Media Bias [Merged]

[Fishbone Jones]

Jon Snow, the presenter of television's Channel 4 news, wrote in his blog that the affair could be damaging for media credibility.

“One wonders whether viewers, readers and listeners will ever want to trust media bosses again,” he wrote.

One wonders what kind of rose coloured world he is living in, that he thinks they are trusted now. :

 

[Reccesoldier]

Did anyone even ask the Blogs to refrain from disclosing the information?  I mean you can't really expect compliance unless you know what you are complying with.

 

[a_majoor]

I would be interested to see how the Canadian media "suggests" stories be covered:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/orwellian-journ.html

Orwellian Journalism

The media aligned with the jihad force teach the group think. Media bias, priming the American people. Chris over in the UK sent me the following.

    On Oct. 6 at its National Convention in Seattle, the Society of Professional Journalists passed a resolution urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to:

        — Use language that is informative and not inflammatory;

        — Portray Muslims, Arabs and Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans in the richness of their diverse experiences;

        — Seek truth through a variety of voices and perspectives that help audiences understand the complexities of the events in Pennsylvania, New York City and Washington, D.C.

    Guidelines
    Visual images

        — Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when photographing Americans mourning those lost in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

        — Seek out people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when photographing rescue and other public service workers and military personnel.

        — Do not represent Arab Americans and Muslims as monolithic groups. Avoid conveying the impression that all Arab Americans and Muslims wear traditional clothing.

        — Use photos and features to demystify veils, turbans and other cultural articles and customs.

    Stories

        — Seek out and include Arabs and Arab Americans, Muslims, South Asians and men and women of Middle Eastern descent in all stories about the war, not just those about Arab and Muslim communities or racial profiling.

        — Cover the victims of harassment, murder and other hate crimes as thoroughly as you cover the victims of overt terrorist attacks.

        — Make an extra effort to include olive-complexioned and darker men and women, Sikhs, Muslims and devout religious people of all types in arts, business, society columns and all other news and feature coverage, not just stories about the crisis.

        — Seek out experts on military strategies, public safety, diplomacy, economics and other pertinent topics who run the spectrum of race, class, gender and geography.

        — When writing about terrorism, remember to include white supremacist, radical anti-abortionists and other groups with a history of such activity.

        — Do not imply that kneeling on the floor praying, listening to Arabic music or reciting from the Quran are peculiar activities.

        — When describing Islam, keep in mind there are large populations of Muslims around the world, including in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, India and the United States. Distinguish between various Muslim states; do not lump them together as in constructions such as "the fury of the Muslim world."

        — Avoid using word combinations such as "Islamic terrorist" or "Muslim extremist" that are misleading because they link whole religions to criminal activity. Be specific: Alternate choices, depending on context, include "Al Qaeda terrorists" or, to describe the broad range of groups involved in Islamic politics, "political Islamists." Do not use religious characterizations as shorthand when geographic, political, socioeconomic or other distinctions might be more accurate.

        — Avoid using terms such as "jihad" unless you are certain of their precise meaning and include the context when they are used in quotations. The basic meaning of "jihad" is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself.

        — Consult the Library of Congress guide for transliteration of Arabic names and Muslim or Arab words to the Roman alphabet. Use spellings preferred by the American Muslim Council, including "Muhammad," "Quran," and "Makkah ," not "Mecca."

        — Regularly seek out a variety of perspectives for your opinion pieces. Check your coverage against the five Maynard Institute for Journalism Education fault lines of race and ethnicity, class, geography, gender and generation.

        — Ask men and women from within targeted communities to review your coverage and make suggestions.

    RELIGION OF PEACE?:                                                                       

    "Seek out your enemies relentlessly." (Surah 4:103-)

    "Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." (Surah 5:51)

    "Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme." (Surah 8:36-)

    "Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them." (Surah 9:121-)

    "Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths (lies), but for the intention in your hearts" (Surah 2:225)

 

[Slim]

I would be interested to see how the Canadian media "suggests" stories be covered:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/orwellian-journ.html

Canadian MSM...I kind of picture a snake-oil salesman standing on a box saying anything and everything in order to get those snake-oil bottles out the door...

