Ho, ho, ho, America! As a special gift to YOU, big media is combining its yuletide forces to banish that icky, yucky Iraq story far, far away from the holiday front pages. Such a downer the occupation of Iraq, eh? Who needs that kind of bad news during holiday shopping season when we can be reading about teddy bears and office gift etiquette.
Before posting this story (9am, Dec 3, 2007), I checked all the big media news websites to see if any of them so much as listed a story about the U.S.occupation of Iraq.
Nada.
The word "Iraq" did not even appear on the top pages of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS. The first story about Iraq on CNN's website was several pages deep in the "Latest News" section, but was about an Iraqi soccer star whose career was cut short when he lost a leg. In fact, the only major network to have a story: FOX News, which links to the AP article "Top U.S. Diplomat Calls for Political Progress in Iraq Following Lull in Violence."
So...summing up: As of this wintry Monday morning in December, none of America's billion dollar big media news outlets ran any stories on the foreign policy debacle destroying America's military and frustrating all of America--none that is, except FOX, which pushed a story claiming that violence in Iraq is "under control."
More eggnog, anyone? Cruller?
The disappearing of Iraq from America's front pages seems to have reached some kind of depth here at the onset of December, but the problem has been taking shape for some time. Eric Boehlert at MediaMatters noted that ABC's investigative news magazine Nightline--once known for its hard-hitting reporting on Iraq--has not run a story on it for 18 weeks:
In the four-plus months in between, Nightline produced more than 230 separate news segments covering a kaleidoscope of topics, but just one was filmed in Iraq: a Green Zone-based profile of Gen. David Petraeus on the eve of his Capitol Hill testimony. As for the daily or weekly events of the war itself, for 18 straight weeks (or one-third of the calendar year), Nightline effectively walked away from Iraq. What took its place? Lots of Nightline reports on pets and pop music.
(full story here)
Weeks and weeks and weeks, but no Iraq reporting. But what is more important for America to know about that the so-called battle to save the future of the world in Iraq? Boehlert lists the stories that Nightline has run since it last reported on Iraq:
(full story here)
Now that makes sense. Heaven forbid Iraq should dominate the news coverage when there's a "Pasta War" and a "Frozen Yogurt War" afoot.
Reality, it seems, does not much concern big media news editors these days--that reality being that America's fiasco is ongoing, shows no signs of ending, and continues to destroy countless military families and the general confidence of American citizens.
Gingerbread cookie? Anyone...anyone?
And it's not just the news reporting. The presidential primary season has been cleansed of Iraq as well.
The last CNN YouTube forum/debate featured almost 30 minutes of Rudy Giualiani and Mitt Romney trying to out hate each other on immigration, but no questions about Iraq.
It seems that at the beginning of these TV forums, Iraq was very much in the air. As the top issue in the country, Iraq took up much of the time. But as the forum schedule grinds on, that Iraq story seemed to be old news to producers looking for ways to keep the forums fresh and exciting. Iraq? Been there, done that. Let's talk about other things. And thus, the Iraq war has vanished from the candidate forums like a costume change on Dancing With the Stars.
Hot cocoa?
Don't get me wrong, here: I love holiday stuff. Chanukah begins tonight and I am primed for some serious dreidel time. And I have been enjoying the first month of Christmas shopping season very much. New York City is beautiful this time of year. But the lives of American soldiers have not been trapped by a foreign policy fiasco that confines them to the housewares department at Macy's. They are in Iraq--U.S. occupied Iraq.
Ye olde holiday good times cannot and should not be uses as an an excuse to knock Iraq off the front pages--should not be rolled out by America's big media outlets to dampen America's awareness of the biggest issue facing us.
America's big media must do better than this. They must report Iraq and report it well even in the holiday season--especially in the holiday season.
No more media blackout on Iraq.
America's billion dollar media needs to stop messing around with teddy bears and candy canes and get back to work.
(cross posted from Frameshop)
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The news programs are mostly tabloid driven. I guess it either costs too much money to get hard news or their corporate leaders don't want it on the air.
I read the news today oh boy.
Hey, Jeffrey, mix that egg nog three parts rum, one part egg nog. And hold the cruller.
