stream media served to amplify the administration's propaganda and almost totally ignored the academic Middle East experts, who were critical of the run up to war, and most of the protest demonstrations. The New York Times , often referred to as part of the "liberal media" was very guilty of this. Judith Miller of "Rovegate" fame, published article after article for which Ahmad Chalabi turned out to be the chief source and for which neocon officials, also chiefly relying on Chalabi, turned out to be the main confirmation. Needless to say, much of the NYT reporting was totally erroneous. So much so that the paper later issued an apology.

News outlets have been so consolidated and dominated by holding companies that there is little independence in what is reported except on the internet and in a few small journals like The Nation. The dominant inclination is to "sell news" not report it. If there is a war hysteria brewing, the inclination is to join it. One can hope that this phenomena might work somewhat in reverse as the war becomes unpopular.

Support for war or even creating it isn't exactly new in American journalism. The Hearst newspapers certainly played a large roll in instigating the Spanish American War and the following colonial war in the Philippines received very little real press coverage. The journalism of WWII and the post war period dominated by the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite wasn't perfect but the professional standards that news departments adhered to in this period were far superior to what preceded them and what we have now!

Of course the difference between agitation and enlightenment is based on personal opinion, and where one stands on an issue. I have a navy pilot friend who escaped with his family (a toddler then) on a makeshift raft as the North Vietnamese launched artillery at him and his escaping family, along with hundreds of others. They had no food or water, and were desparate enough to go into the Pacific with their babies to escape. Behind them, tens of thousands of dead South Vietnamese civilians lying on the road, caught in the act of fleeing to the coast. The picture of Kim Phuc running naked and buring down a road, screaming in pain from the napalm was enlightening....but no more so than the pictures of children lying dead on the road from the North Vietnamese invasion. I can tell you that my friend would likely think the second set of pictures would be more enlightening than the first (if they exist). The media simply picked its side.

I am a little unsure as to what the media is. The media ..to me..is communications which ultimately is a piece of our culture.
I have a hard time separating "the media" from ourselves and talking of it and referring to it as if it was something separate or independent of us...as I don't feel or think this way about it at all.

Our present form of media even exaggerates this point with the internet and all that goes with it...blogs, email, discussion boards, IM etc. I think the line we previously chose to implement between us and the media is being blurred and I don't happen to feel that is a bad thing.

Although I don't feel it will bring about more peace or stability either. I think man has proven this true time and time again...more globalized trade has hardly subsided wars...many could argue it has instead instigated them. More fluent forms of global travel or movement has hardly quelled our appetites for battle ...again we could claim it has encouraged us.

To me the issue is violence...what effect does violence have on our beliefs or our desires as a nation..the nation's psyche? Violence without question attracts..it draws our attention and in some cases it enrages us, in some it saddens, while with others it demands for them to give reason...that is where the media part begins. We see hundreds of people being violently blown to bits on our TV and that image can not just present itself without some need or demand from the public to explain it. And many voices step up to take that calling and ultimately one will be heard over the others..one will echo more loudly and one will become that image's voice

That is just how it works in a open society such as ours...only the feelings and emotions that these images make people in our society feel the most will be their message.

So MrsP I guess I would argue that the media when it comes to war is neither. It is not the provocateur nor is it the peacemaker. It is a reflection of the masses. And in this case with regards to America and American culture I feel as a society we have many dualisms and one of those is the wanting or the desire to be that beacon on the hill and also at the same time we have a very unhealthy obsession with failure.

I would agree that media is the reflection of the masses. Even more so with all the news outlets that exist today. I get tired of the "bias of the media" complaints from both sides. Anyone that believes that sources of news are "objective" is living under a false assumption.

Now in Iraq there is discussion about all the news being "negative." I do not believe there is a bias behind this and I also do not believe all the news it bad over there. There was a program on CNN yesterday morning and I only caught a piece of it. They were talking to some reporters that have been in Iraq and the talked about this very issue for a moment.

Given all the journalist kidnappings in Iraq, reporters are not going out and covering the “positive stories.” The reporters only travel in the protection of the troops. I do not blame the reporters for trying to stay alive.