And...to my mind at least...MSM still has NOT figured out exactly what Racial Profiling is. But it sounds so utterly damning that they continue to se the phrase whenever they want to get across police or military misconduct in a theatre of operations.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

I'm not really sure what your problem is with the MSM trying to give a broader coverage of Muslims and eastern culture. Muslims as a Religion are as diverse as Christians and Westerners...I think it's a good thing not to play to stereotypes in coverage of complex issues. Is every Muslim a fanatical jihadist...most certainly not! Is every Muslim a fundamental follower of every jot and tittle in the Koran....again most assuredly not. Your quotes at the end of the quote make it look like every one who is a Muslim is a fanatic.....there are some pretty hair raising quotes from the Old Testament and the New Testament which paint Judaism and Christianity as pretty intolerant and militant as well but most folks dont' quote or go by that stuff.

I'm not in favour of Racial profiling in the respect that we shouldn't be giving a full body cavity search to everyone of a certain race or culture but at the same time we have to be smart...if a certain individual who is also from a "high risk group" is presenting at a security check point let's be thorough while giving the benefit of the doubt. Once we start treating people as automatically under suspicion in our society the Terrorists have won and we are no longer an open and diverse society.

 

[Slim]

I'm not really sure what your problem is with the MSM trying to give a broader coverage of Muslims and eastern culture. Muslims as a Religion are as diverse as Christians and Westerners...I think it's a good thing not to play to stereotypes in coverage of complex issues. Is every Muslim a fanatical jihadist...most certainly not! Is every Muslim a fundamental follower of every jot and tittle in the Koran....again most assuredly not. Your quotes at the end of the quote make it look like every one who is a Muslim is a fanatic.....there are some pretty hair raising quotes from the Old Testament and the New Testament which paint Judaism and Christianity as pretty intolerant and militant as well but most folks dont' quote or go by that stuff.

Careful Padre...No need to start swinging a sword over an issue that I wasn't even addressing...My complaint is with the way that MSM expresses itself and how they mix truth and lies in order to make stories more interesting in order to sell more papers/airtime/tv spots...not other culters and their (lack of) representation.

You need to calm down, read what others are posting a bit more carefully before going off and slagging people for their (supposed) view points. :tsktsk:

I'm not in favour of Racial profiling in the respect that we shouldn't be giving a full body cavity search to everyone of a certain race or culture but at the same time we have to be smart...if a certain individual who is also from a "high risk group" is presenting at a security check point let's be thorough while giving the benefit of the doubt. Once we start treating people as automatically under suspicion in our society the Terrorists have won and we are no longer an open and diverse society.

Thanks for proving that you haven't a clue as to what the police and military consider racial profiling to be. Its a demographically based intelligence gathering system...Not picking out everyone at the border that's a different colour. It's a valid tool that is used by professional agencies to gather information...Not strip search people.

Lets try to be a tad more diplomatic, rather than confrontationalist please.

Slim
Directing Staff.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Careful Padre...No need to start swinging a sword over an issue that I wasn't even addressing...My complaint is with the way that MSM expresses itself and how they mix truth and lies in order to make stories more interesting in order to sell more papers/airtime/tv spots...not other culters and their (lack of) representation.

You need to calm down, read what others are posting a bit more carefully before going off and slagging people for their (supposed) view points. :tsktsk:


Thanks for proving that you haven't a clue as to what the police and military consider racial profiling to be. Its a demographically based intelligence gathering system...Not picking out everyone at the border that's a different colour. It's a valid tool that is used by professional agencies to gather information...Not strip search people.

Lets try to be a tad more diplomatic, rather than confrontationalist please.

Slim
Directing Staff.

I don't think I was being hysterical or un-calm....I was responding to the fellow above you and not yourself who posted something about a Journalist's conference in which they were being advised to be fair when printing articles and pictures about other cultures and races which in my opinion is a good thing.

Thanks for letting me know that after thirty years around the military and RCMP I haven't got a clue, that's not too rude is it?
I wasn't being confrontational nor un-diplomatic I was expressing an alternate opinion...of which I think I'm entitled

 

[Slim]

I don't think I was being hysterical or un-calm....I was responding to the fellow above you and not yourself who posted something about a Journalist's conference in which they were being advised to be fair when printing articles and pictures about other cultures and races which in my opinion is a good thing.

