Media
Life After Guantanamo: Why the Media's Happy-Ending Narrative Is Totally Bankrupt
Thu, 07/02/2009 - 08:03 — Dave Culver
The transfer of four Uighur prisoners to Bermuda has been treated like a happy human-interest story, but the truth is far darker.
Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Ken Mitchell
"From Gitmo to Paradise!"
So came the news via MSNBC last week (June 14-20), echoing the upbeat tone of so many covering the sudden transfer of four Uighur prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda. Broadcasting images of beaming bearded men in bucolic surroundings, the happy-ending narrative offered by the media was perfectly captured in a June 14 New York Times story: "Out of Guantanamo, Uighurs Bask in Bermuda."
"Almost exactly seven years after arriving at Guantánamo in chains as accused enemy combatants, and four days after their surprise predawn flight to Bermuda," the Times reported, "four Uighur Muslim men basked in their newfound freedom here, grateful for the handshakes many residents had offered and marveling at the serene beauty of this tidy, postcard island."
The jagged little pill that is media health care coverage
Wed, 07/01/2009 - 16:47 — Dave CulverThis week (June 14-20), the Congressional Budget Office released a partial analysis of the Senate health committee's draft health care reform bill. And immediately, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, David Brooks, USA Today, The New York Times, and ABC's Jake Tapper all misinterpreted its findings, claiming that the legislation would cost a trillion dollars while still leaving nearly 40 million Americans uninsured. When House Majority Leader John Boehner advanced similar fallacies on The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer didn't challenge him.
Rush Limbaugh believes that there is no health care crisis in America. And he's not alone. With the right wing's relentless onslaught against any attempt to reform health care in America just getting started, the need for honest reporting on the issue is greater than ever. (David Goodfriend's honest comments on CNBC were refreshing, but unfortunately, they represent the exception, not the rule.)
CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf actually explained his agency's findings in a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy. He wrote that those considering the analysis should know that "[t]he draft legislation released by the HELP [Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] Committee ... indicates that certain features may be added at a later date." Furthermore, the draft legislation evaluated didn't include "a 'public health insurance option' and requirements for 'shared responsibility' by employers. Depending on their details, such provisions could ... have substantial effects on our analysis." In other words, withhold final judgment, because that's what we are doing. But that's not what was done in the press. At least Robert Reich was paying attention.
'Green Shoots' of Recovery? Don't Fall for the Media's Economic Triumphalism
Wed, 07/01/2009 - 16:32 — Dave CulverA narrative is emerging that we're seeing the first signs that a recovery is around the corner, but the reality is less encouraging.
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Amid the most painful period of economic turbulence in generations, a narrative has emerged that a handful of less-than-catastrophic economic reports represent the first "green shoots" of a healthy return to growth.
When a slew of absolutely depressing economic data were released in late May, economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote: "these reports might have led to gloomy news stories, but... the media have obviously abandoned economic reporting and instead have adopted the role of cheerleader, touting whatever good news it can find and inventing good news when none can be found."
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Green Shoots, Red Ink, Black Hole, Eliot Spitzer, Slate.com
Instead of focusing on the green shoots--dandelions, really, let's examine the macro data that will determine our national prosperity in the next generation. These data are terrifying.
Stay the Course, Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Time for some reality checks
Did Paranoid Right-Wing Media Fuel the Pittsburgh Cop Killer's Rage?
Fri, 06/26/2009 - 14:31 — Dave CulverRichard Poplawski, the man who allegedly murdered three Pittsburgh cops, was clearly influenced by Fox News's Glenn Beck and right-wing radio.
Max Blumenthal, The Daily Beast
On April 6, two days after the 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly murdered three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a radio host named Alex Jones settled in before a microphone in his studio in Austin, Texas to do some damage control. "The mainstream media has certainly enjoyed tying me into this story," Jones complained. "They're attacking me and saying I'm delusional and there's no New World Order The Second Amendment, what the country's founded on--it's all my fault!"
Poplawski was a neo-Nazi wannabe who railed against blacks, Jews, "Zionists," and gun control. And like many members of the far-right fringe, he allegedly visited Jones' Web sites and posted alarming reports by Jones' writers on the white supremacist message board, Stormfront. (Poplawski's posts are here, authored under the handle, "Braced For Fate.") While Alex Jones generally avoids overt racism, he has found an eager audience on Stormfront by conjuring dark visions of an impending New World Order, claiming FEMA is secretly building a national concentration camp network, and announcing that President Barack Obama has planned mass gun seizures on his way to establishing a leftist dictatorship. "Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens," warned a March 13 commentary on Jones' website, Prison Planet.
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