I would say education is having a pacifying effect on people. If you study World War One you realize how pointless that war was, and how it ultimately led to World War Two. Then there is the pointless Vietnam war. It is difficult to get to get behind a war effort when so many countless lives have been lost in wars that were pointless. However, some wars are necessary. It’s a tricky subject.

Agreed, but most of the reporters who do go out on their own don't persue the "nice" stories by any stretch. I think it comes down to selling points. Tales of building projects aren't interesting. On the other hand, the pictures Erasmussimo linked to hit one on a personal level and therefore are interesting. The second story sells better, so I think in that respect bias is inevitable. I suppose that's along the lines of what Bucket was speaking of (a reflection of the masses). But, I think it starts to feed on itself over time and the public gets an inaccurate and skewed picture. The television and photos aren't usually the medium for deep analytic, considered thought. Violence, drama, and confrontations attract a larger viewing audience than calm discussion. Showing violent scenes in order to "enlighten" or "enrage" doesn't demonstrate that the repercussions of leaving would likely be more violent, bloody, and dire for the population overall. So, is upping our police force and leaving them to that sort of fate "pacifistic"? Or do those images merely feed the anger for those who wish to find reasons to kill us?

I have copied the following, which is informative upon this subject, from a letter, published yesterday, from Eric Alterman to the editors of the NY Times book review:

According to a May 2005 survey published by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 65 percent of Americans who were questioned favor providing health insurance to all Americans, even if it means increasing taxes, and a full 86 percent say that they favor raising the minimum wage. Seventy-seven percent of those polled believe the country ''should do whatever it takes to protect the environment,'' while 63 percent subscribe to that view ''strongly.'' With regard to foreign policy, a May 2005 Rasmussen poll found that 49 percent of Americans say that President Bush is more responsible for starting the war with Iraq than Saddam Hussein, compared with only 44 percent who believe that it was Saddam Hussein's fault. During 2005, strong majorities of Americans polled have consistently expressed disapproval of the war and told pollsters they believe the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into it. By similarly significant majorities, Americans believe the Iraqi incursion has made the nation less, rather than more, secure.

In the mainstream media, these views are considered so ''liberal'' as to be all but unspeakable, save for a few outliers like The Times's Frank Rich and Paul Krugman. (Note that not a single liberal is the host of his or her own cable shout fest, while conservatives not only dominate commercial TV but are taking over PBS as well.) Throw in the power of advertisers to dictate content in many outlets, the adverse effects of media consolidation on journalists who wish to ask tough questions of the powerful, and the Bush administration's extremely unfriendly attitude toward those journalists who do not toe its hard-right line, and you have a recipe for media that both frame and report the news in a manner that is well to the right of the views of most Americans, with little evidence of an apocryphal ''liberal bias.''

When did this become a debate about "bias in the media?" Michael Moore had his own show on NBC once, Phil Donahue's show tanked on CNBC. Ultimately, ratings decide whether or not a show remains on the air (not political ideology), look at Dennis Miller. These “grim media conspiracies” should be saved for another topic.

I certainly agree that the popular media do not support deep, analytic, considered thought -- but that's not the fault of the media. How many people watch the PBS news shows? I long ago gave up on television news, newsmagazines, and newspapers as my source of news; they sell excitement, not insight. I read The Economist, a weekly that addresses the issues that matter. They don't cover airline crashes or mass murderers or runaway brides. But how many people subscribe to The Economist?

The basic problem here is not the media, it's the people. Let's face it, the people are really stupid. They get whipped up by 9/11 and want draconian laws to protect them from terrorists; they get whipped up and support an invasion of Iraq; then when the body bags start coming home (surprise, surprise), they decide that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. 'Democracy is the worst political system, except for all the others.' Managing the news is merely tyranny one step removed in indirection. The only option we have is to let it all hang out, flood people with every bit of information they want, and lrt them pick through the pile. Yes, some people will choose to get all their information from Fox News (shudder!); others will get their news from Micheal Moore and Democratic Underground (horrors!). We can't force people to be reasonable. We can only insure that they are not being indirectly forced into being unreasonable.

