Friday, March 18, 2011

Through the US Media Lens Darkly

By Robert Parry
March 18, 2011

As Americans turn to their news media to make sense of the upheavals in the Middle East, it’s worth remembering that the bias of the mainstream U.S. press corps is most powerful when covering a Washington-designated villain, especially if he happens to be Muslim.

Read on.

2 comments:

Morton Kurzweil said...

I might agree with Robert Parry if every source was identified by religion, race, nationality, and party affiliation. Once the sources of belief and prejudice are worked out, the reader has a better chance to analyze the news, unless the reader himself agrees with the report by confirming his own prejudice.
The activist Supreme Court is an excellent example of bigotry in action. Bush the lesser considered his election a mandate from God. The Tea Party fanatics act upon the xenophobic fears of believers.
Equality of opinions is limited by the tyranny of ignorance in a democracy. The object of government is to behavior of the corrupt, the stupid, and the insane, and to defend against the collusion of parties who would insinuate morality into a secular society.

Big Em said...

Excellent article on the US MSM's bias against our 'official' enemies and for our ubiquitously beneficent actions. Another factor is on the 'demand' side of the news equation. Too many of our fellow US citizens do not want to spend five minutes a day to expose themselves to more factual, believable information - - - it's easier (and more popular at the water cooler!) to just let the right-wing squawk-radio or the etiolated MSM versions wash over them. They will often spend WAY more time searching for facts within our pop culture (ie; males; sports figures/contests, females; TV/movie personalities, diets/beauty) than exploring the Internet or alternative publications for a comprehensive, skeptical version of political events. We progressives/liberals/etc aren't tuned into some special frequency radio wave unique to ourselves, we're just (generally speaking) interested in getting the whole, realistic story and trying to bring about a more fair & just world, especially for the dispossessed, so we obtain additional information that is actually relatively easily found, especially nowadays with all our high-tech electronic devices.