Government Cock Will Not Suck Itself. That's What A Free And Independent Media Is For.
Students at Harvard University have written a devastating paper showing that the American news media routinely referred to waterboarding as "torture" ... until the US government started waterboarding people:
LATER EDIT: I wrote about the media perception of torture in 2006, here. And if I thought the American media was craven in the face of government torture, that's nothing compared to the mass media gaslighting of America in response to the TSA's mandatory genital groping policy.
Waterboarding has been the subject of press attention for over a century. Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture .... By contrast, from 2002 - 2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture .... In addition, the newspapers are much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator.Link via Jason Kuznicki at The One Best Way blog.
LATER EDIT: I wrote about the media perception of torture in 2006, here. And if I thought the American media was craven in the face of government torture, that's nothing compared to the mass media gaslighting of America in response to the TSA's mandatory genital groping policy.
posted by Jennifer Abel at 2:04 PM
11 Comments:
Other people have noted this story, but I think your headline wins.
That post title is the best summary of the problem with today's media.
See, if only Dave Weigel understood the true purpose of the media, he wouldn't have lost his job at the Washington Post.
I suspect that any of those newspapers that are not owned by Rupert are owned by his evil twin.
Jim Henley also thought that your title was the best summary available.
I'm waiting with bated breath fot WaPo or the NYT to run this story.
Add my name to the list of those in awe of your title.
See, if only Dave Weigel understood the true purpose of the media, he wouldn't have lost his job at the Washington Post.
And Robert Byrd would've died with a smile on his face.
Not only does Jim Henley think it's a great title, so does the homonymous but unrelated, Jim Hanley.
I'm thinking of contracting all my headline writing out to Jennifer.
James Hanley
Perhaps not, but I wouldn't mind seeing a Peter Bagge cartoon of Barack Obama trying his best to perform that act of self-fellation.
But, but... liberal media bias... uhm, the mainstream (I mean "lamestream", ha ha ha) media is composed of socialistic, peacenik, defeatist America-haters! I know that because Sarah Palin says so.
You leftist commie pinko traitor.
*end snark*
The above snarkiness aside, am I the only one who repeatedly vomits every time they hold the Washington Correspondents Dinner? If the press is being cozy with the government, there is a problem. I want politicians to dread the arrival of a reporter, not sit down and serve them steak and wine while comedians perform for their entertainment. When I hear them laughing, I feel another poke in the eye of the American public.
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