My point is that the media does not reflect "the masses" or "general culture," but the interests of the ruling class. When they want war, war is promoted; when they want peace, peace. When the Iraq war was in the offing, the U.S. media promoted war; that was what the Powers that Be here wanted. The European media promoted peace; that was what European elites wanted.

The close correspondence between the ideas promoted in the media and those of the ruling class is not due to a conspiracy, but to a structure of incentives that is well understood (ownership, sponsorship, government influence, careerism among journalists).

Only now do we begin to see U.S. media question the Administration's war policy -- notwithstanding that 30% of Americans have been strongly opposed to this policy from its inception, and that the percentage of opposition has been increasing with time. The reason is that only now do we begin to see elements of the U.S. ruliing class question the war. I assume they do this mostly for reasons of political expediency, but also because the likelihood of eventual defeat is difficult to ignore.

As the ruling class becomes more divided on the question of the war's continuance, so will the media's view of the war become more equivocal and questioning. This will happen, and it does not bode well for the people presently in contol of the Executive.

In bourgois societies, the media much more typcially reflect the interests and opinions of the ruling elements of society than those of the masses.

Does one get a "ruling class" t-shirt once they've become part of the bourgeois? I think those would be a nifty perk. Obviously, I do not share this outdated Marxist thinking about media. It is all too sinister and late ninetieth century for my taste.

For good and bad, the media represents the American tastes for sensationalistic news. If people were not watching, they would find something else to report. Americans were not forced to watch the OJ Simpson trial, they wanted to watch it. The same could be said for almost any media story.

In the first place, the people are not stupid, merely very ill-informed. And they are kept that way on purpose. There was no informed national debate on the question of the Iraq war, notwithstanding that about 30% of the people were strongly opposed to it even at the beginning. Not even in The Economist will you find a thoroughgoing critique of U.S. and (more to the point for that particular journal) British war policy. You will find nothing there, for example, that gives serious credence to its very obvious neo-colonial aims. The Economist is a journal for influential people, and the last thing that it will do is question the fundamental premises of their influence.

In the second place, you mistakenly assume that the origin of U.S. policy is the popular will. The U.S. government, and through it the ruling elements of U.S. society, used 9/11 to justify the imposition of severe abridgments of civil rights and a policy of invading and "transforming" the Middle East. To narrow the scope of civil rights is always convenient for these people, and the war was seen as a great opportunity for immediate profit and eventual imperial expansion. They mistakenly assumed that military victory, which was inevitable, would be equivalent to success.

Their case was very weak from the start; even with the media and the rest of the U.S. opinion-making apparatus supporting them, they were only able to persuade about 70% of the people -- a good basis for a tax law, a very weak basis for a war. As the passage of time has revealed the weaknesses of the original policy, corresponding cracks have emerged in the national "consensus." But there was never a consensus at all, except among the ruling class.

So your notion of a stupid, fickle people, rushing first one way and then the other, is false.

The sad fact is, the mainstream media is and always has been used by corporations, political parties, administrations and profit, especially when it comes to war. Fortunately in the internet age, one can find unfiltered truth about current events in a war zone, they just have to search them out.
For example: tired of FNC or National Review take or the Rich/Franken/Krugman spin on what our troops are accomplishing? Look into any of the near hundreds of MilBlogs, freelancers or catch the Frontline and NYT/Discovery channel specials that show the day to day life of soldiers, not just the endless tragedies of Abu Ghraib or the stunning successes in capturing terrorists.
What we hear in the MSM is inciteful in one form or another and good for a headline, but has absolutely no context. We can't change the fact that spin was used to incite the public into supporting the war, but we can negate the spin from sides about what is happening currently.

The argument between people being stupid or just ill-informed is moot, in my opinion. The two equate to the same thing. The people are (at least currently) ill informed by their own volition. Most do not seek the contextual truth but are satisfied by headlines and news nuggets. This makes them stupid, or at the very least self imposed ignorant.


