“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.â€
-Benjamin Franklin
Jack of Jack’s Newswatch takes a moment to ponder the media’s objectivity concerning the recent Israeli attack on Qana:
Lately I’ve been trying to focus on the situation in Israel and the misleading press reports that are being constantly pumped out by CNN, Reuters, AP and many others. I truly wonder whose side they’re on and I would “just betcha†that if the homes or families of any of these “honest†reporters were threatened in the manner that Israeli citizens are now being threatened we’d soon get an entirely different picture of the situation.
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I should point out now that that I have reasonable cause to believe (and do believe) that news outlets deliberately fail to tell the motoring public all that is known about a news event for reasons which are highly suspect (and completely unexplainable). A good “for instance†is the important information developed by very hardworking bloggers on the situation in Qana. I’ve been following it for days because I am also aware of the situation in the Palestinian territories wherein a criminal organization made up an entirely false story and claimed a massacre that never happened.
The label “objective” can be very difficult to ponder, much less award to a single news source. On one hand I have tremendous respect for the BBC and CNN as international news organizations that have done much to keep remote areas of the world informed on current events. Their attempts to be balanced and objective will always be criticized by partisan groups like Honest Reporting because such groups are more interested in spreading their political causes than honestly evaluating “facts”.
On the other hand, BBC and other news networks have been caught in some very embarassing SNAFU moments, such as the “massacre” in Jenin that turned out to be completely overstated. Also, I remember watching commentary from Eric Margolis and CBC reporters as the US first attacked Iraq post-9/11. Margolis stated it was likely that 10000 Iraqis were killed after the first bombings, while a CBC reporter implored the viewers to remember that Iraqi citizens personally did nothing to George W Bush or America. “What does that have to do with the story?” I thought to myself. Moreover, how did Margolis come up with the estimates (which were grossly overstated)? Quite often, MSM organizations both show organizational bias and try to be the first organization to get the dramatic story. The result is a body of news controlled by elitist conglomerates that can be far from objective.
Alternatively, the blogosphere offers an unprecedented opporunity for readers to get information direct from individuals involved in conflict. Blogs like Live From an Israeli Bunker allow viewers to get a first-hand, uncensored account of events that occur in hotspots like Israel. Political aggregators and blog commentators can summarize and editorialize this information, creating a parallel news media that has equal or greater value to many readers than do the CNN’s and BBC’s of the world. However, independent media has always been a wild west in that there are no rules for what can be posted or standards on fact checking. Earlier this year, the New York Times got in hot water for publishing classified information and still risk legal action as a result (not to mention scorn from the military that was imperiled as a result of the information leak). As bloggers and other independent media -whom now play on a level cyberspace field with the big media outlets- struggle to differentiate themselves in the sea of recycled factoids, we could see a lot more “exclusives” that have been stolen, prematurely-declassified or simply made up.
Only the underlying danger remains constant - consumers prefer to read what they’d like to hear. As such, “due dilligence” tends to be exercised only when one doesn’t like the tone of the message. For this reason, it would be a mistake for readers to become comfortable with any one news source or family of news sources. The increased selection and channels for news has, ironically, made objective analysis more difficult.
I was just trying to think up something along the same lines myself. I noted this PM that a report of “farm workers killed by Israeli bombs” broadcast by CTV and reported in Reuters has had no mention in AP or AFP. Fox News and CNN also appear to have disregarded the claim. You may want to follow that up and update this entry with your thoughts. For now I’m linking.
Take care…