Thanks for letting me know that after thirty years around the military and RCMP I haven't got a clue, that's not too rude is it?
I wasn't being confrontational nor un-diplomatic I was expressing an alternate opinion...of which I think I'm entitled

Well mate you've gone and done it again...

I was speaking specifically about not understanding ratial profiling..As indeed most of the western worlld does not (once again MSM is to thank for that!) not about your broad expereince in the CF...I've read your profile and know who you are.

I'm not discounting your experience.

What I am commenting on is that you seem to want to jump before reading.

I also acknowledge the fact that you were responding to the fellow above my post. Thanks for clarifying that.

Slim

 

[a_majoor]

A bit of a laugh for you all:

http://www.officiallyscrewed.com/blog/?p=914

Straight From Battling A Lion Into The Jaws Of The Media
Filed under: Politics-Federal, Humour, MSM Bias — TrustOnlyMulder @ 5:27 pm

An MP is driving by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The MP jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the MP brings her back to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A reporter has seen the whole scene, and addressing the MP, says: “Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life. What do you do for a living?”

“Well, I’m a Member of Parliament. And, it was nothing, really. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.”

“Well, I’ll make sure this won’t go unnoticed. I’m a journalist, you know, and tomorrow’s papers will have this on the first page. What party are you with?”

“The Conservative Party of Canada.”

The journalist leaves. The following morning, the MP buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:





HARPER’S THUG MP ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH!

 

[Slim]

I'd be laughing very hard right now if I didn't think that it wouldn't really happen...

 

[a_majoor]

An American newsman shows how media bias works over there. Watch how the original segment gets twisted 1800.

http://bleatmop.blogspot.com/2008/03/glenn-beck-real-story-how-liberal-media.html

 

[Z50C]

Hi,

Not to get off topic, but has anyone else seen the fire storm this latest lost of a comrade has caused on the CBC news web page. Check out some of the comments at http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/03/17/soldier-canadian.html

RIP Brother... "His place shall never be with those cold timid souls that know neither victory or defeat."


Marc

 

[OldSolduer]

The Opium Trade in Afghanistan will be on Newsworld starting in about 2 minutes.....lets see what CBC does to this one.

 

[Yrys]

CBC Newsworld schedule

 

[zipperhead_cop]

An American newsman shows how media bias works over there. Watch how the original segment gets twisted 1800.

http://bleatmop.blogspot.com/2008/03/glenn-beck-real-story-how-liberal-media.html

That link doesn't seem to work.  Anything you can re-post?

 

[Trinity]

http://bleatmop.blogspot.com/2008/03/proof-of-msm-liberal-bias.html


The post was renamed hence the link doesn't work.

VERY interesting video by Glen Beck.  A MUST WATCH.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think we need to remember that ”The News” in our world is a commercial enterprise – much, much, much more about selling soap than about informing the public.

Watch the CBC or CTV or Global newscasts. They are “free” to you because advertisers pay, and pay well for the news ‘shows.’

Ditto newspapers: your monthly subscription pays only a small fraction of the cost of getting a paper to your doorstep every morning. Advertising is what the business is all about.

The ‘journalists’ in all media are, actually, sales staff. They sell eyes and ears (readers, viewers and listeners) to advertisers. The better the news ‘show’ the more the network or station can charge per second of advertising.

What makes good news? Drama! Excitement! Sex! Violence! and Conflict!

The news ‘shows’ need to get as much sex and conflict into each show as possible. Peter Mansbridge cannot just have an informative conversation with a real, honest-gawd expert; he must preside over a conflict – a shouting match in which people, no matter how ill-informed or prejudiced,  argue about issues. Both Lew MacKenzie and Stephen Staples are mouths for hire – but some work for nothing, just to get and keep their name/face out in the public eye in order to keep their ‘day job’ (e.g. The Rideau Institute) in the black.

Don’t blame the CBC: they’re just trying to stay afloat in a highly competitive market – there are all kinds of news ‘shows,’ competing 24/7 for your attention. Don’t blame Stephen Staples: he’s doing exactly the same thing – there are all kinds of talking heads, a (very) few of whom even get paid for their time and effort, competing for space on the many, many news ‘shows.’