The ROLE of the MEDIA is to 'CARRY WATER' FOR THIS FASCIST UNPRINCIPLED GREEDY BUSH CABAL....
and SHOPPING is the mantra and mantle that will be HUNG around the neck of this criminal and corrupt administration's legacy....
It's all about the $$MONEY:
BIG OIL, BIG PHARMACEUTICALS, BIG LUMBER, BIG COAL, BIG HALLIBURTON, BIG PRIVATIZED BLACKWATER THUGS, BIGGEST EMBASSY IN IRAQ BEING BUILT WITH OUR STOLEN TREASURY DOLLARS and
BIG LIES TO SHILL THE WAR and to PROP UP THEIR
'LIMP' AND 'LYING' LACKEYS!!!!!
The conventional wisdom is that the surge has worked so there's no story in Iraq any longer. That would be the same conventional wisdom that told us that the Iraq invasion would be quick and cheap, and that Saddam Hussein had terrible WMD that he planned to use against us through his terrorist ties.
I can never tell if the conventional wisdom is just stupidity, or just lies, or some unholy combination of both.
Very, Very good point - last election the public was focused on Iraq and the Republicans lost - this time - trivia pursuit.
Joe Biden is focused on Iraq and is the only candidate to actually proposed legislation to bring the Iraq war to an end by ending the civil war there - just breaking up the country. He thinks until Iraq is over with nothing elese can be solved in this country as we can begin to heal our relations with the rest of the world, heal our economy, fix any domestic problems. Iraq is the key to America's future and has to be dealt with. His plan has the support of 75 Senators and many of the world's leaders.
No one else has even offered a plan, let alone a better plan. Just getting the troups out isn't a solution as Biden says physically we can't move them that fast - it would take at least a year.
Joe Biden has a son who serving in the military and about to go to Iraq. He has a personal stake in Iraq.
The alphabet soup of t.v. news "shows" is becoming ever more aware that it is being overtaken by a more open media -- internet blogs. T.V. news is a monologue, and the internet is a dialogue. A dictator engages in a monologue, for a dictator is just that -- one who dictates. However, blogs must, to be more than the presentation of a "take it or leave it" monologue, admit dialogue in the form of "comments". For example, when "Red State" decided to stop any comment with the term "Ron Paul" in it -- it became but an unreflective dictatorial monologue. As the blogs become ever more technologically refined, there will be little need for any one to pay much attention to what any t.v. dictator has to tell us. As Rhett Butler might put it, "Frankly, my dear talking head, I don't give a damn."
If you don't think big media is serving the public interest, you only have a week to tell the FCC no to more consolidation. The public comment period closes on December 11. Let your legislators know that this is important to stop, too.
http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=2118613
Iraq SHOULD dominate news coverage.
With the American military deaths at 3,882 and the Iraqi deats at 1,125,128, the people who championed the invasion and beat the drums loudest are still taking directions from the Bushies to keep silent.
I just spent 19 days in Birmingham, Alabama where, for several days of each week, the daily news paper did not cover a single news story on Iraq and when when they did, no useful information was given.
Talk about being in an intellectual wasteland.
I think someone made a phone call to someone
else so that they can keep drilling oil wells
without the TV crew...
Didya know that, like, the ocean bounces up
and down about every 4 hours? Ya gotta wonder
what kind of cars we might be driving today
if'n they took and figured out how to use
that kind of natural 'free' energy instead of
trying to orchestrate complex and apparently
unsustainable sunshine stories about 'bringing
democracy' to other people's countries while
they pump crude outside the area of camera coverage etc....but, that's what happens
when we kind of just let an oil magnate sit
in the Big Chair...it's kind of like the
drug war where they hold the screaming baby
in front of the TV camera while the drug
car rolls behind the camera. It's not so
much what we're being shown as what we're
NOT being shown, nevermind that guy behind
the curtain etc...
Reality tends to put a damper on the holidays when your bright and shiny children have been hijacked to fight an unjust war against dirt farmers
Not only is bad news being censored, but good news is being manufactured.
American taxpayers are paying the salaries of Bush's Sunni militias to buy their allegiance against the wishes of the Iraqi government, yet we get reports of "volunteer local forces"...
Syria kicks out Iraqi's whose visas have expired or who have run out of money and we get reports of "returning refugees"...