Too true, it goes back to the old adage 'if it bleeds, it leads'. I think if the public had an accurate depiction of what life was like, and what our troops were doing, the outlook would be markedly different. Using this as a base line of thought, I can't accuse the Bush adminstration of manipulating the media on a large scale, but I can accuse them of being that inept not to push the good efforts that are happening.

I doubt that you or anyone has any trouble distinguishing how much wealth various people have, even without printed t-shirts. Your mistake is only to assume that there is not a corresponding allocation of power. There is nothing sinister about it; it merely implies that widely accepted notions of widespread political equality are false.

Whether this thinking is outdated depends on the facts, and not whether these ideas are Marxist or originated in the 19th century. There is a widely accepted and entirely modern critique of the role of the media (and other parts of the opinion-making apparatus) in Western society; see for example Chomsky's and Herman's Manufacturing Consent and many subsequent works. It is not Marx's fault that these non-Marxist critics develop theories that concord with his.

Of course the media represent popular tastes; the question is, what else do they represent?

But you miss my point that they are kept ill-informed. Why in the U.S. media, leading up to the Iraq war, did we find little or nothing to question the Iraq war policy -- the assumptions about WMD and supposed Al-Quaeda connection, for example? We did find that in the European media -- is that because Americans are more stupid than Europeans? I think, much more plausibly, that those in possession of the presses and the TV stations had different opinions here than their counterparts had in Europe.

This is only one example, but it illustrates that information is controlled and filtered even in a "free" society.

I didn't miss your point, I don't agree with your point. For the last decade we have lived in an unprecedented age of information. For a citizen to get news from only one source, or a few homogeneous sources is patently dumb. Just as it is to rely on the media from a single country or single portion of the world. Media the world over have their biases and slants, and they always will.
I agree with you that the American MSM falls flat, especially during times of conflict, but I saw no difference between the run up and engagement in the Iraq war, than I did during Somalia and Kosovo. Sensationalism and profit drives stories and spin, not nationalism or politics. The later, I believe, used to be more prevalent in the age of yellow journalism. Now MSM is tinged green, as in money, and there is no bigger money maker in the arena of news, than war.

While this would indeed constitute a good research project, I have to say, it's not news. It's rather like the television announcer suddenly saying, "This just in... we have an unconfirmed report that tens of thousands of aircraft flew their routes today, and NOT ONE SINGLE PLANE CRASHED!!!"

Vladimir, your points are predicated upon a worldview that I do not share, and few other people share. I do not challenge your worldview, but note that this worldview is so far distant from my own as to make it impossible for your points to have any significance to me. I suggest that you start a new topic on that worldview, so that we can debate it without digressing from this one.

You could make this case about schools or infrastructure being built, but drama like capturing terrorists in a daring raid is a bit more newsworthy than "plane flies without crashing." In WWII or Korea, Americans heard in newsreels and the press about our heroes, whether Butch O'Hare or Ike or Patton or many non-coms or officers awarded for bravery. Our media also delivered negative coverage about our enemies, much of it true.

I think we're in a strange situation where the only coverage of a war is negative, with virtually no coverage of heroism or accomplishments. Exceptions like the news-friendly Jessica Lynch story noted.

X Americans dead in "insurgent" car bombing is a newsworthy story, but Aussie hostage freed by commandos is not. It seems a bit strange if not outright one-sided. Better yet - Iraqi prisoner with hood over head is big news, while American prisoner with NO head is small beer. Whatever side you are on, when the only mention of our enemies is to parrot their talking points, trumpeting America's bad actions and ignoring their good ones is not the complete coverage most of us seek. Whether it pacifies the electorate, I'm not sure, but to incite them would take a bit more hero-worship than we are getting right now.

Mrs. P I am in agreement that violence attracts and is more compelling and intriguing. Yet it is difficult to take one culture's views of what is violent or horrific and easily let it flow or stream into another culture. I just don't find that possible.

How Americans feel about the war in Iraq and how it is reflected and portrayed in our culture differs a great deal than how it is in any other cultures. You can't look for equivalents because our cultures are different, our histories are not the same and our present actions are not harmonious.

