Positive press - Monday May 1st Guardian

[Ben]

The Guardian features a good article today (for a change) by AL Kennedy. As I can't find a link to the column on Guardian ONline, edited highlights to follow:-

The media's missing links

In pursuit of balance, wingnuts gets excessive airtime and big stories don't make the newslist.

by AL Kennedy

Balance: it's a lovely thing. It stops us falling over and inspires manufacturers of essential executive toys, and without it Disney-based ice spectaculars would be only a longed-for dream. Balance in the media? More problematic.

TV balancing meant I recently spent an afternoon in New York watching a 'scientist' explain that dinosaur eggs are really small. All dinosaur eggs. Which means dinosaurs must have started out small. So Noah could have fitted them into the ark. Media balance dictates that if one wingnut thinks gravity is caused by a rota of subterranean angels sucking, then he'll get as much air time as all those dull, arrogant physicists.

Media balance leaves apparently helpless reporters reciting conflicting statistics as if they were beyond interpretation. It provides the pseudo-factual whote noise between surgical dating makeovers and the soaps. It sets extensive coverage of Condie Rice's vacuous blearings against non-specific mumbles against protest. It means demonstrations against the occupation of Iraq aren't covered by the BBC, leading to more demonstrations outside BBC premises, which aren't covered. This is the most common form of media balance- balancing reality with silence.

Not that I'd suggest that the British, or indeed the US media, is involved in government conspiracies. That's barely necessary- they need only to be lazy, broke and scared. Even if media outlets aspire to be something beyond a kind of sophisticated Xeroxing service for PR handouts and spin, they often don't have the money, or the staff, to be effective.

Which is why papers such as the Washington Post hire semi-literate bloggers as columnists. The New York Times still hasn't recovered from Judith Miller; no source that hyped the pre-Iraq invasion * has handed itself over to The Hague as compicit in crimes against humanity... The pre-Iran invasion * is hyping higher; and increasingly weighty suspicions over 9/11 are ignored.

This would be irritating even if our public servants weren't loan-grubbing, lobby-fondling, expensively coiffured sociopaths, and their corruption and stupidity were not so manifest that small children could summarise it in crayon for any newsdesk near you. Sadly, our press faces Whitehall and White House regimes that believe accepting, or even acknowledging reality is a perilous admission of weakness. So the lies of liars who love lying are propogated by people who can no longer find the truth...




Good work!

[is]

Here's the link

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1764957,00.html


I too, thought this was a good positive piece, and also, thought it was odd that it didnt come up when I did my daily google news search for 9/11 conspiracy, as it contains both search terms. Very odd.

[orestes]

Couldn't that just be because it didn't get many hits? Not a tech expert I'm afraid. It is good though. I think they must be preparing something at the Guardian. They must have got an almighty postbag after the Sheen hit-piece. Maybe they are testing the water?

[brian]

The optimism is admirable but misplaced I fear, the article only fudges the issue. As Rivero points out if blogs can do it on shoestring budgets there is NO legitimate excuse for those in the mainstream.

From the article -

"Not that I'd suggest the British, or indeed the US, media is involved in government conspiracies. That's barely necessary - they need only be lazy, broke and scared. Even if media outlets aspire to be something beyond a kind of sophisticated Xeroxing service for PR handouts and spin, they often don't have the money, or the staff, to be effective."

When we see how many hacks and photograhers are involved when some bimbo MAY be passing by or some sexual scandal is breaking it is clear it is neither a money or staff problem. On such critical issues as 911 it is clear they are willfully ignored either by decree or default.