the Zimbabwean media

[realthog]

. . . except the venue isn't Zimbabwe, it's here. Glenn Greenwald of Salon has some pointers as to one reason why election results can sometimes seem so dissociated from the merits of the candidates. Here's the opening of his piece at
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/05/media/index.html:

The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell

The U.S. government suspended the Fourth Amendment and expressly authorized torture. The attorney general lied about how the 9/11 attack happened. Barack Obama can't bowl well. Which revelations did the media cover?

Glenn Greenwald

Apr. 05, 2008

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

"Yoo and torture" - 102

"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73

"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16

"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043

"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607

"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079

These are the supposed news media that are being talked about -- the shapers of opinion, the educators of the voting public, the Fourth Estate -- not, as you might assume from the Nexis results above, the rags at the supermarket checkout which tell you the latest about Brad, Angelina and Jen. Or Katie and Tom. Or Nicole and Joel (which is really baffling Pam and myself because we haven't the first clue who Nicole and Joel are, and neither have the cashiers we've asked).

Not so long ago, hutch0 (at http://hutch0.livejournal.com/67874.html) rightly took issue with the numbskull US tv pundidiot Tucker Carlson, who made the absurd claim that the standards of journalism at the Scottish national newspaper The Scotsman were somehow shabbier than those of himself and his like.

(They must have been laughing themselves senseless at The Scotsman as they watched the clip. It's not the best of the UK newspapers, but it is somewhere in the upper echelon. A few years ago I'd have said the top UK newspapers weren't as good as US equivalents like the New York Times and the Washington Post. In the wake of Judith Miller and the decline -- plummet -- in standards at the Post, it's now hard to make that case. So today, despite the fact that its breadth of coverage can in no wise match the NYT's, The Scotsman is arguably the better journalistic venue. And that's said by someone who prefers Scotland's other main newspaper, the Herald.)

Tucker Carlson almost immediately lost his job, of course, due either to the man's complete incompetence or to the fabled Curse of Hutch0. But, with hindsight, it seems unfair that the Fates singled him out.

1043 mentions of Obama's (lack of) bowling skills.

118 (all told) mentions of Yoo's memo responsible for turning the US into a Torture State.

73 mentions of Mukasey's lie about 9/11.

Brad, Angelina and Jen, anyone?

 

Comments

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

This is so true and so very sad.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

What amazes me is when the MSM journalists whinge about how so many readers/viewers/listeners are deserting them to find their news online or even from overseas sources.

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

You're right. in this house, we read the Telegraph and BBC news, both online. They haven't got a clue.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Oho, the Torygraph, eh?

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

uh oh. Have i stepped in it? I'm not sure what that means. I'm not UK politics savy, just US.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Torygraph" -- you should tease Bear about it . . .

[nballingrud.livejournal.com]

Christ almighty. It's one thing to apprehend this in the abstract; it's quite another to see it laid out in so stark a fashion. How pathetic.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

There's a magazine called Columbia Journalism Review (I get its email updates, which are free) that covers a lot of this sort of stuff, and in fact I'm surprised it hasn't come down heavily on the mainstream media for this particularly appalling instance of disparity between real news and crap.

Meanwhile we have the new owner of the LA Times, which until recently was a pretty good newspaper, telling his hard news reporters, his DC bureau and the like that really they're just burdens on the overheads bill: what his readers really want are lots of fluff articles about the entertainment industry, which he can get Real Cheap.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Nicole and Joel are Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, who are allegedly to marry this summer.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Nicole and Joel are Nicole Richie and Joel Madden"

I am no wiser than before . . .

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Nicole Richie is the daughter of Lionel Richie. She appeared with Paris Hilton in that irritating series where they pretended to live `normal' lives and do `normal' jobs. I have no idea who Joel Madden is, but apparently he's going to marry her.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Ah. I've vaguely heard of Nicole Richie, but had no idea she was connected to Lionel Richie. She's the one who's famous for being slightly less devoid of talent than Paris Hilton, isn't she? Sort of like comparing two absolute vacuums and wondering if there might be a quark in one of them.

Good job you read all those scuzzy British tabloids, isn't it?

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I googled them.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I believe you.

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

Nicole Ritchie is famous for being anorexic and sickly looking, and suddenly becoming much healthier when she became pregnant (thank God, on behalf of the baby!). She still seems to maintain her normal weight, which is probably the same as my left leg.

I know this because I subscribe to People. I love the real people-type of stories in it.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely convinced Nicole Richie is a real person...

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

No, no!! You are right! I meant the real-people articles that come AFTER all the "famous people" at the beginning. It is what makes the magazine worth reading. Like, I just read about a 70 year old man who is in first grade in St. Joseph, MO (19 miles from where I was born) because he has never learned to read. Now he is reading... and it is changing his life. It was a very moving article.

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Years ago, before the Internet, we had a subscription to People at work because their celebrity stuff was useful when we did profiles of the rich and famous. But I always thought the articles such as the one you mention were more interesting.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

When the media is owned by Murdoch and that ilk, only circuses will be provided.

They learned, o did they learn from the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements of yore.

Niching, niching, niching, in everything, and thus no commons, no public space, in entertainment, politics, cyberspace, in journalism, in real life. Nothing to bring us together, only what divides. Instead of music we have hate radio, just for starters (part of Vaquero's Gonna Burn the Motha Up talk at EMP later this week).

Love, C.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Vaquero's Gonna Burn the Motha Up talk at EMP"

Will you be circulating MP3s or whatever of that afterwards, C? I'd be interested.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

He's going to do a much longer version of it (meaning two more sections at the top) in San Francisco at one of those venues.

It will be recorded by the venue. It will also be published, if EMP does an anthology again this year. But that takes like three years at least to put out.

We are going to look for a venue to publish the longer version -- he doesn't get as much time at EMP -- there are many presenters, and he's one of those who really wants the time that people are given to be observed.

Love, C.