You asked for examples earlier with images... well take the Gaza disengagement. This week...with the images of Jewish settlers being forced to leave many Palestinians watched these events on their TV and came to the conclusion...
And the much-shown clip of an Israeli father lifting his young daughter into the faces of emotionless soldiers reminded many of Palestinian mothers lifting their young sons in the air and publicly calling on them to avenge the deaths of a brother or a father."
source

See how images are perceived so differently from one culture to another even when they are viewing or deciphering the same event?
How is it Palestinians find, recognize and feel a commonality between protests meant to invoke mercy to others meant to evoke revenge? How can we ignore the importance and influence of culture in our media? The above observation may ultimately be in the best interest of finding a peaceful resolve to this conflict....for each to begin to have the capacity to view and perceive one another's pain with commonality , but still there is a great lack of accuracy.

So essentially my answer to your pondering..But, I think it starts to feed on itself over time and the public gets an inaccurate and skewed picture. The television and photos aren't usually the medium for deep analytic, considered thought. Violence, drama, and confrontations attract a larger viewing audience than calm discussion.
Is that images for one reason or another incite us (in one direction or another) because they reflect something that we already feel, believe or recognize culturally. We see millions of images everyday so what makes some so special? It is because they resonate within society and they reflect what we already feel inside. So yes absolutely it feeds itself..culture does that it is always looking for or acknowledging that which it recognizes, or that which it understands and believes in, or basically favors. Anything else is seen as foreign, perverted, or what some like to refer to as biased.

I think for the most part Americans are isolationists and as I said before we have a very strange obsession with failure and /or corruptness within ourselves. That is why images of us killing and warring with people who are so evidently foreign in lands that are so obviously not our own disturb us or make us concerned...regardless of the war's legitimacy and support. These portray a image of America that in many regards is very much an antithesis to our culture.

I don't equate it to our desire or need to be pacified as I don't believe pacifism has much prominence in American culture. It's not the killing or the death that bothers Americans so much as it is the reasons behind it. From my understanding the Iraq war was supported by a majority of Americans and it is my opinion that if we chose to no longer support this war it will be because of the failure to meet the objectives that Americans desired..not because we suddenly became pacifists.

All this analysis is interesting and probably accurate, but I don't think the media has neither been an antagonizing or pacifying influence. The influence is driven by what they're reporting and who they need to report it that is entirely driven by money. It's that simple.

What news source would be a leader (in turn, making more money) without access to the White House or other powerful people? None.

So, the media has to carry plenty of water for whoever suits them to pay the bills. If CNN took on the White House to expose them for the frauds they really are (as opposed to reporting on problems) and refused to accept the misdirection and lies whenever they came up, they'd be shut out and not have the access their competitors have.

So at times they are pacifying because they have to pay the bills. Other times, they are antagonizing to not be a rubber stamp of other networks. At the end of the day, they could care less or we wouldn't have a month's worth of primetime coverage on a missing white girl that quite frankly, would not have been given the same time if she were a minority.

I really think it's a "liberal media" when a dem is in the White House and a conservative media the other way around. And it has nothing to do with bias. It's because of who the powerful people are that are paying for the news director's kid college tuition.

If it were a liberal media, Bush couldn't have took us to war on a mistake and get re-elected. It's a greedy media - nothing more and nothing less. Their results reflect the people in charge. They pacify to get access and antagonize to separate themselves from their competitors (maybe except for Fox). The average shmuck sitting home has no clue. They still think Saddam was behind 9/11.

Do you have evidence of the White House "shutting out" journalists on ideological grounds? If this is the case, why weren't the following organizations shut out of the White House? To the best of my knowledge, they all have credentialled White House reporters with equal access.

- Fox News (broke the GW Bush drunk driving story just before 2000 election)
- CBS News (used forged documents to re-re-re-re break Bush / Nat'l Guard story)
- NBC (Today Show spent 3 days promoting Kitty Kelley's gossippy drug ellegations against Bush)
- CNN (lots to choose from here, from accusing Bush of knowing about 9/11 in advance to Peter Arnett broadcasting Iraqi propaganda)

Of course they all have access. My point is, if every time an administration official said something that was not entirely the truth and a reporter called them on it, they would be banished and have to report from across the street. That is not going to happen because they can't afford it. So, what we deem as "pacification" is the reality that the news channel can't pay the bills if they don't carry a certain amount of water.

