Back Talk

Almost all news reports are negative; they hammer away daily reporting the up to the minute deaths and destruction, have been doing so for three years, and are largely responsible for the public’s decline in support for the President and the war. The press will make a 10 person anti-war demonstration sound like a major groundswell. Just today, the big news story was that three suicide truck bombers attacked crowds of people in the Anbar province; the result was two people killed. Anyone else have a problem with the perspective here? All this is unsurprising because the press has always been generally against the military and anti-war; the press propagandized the Viet Nam war until we eventually abandoned that country and cut off funds to support South Viet Nam which then fell to the Communist North. I have heard it several times that Walter Cronkite struck the final blow, ended the war, and indirectly caused the slaughter of 3 million Vietnamese and Cambodians with a single news broadcast. The media has had a news monopoly for years, and still does to an extent with al Qaeda’s favorite news outlet, the Associated Press news service providing most of our news stories; however, that monopoly has some fractures because of the Internet and talk radio. The LA Times, a paper I subscribed to for a few years, is a prime example of a very Liberal and enormously influential newspaper. In Los Angeles Police Chief, Daryl Gates, book he said that the LA Times selected the winners of all political offices, selected the outcome of all ballot issues, and destroyed all opponents. A new Zogby poll turned up an interesting paradox about liberal news bias. It found that 82% believed the media to be biased in their news presentation – a finding inconsistent with the fact that propaganda has such a definite effect on public opinion. One can only assume that a large percentage of the public go along with the newsmakers’ views because they are too busy, unconnected, or disinterested to seek further analysis.