It’s show business, folks; if a little bit of useful information happens to get passed to the Canadian people, well, that’s a bonus.

I have long held that the only reason people like Stephen Staples and Sunil Ram get so much ’face time’ on TV is that journalists insist on some sort of false balance. Even if the story is “Canadian soldiers build school in Kandahar” the media feels compelled to trot out an anti-war type. That ‘compulsion’ is not driven by any sense of ‘fairness,’ it is a requirement of the omnipresent drive for controversy – controversy sells soap, “Canadian soldiers build school ...” does not. It’s the “Man bites dog” rule re: the definition of ‘news.’

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post is an opinion piece by Canadian military historian Jack Granatstein:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=735103

The new peace movement

J. L. Granatstein, National Post

Published: Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Nations need armies to protect their national interests. And nations also need peace movements to help ensure that those interests are properly defined and not twisted to support unjust causes.

Few Canadians can doubt that the Canadian Forces today are better than they were five years ago -- better funded, better equipped and better trained to meet the challenges they face. But what about the Canadian peace movement? Is it better -- better able to make the case against the Harper government's policies on war and peace? Perhaps not.

The peace movement in Canada was very effective 20 or 30 years ago. Consider Project Ploughshares, an ecumenical agency of the Canadian Council of Churches, founded in 1976. Its co-founder and former executive director, Ernie Regehr, was hugely knowledgeable. He was respected by parliamentarians and the Ottawa bureaucrats, and also by those who were not "peace" supporters. Regehr knew his stuff; he wrote and lobbied hard, and he didn't twist facts to make a case. He was, as his Order of Canada citation said in 2003, "one of Canada's most prominent and respected voices on international disarmament and peace … known for his sound judgment, balanced views and integrity."

But that was then. Today's peace movement is a curious amalgam of left-wing groups. At its heart is Maude Barlow's Council of Canadians, which takes positions on a host of issues -- water is now the favoured topic -- but still devotes time and money to security questions. The Barlow group provides the treasurer for the steering committee of the Canadian Peace Alliance, an umbrella group of mostly small organizations (such as the Burlington Association for Nuclear Disarmament). It promotes the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, a campaign to get a minister of peace into the federal Cabinet. And it opposes the war in Afghanistan, calling for Canada to get out now and to cease its support for the American agenda. The problem with the council is that it is largely a one-woman show, and Maude Barlow's interests determine where her abundant energies are devoted. Water is the issue now, so peace seems to be on the back burner.

Less hard-line than the Barlow constellation, there is Peacebuild, a network of non-governmental organizations and individuals led by Peggy Mason, a former Department of Foreign Affairs officer with impeccable credentials -- and connections. Peacebuild gets funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency (which provided a one-year grant of $575,673 in 2007!) and the Inter-national Development Research Council, as well as from foundations. Afghanistan and the Sudan are its current issues of choice, and it quietly makes a pretty good case for its positions. Perhaps too quietly.

So who makes noise on the peace front? There are individuals like Michael Byers, a law professor who has been much in the news since he came back to Canada a few years ago. Based at the Liu Centre at the University of British Columbia and now seeking an NDP nomination for the next election, Byers is a genuine expert on the Arctic. Unfortunately, he also writes and talks a good deal about broader military questions where he is much less knowledgeable.

Then there is Steven Staples. Staples worked for Maude Barlow's organization and then for the Polaris Institute in Ottawa which, as it says, aims at "retooling citizen movements for democratic social change." In January, 2007, Staples set up the Rideau Institute for International Affairs, "an independent, research, advocacy and consulting group," and Byers and Mason are on his board of directors, while Barlow is listed as a senior advisor. As an advocacy group, the Rideau Group cannot provide tax receipts, so it struggles to raise funds and says it supports itself with donations from like-minded groups and by doing writing/consulting/lobbying work for organizations such as -- surprise, surprise-- the Council of Canadians.

Steven Staples sometimes seems omnipresent in the media, not because he is an expert on peace and security issues, but because journalists want balance. (If I have a pro-war opinion here, I must have an anti-war comment there. Only the Toronto Star's Tom Walkom appears to believe that quoting Staples and Byers alone provides balance.) His program director, Anthony Salloum, a former NDP staffer on Parliament Hill, "found" some secret Department of National Defence documents in a garbage can (and if you believe this I have a Bloor Street viaduct I can get for you cheaply), and the two have a shrewd sense of what will get attention.