Washington is all about access. The news reflects that and that's my point.

I just noticed this post.

In other words, "you're in a minority, so shut up." But I am sorry, dear follower of Erasmus, you will have to confront my world-view just as I have to confront yours. How may people here share the one or the other is of scant bearing on the pertinance and force of our respective arguments.

Does the media have a pacifying influence? Or is it the opposite? Examples also, if you have them, please.

The media has the ability to bring attention to issues, and show us sides of them we may have not considered. As a result, the media has the ability to do either, or, both, or neither. How effective the media is, and what effect it has is pretty much unique to each viewer.

In America, the problem we face is partisanship (be it conscious or subconscious) in the Media. Thankfully, there are so many media outlets and sources for news these days, all points of view are covered somewhere. The problem we face is no "slanted" or partisan news, but individuals who limit their information to the partisan sources that match their viewpoint. To know the truth about what is going on in the news, your best approach is to look at sources that are partisan to the left, AND sources that are partisan to the right. What is the same in both stories is the truth.

As a side note:



I don't think he was suggesting anything remotely like "you're in a minority, so shut up." at all. It seems to me, that he was simply saying that he does not understand you viewpoint and thinks a topic, specifically created to discussing / debating it, would be worthwhile. I agree. If anything, it seems to me that rather then saying he did not want to confront your point of view, he was actually saying he specifically wanted to do so, but within the scope of the rules of this site.

Personally, I think it would be an excellent topic for a debate. Though admittedly, it might be hard to frame the questions.

Your perspective is interesting considering the reality of the ownership laws that the FCC rolled back at the beginning of the Bush administration. I say this because the mainstream media was purchased largely by 3 corporations. A lot of these corporations are owned by GE. GE is one of the leading weapons manufacturers in the world. What do you think they say about the war? little to nothing which would make the public want it to stop. This is not to mention that the Bush administration for the most part as well as Bin Laden's parents are all invested in the Carlyle Group which is another weapons manufacturer.

It is quite evident that the media has changed. Despite the claims that the media is "liberal" I don't know of one corporation which is considered "liberal". Do you? Since the entire Mainstream media is owned by corporations the term "liberal" to describe the media is ridiculous. These corporations don't intend to use the media to make money, mind you. They intend to protect their money making interests by having the authority to decide what goes out to the public. No longer is the media critical of our administration and the powers that be. It is their job and every journalists moral and civil duty to report from a critical stand of our government or at least tell the truth as they see it, and use only facts to interpret their story, not idealogies.

Everyone understands that it is essential for the preservation of any democracy that the media be diverse, varied and free and independent of the strongholds of the government or any sort of conglomorate thereof. This is no longer the case.

Some examples of the lack of reporting done by the media due to their new agenda is the downing street memos. That in itself is a case for impeachment. it entails everything that proves the President lied about the Iraq war and in fact, began bombing Iraq prior to obtaining congressional approval.

The blogosphere was all over that for weeks before the MSM took to reporting it and only because they were forced to do so.

Did you know that the president got egged during his first inaguration? Neither did most Americans because the media didn't show it although there were thousands there believing that the President stole the election and participating.

Did you know that there was a half a million people in the streets of NYC the day before the RNC? A lot of people didn't and in fact only reuters I think reported it. The streets were completely covered with protestors - incredible pictures of people protesting but I just saw them a few months ago for the first time.

What about the Saddam Hussain trial with out audio? Do you think that was something they couldn't help? of course they can get audio and send it to our tv along with the film that was intentional and at the request of the administration. And the Television stations that were allowed to cover the trial were glad to oblige.

Your perspective might have been accurate many years ago and in fact there is documented cases of how influential the media can be and a time when the media used to influence events but that time has come and gone and now they don't even report things of great importance to the health and safety and well being of this country and it's people. They should all be tried and jailed for selling us out using our airwaves.