Of the 35 American soldiers killed last month I saw media reports of only six.
Of the 540 attacks that occurred in Baghdad last week, only one suicide bombing made the corporate news.
This isn't about sensibilities around the holidays or issue fatigue, it's orchestrated downplaying of the conflict and a misrepresentation of reality... carefully designed propaganda to influence public opinion.
For the past twenty years, my TV news of choice has been PBS (MacNeill/Lehrer or Lehrer) plus programs like Nova & Frontline and those offered by Bill Moyers and David Brancaccio. It's the only honest and comprehensive news analysis on TV.
I am so fed up with the vapidity of commercial and cable news that I would welcome a challenging source like Al Jazeera as an anti-Fox alternative.
In shameless self promotion comment-mode,check out www.iraq.newsladder.net
we won't forget Iraq even if everyone else does
i found this very very interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwxzt4iPkNE&feature=user
If you're looking for Iraq news coverage, I wholeheartedly recommend NBC Nightly News. I won't say they air an Iraq story every day, but I'd say there are at least a couple of stories either on Iraq or having to do with the troops per week.
Now there has been a real news blackout going on, but it's not about Iraq. It's about New Orleans and the lingering aftereffects of Katrina. I haven't seen any full reports on NBC Nightly News out of New Orleans since Katrina's anniversary. The rejection of New Orleans as a presidential debate venue is only the tip of the iceberg--the commission members did the bidding of a Bush Administration anxious to keep New Orleans out of the mainstream media by rejecting her. I'd like to see a post about the news blackout on New Orleans.
The major 4 or five Multinational conglomerates that currently own our airwaves do control what we see and hear. So I never expect to see even the most intrepid investigative journalist getting his photographs of our war dead, either in Iraq or being off loaded in the dead of night from the planes that deliver them here like garbage, published in the MSM.
But what about all the little independent papers, and now blog sites? What about the rest of the world's press...I mean, has even Al Jazeera been coopted? Can I see those photos in the Guardian? What kind of power are we really taking about here?
And to Bush/Cheney--If these are our Heroes fighting and dying for the cause of Freedom, why are they invisible?
See also Jermain Dupri's article about the false reporting going on recently. America turned decidedly against the Vietnam War some years ago and around that time the media outlets stopped airing pictures of body bags coming home and violent clashes in that country. Why? America couldn't deal with the real violence of war. So now during our holiday season we don't want to hear about war, we want to hear about the new Christmas drinks at Starbucks and what sales are going on at Macy's, nevermind that our tax dollars are being wasted on frivolous pork spending in Washington and the very integrity of our country is being sold in the name of globalization.
WAKE UP, America, this house of cards we call our nation is bound to fall apart sooner or later. We'll all just change the channel and check our wallets to see if our credit card has enough of a line available on it to buy that new big screen.
The simple truth is that we no longer have a "free press". We haven't for quite some time now. We now have a "managed press" controlled by corporate media.
I don't think "discretion is the better part of valor" applies to the media. In fact, I'm pretty sure the discretion that they are practicing marginalizes them completely.
The big media report "news". News is stuff that has changed recently {whether significant or not}.
OK, what has changed in Iraq? The number of attacks on US soldiers has declined dramatically, thanks to a lot of Sunni militias making peace with the US occupation; and Moqtada Al-Sadr's truce. I think of this as just the two sides pausing to prepare for a civil war after we leave, but this happened a while back. The government of Iraq is still wobbly and incapable of bringing the country together. That too is not new.
The media report what their sources tell them. Bush admin sources may not want a focus on Iraq, and may not be leaking anything reportable. The Congressional Democrats are probably waiting for the next battle in January, and may not be leaking much, either. The Democratic presidential candidates, after all of them refused to guarantee withdrawal in a year, may see Iraq as an issue unlikely to get them any votes from the Democratic base.
The thing is, news is what gets good ratings, or pumps up circulation, or draws eyeballs. It is not the information most necessary to understanding what is going on.
Nice piece Jeffrey. Unfortunately, your excellent "Troops leave, violence down" frame has not yet taken hold.
One thing - Hanukkah starts tomorrow (Tuesday) night.
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Posted December 3, 2007 | 09:44 AM (EST)