What unites all the new peace groups is their anti-Americanism. Canada is following the Bush agenda; Canada should get out of the American war in Afghanistan; Canada should halt its defence integration with the Yanks. Led by Barlow, Byers and Staples, the refrain is automatic and predictable. If Barack Obama wins the U. S. election, it will be interesting to see how the peace movement changes gears to denounce the new administration -- of course, if McCain wins, the gears won't need to be changed.

Sadly for the peace movement, the pervasive sense is that they are losing the fight for Canada. As Staples said recently, "the defence lobby … is winning practically every time. Military spending has soared past the Cold War levels [and] defence companies are running away with multi-billion-dollar non-competitive contracts …" This admission of defeat was not an ironic statement -- Steven Staples seems incapable of irony -- but if it's true, it may be that the new peace movement hasn't done its job very well. Canada now has a good military. It's still waiting for a good peace movement to hold it to account.

J. L. Granatstein is senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

I think Prof. Granatstein makes several good points:

1. There is a legitimate, respectable – but, sadly, boring – “peace movement” out there, centred on e.g. Project Plowshares (about which I have commented favourably in the recent past). The problem is that it is boring and the requirement is for controversy so real, honest ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’ go out the media’s window;

2. The driving force behind the media’s favourites is not peace or even ‘anti-war,’ it is juvenile, knee-jerk anti-Americanism of the sort which animates a substantial minority of Canadians – those who are least informed and least able to reason;* and

3. It is, indeed, sad that the real, intellectually honest peace movement is being silenced – by media ignorance and commercial imperatives for controversy. The broad strategic debate needs strong, reasoned voices on all sides. We will never get that from Barlow, Ram, Staples, et al. They have a different, self serving (rather than nation serving) agenda.


--------------------
* There is an intellectually honest, reasonable anti-American position. It is based on one's analysis of attitudes and actions at and near the 'top' of the US political heap. Fair minded people can debate that position fairly. Barlow, Ram and Staples and their fellow travellers are not in the 'fair' or 'reasoned' business; they are in a symbiotic relationship feeding off their collective need for controversy - the more mindless the better.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post is Steven Staples’ response to Jack Granatstein’s recent article:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=737740

Understanding the peace movement

National Post 
Published: Thursday, August 21, 2008

Re: The New Peace Movement, J. L. Granatstein, Aug. 20.

I am happy to learn that military-historian Jack Granatstein has been paying attention to the peace movement and the Rideau Institute. But his column misstates two important facts.

First, the reason most Canadians want Canada to play a leading role for world peace is not rooted in anti-Americanism, but in the desire for us to play an independent role in the world. Mr. Granatstein still laments that Canada didn't join the ill-fated war in Iraq, but today even most Americans agree that Canadians were right not to support the U. S.-led invasion. So by Mr. Granatstein's own analysis, can millions of Americans be anti-American?

The second is that he argues, rather disingenuously, that Canada needs a stronger peace movement to keep the military in check. Yet he is part of the problem, not the solution. Defence lobby groups like the Conference of Defence Associations seek out and receive millions of dollars from the military to write op-eds and be quoted in newspapers, as was recently revealed when its government funding agreement was made public.

The money and access handed to these groups far outweighs what the Rideau Institute receives through donations from committed supporters and friends in the United States.

The truth is the defence lobby often pretends it wants a public debate, but it loathes and denigrates members of the public and even the journalists who report on it. The president of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute recently decried that reporters covering public opinion on defence issues "stick microphones under the noses of whatever slack-jawed gum-chewing vagrants they can find on the street."

It may be frustrating for the military dinosaurs, but Canadians will not give up the idea of Canada as a peacekeeper.

Steven Staples,
President, Rideau Institute, Ottawa.

I have no comment on Staples’ comments on Granatstein’s ....

 

[vonGarvin]

It may be frustrating for the military dinosaurs, but Canadians will not give up the idea   myth of Canada as a peacekeeper.

 

[George Wallace]

I do, but he upsets too easily.   >

Did not the Government not stop funding CDA about five years ago?