Did you know that the head of the FDA was a veternarian and not a medical doctor? This is a man who is making decisions about our health and well being. My dog is happy about his education but I am not.

Fox network is the worst of them all. Murrdoch is Bush's cousin and one of the main reasons that the 2000 election went down as it did. It is too complicated to get into that now but that is another example. In fact there are several citizens organizations in the process of suing Fox for using the "fair and balanced" slogan.

Everyone (or most people) agree that television is a way to feed the peopole propaganda / A way to spoon feed them their morals and values and tell them how they feel about things that the government officials are doing not only to them but to their fellow countrymen. bush would have been lynched and mobbed by now if the news told us the truth. Everyone would be sickened with the truth and for some that is ok...as they prefer their state of denial as it allows them to go on with their days - and their white picket fences and their sunday comic news (as it is the new and improved papers with a lot of oxymoronic things to tell - as the news) and pretend that they are living in a democracy and that the world loves america and we are fighting bad guys and we are the good guys. the difference between those countries who have always had news like ours...regulated and censored and filled with lies - blatant and outright lies - is that they are aware of it and don't pay attention. In a country like this - we never had to think for ourselves to put two and two together...the media always pointed out the truth for us or helped us along.

for instance - Why is that even I saw the Senate hearings immediately after the Iraq invasion where George Tenant told the Congress that the CIA warned the administration officials of using WMD as a cause as their was not sufficient evidence to back that up and he practically laughed when he was told that the administration officials claim that he and his agency gave them the information which led them to go to war.

Perhaps George tenant lied, right? Maybe so. Let's put that on the shelf for now and look at the forged documents from Niger that the US gave the UN in their efforts to gain support for their war in Iraq. Within days the UN officials proved these documents to be forged and not even good forgeries at that and still - they had their own investigation going which told the US that there was no WMD in their opinions and that which resulted from their investigations.

So here is our administration blaming the intelligence communities for the bad information they received on the WMD and they blamed them for the source of the forged documents. Here is George Tenant - saying differently -

Then there are these facts:
1. George Tenant and other high officials at our country's various intelligence agencies stepped down - during the middle of an incumbents re-election year during war time, leaving this country completely vulnerable with no real senior intelligence officials running the show anymore. And how often do you see a senior intelligence - especially the head of the CIA step down during an incumbents re-election year let alone during war time. Maybe he thought George Bush was going to fire him for all the wrong information he was giving - yeah right.

2. Not only did Tenant and other officials claim that they warned the administration against using WMD for reasons to go to war but the UN had it's own investigative team as well which declared the same thing - there were no evidence to support that claim. yet George Bush and the administration officials take the intelligence communities word for it after they apparantly made several mistakes as they had accused them of doing? Even the UN was wary before taking anyone's word on it.

3. Then came the 9/11 hearings and that is where GEORGE TENANT claims responsibility for the bad information that took us to war. NOw we know that George Tenant is a liar - you hear him saying one thing during the senate hearings and a year or so latter during the 9/11 hearings he is saying something completely different. Then he steps down at a very critical and very bad time - which is essentially a slap in the President's face....and goes to live his life.

Now was George tenant lying initially at the Senate hearings ? Or was he lying at the 9/11 hearings - and taking the blame for his presidents major mistake as a good soldier would do but not without retribution as he stepped down right afterwards...Does it matter when one thinks of what follows

The President of the United Sttates then awards the HIGHEST award in the land - to George Tenant last year. Does the president award incompetance and liars or was he thanking him for taking the beating over his lies and forged documents?

Why hasn't the press looked at this - and what about the mole they had captured in Turkey who was deep seated in Al-Quida and cooperating with officials world wide and we were getting somewhere until the administration realeases the guy's identity to the press in an effort to cover up another lie they were getting caught in? Now the guy is useless.

honestly, I could go on and on with various important facts and incidents that the press ignored entirely or barely reported and these are very important facts which could make or break our democracy, lives here in america and could basically change life the way we know it here...They are in my opinion just as guilty for covering the truth as those who are committing the crimes.

Since the media or at least the mainstream media and then some are all owned by 3 (count them, 1, 2, and 3) corporations, I don't see how it reflects the masses. Perhaps there are more stations and media outlets than before but most of them are owned by one of 3 corporations so any diversed or varied news stations is ridiculous to assume. They mimic each other, and heavily censor news to protect their corporate interests at our expense.





Who could blame you. It is especially annoying because one side is completely wrong. any one who calls the media "liberal" is quite mistaken. How many corporations do you know that are "liberal"?



You should probably believe that the news out of Iraq is most definitely bias and more pro-war than not. they have to look like a real news station but considering that MSMBC, NBC, and many others are all owned by GE and considering GE is a leading weapons manufacturer in the world, I highly doubt that they will be telling the public too much to get them upset over the war in iraq and jeopardize one of their biggest finanical success and incomes, don't you? One of the other 3 corporations besides GE is also in the weapons business...They didn't buy the media outlets to make money being a news source or a media outlet, ya know. The purchases made by these corporations were completely to protect that which their really interest lay without risking us finding out about their various ventures and how it effects us negatively or just how horrid the iraq war really is. I guess if you don't think that an unwarranted war, which was totally unprovoked and unnecessary and that which is responsible for killing untold tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives is that bad then perhaps it's just your view on what the word bad means? If you believe that it is ok that we are holding prisoners without charging them and torturing them; bombing cities; creating a breeding ground for terrorists and installing double agents from Iran Like Chalabi in various positions during an interim government then that is your opinion. I would have to say that everything that is going on over there at the moment is not good...why else would we be sending our national guard overseas to fight a war? That is not their job - the President knew this since he joined them to get out of serving time in Vietnam. Funny how he suddenly doesn't need that M.O anymore and just ships them off like that.....many lives paid for that loss of memory he seems to have.




First you should know that any so called "journalist" that you will be hearing on any CNN or cable or whatever station is an embedded journalist which means they are told what and who and when they can shoot and basically cloaked from the horrors for the specific intent of not arising public dissent. The president and his co-horts interests aren't soley in the oil, ya know. They also have billions invested in the Carlye group which is another leading weapons manufacturer in the world....hmmm.

Any journalists that were not embedded were mostly killed. The deaths of unembedded journalists have exceeded well over those killed during the vietnam war....and any that have managed to get out alive - have all accused the US military of intentionally targeting them, including some of the US'[s own journalists. Don't you remember Italy, and Spain having issues with us because of the allegations of our military intentionally targeting them? They raided and bombed a building where all the unembedded journalists were staying - KNOWING full well that they were all there 80 of them....but that is one way to keep the blogospheres dry and any non coprorate run entities of the media from publishing anything that could ruin their profit margins.



the Us has well surpassed the reporter casualties and any insurgency or any terrorist groups have let more go then killed them. I think we have let none go and killed them all - with those escaping still on the run but able to publish plenty of their pictures and stories....Since the government is all about corporate and they were the ones who in the past administration (still the bush w) deregulated ownership laws and endangering our democracy in the process I truly doubt that the press would tell on them for anything. since every journalists that did escape their death throws all have said over the past two years that they were intentionally targeted by the US - even our own journalists have said that and I think there was a total of two who made it alive....so if I were you I wouldn't pay too much attention to them blaming everyone else but themselves for the danger that Iraq posses for an unembedded reporter.


Edited to remove belittling comment.


Although WWI and WWII were closely related on the timeline - and some of the same issues were going on...Hitler had a great deal to do with WWII and nothing at all to do with WWI.




My feeling is that all wars are pointless but some military intervention is inevitable if things are to change on various issues. Mankind has not risen to peaceful resolution yet but that day will come ...and then again with this administration, maybe the only peace we will see on this earth is Peices not Peace....That is what happens when you have a crazy man running the country who lies about reasons to go to war and then gets caught and lies some more. That is what happens when you attack a country which is oil rich and you and your buddies profiteer off of the altrocities you commmitt ....you usually wind up blowing up the world - or at least trying to although in this day and age it won't be hard at all...