|
Cartoon by K. Bendib, all rights reserved.
Donate and receive Bendib’s 1st book of 152 cartoons here!
Although there are enough indicators of the flagrant disregard for journalistic ethics to fill volumes, I will point out a few that are fairly simple to spot when you see them.
Where are the stories? - The most obvious indication of the lack of real journalism is the blatant omission of reports. Thousands of stories go unmentioned, even if they directly relate to the one or two stories dominating the day. I will list some examples as part of the “Battle Plan”, but one example that screams out during the current Iraq Crises is the complete silence on the issue of the United States getting caught providing FORGED EVIDENCE as proof that Iraq was attempting to purchase nuclear material from Niger. Not one word was mentioned on the air. This story should have dominated the news, not to mention the plethora of lies about Iraq’s weapons. Nobody is that stupid! What I mean by this is that when these broadcasters are reporting the news, or even asking questions they leave out the most obvious questions and observations. You sit and watch what they say, everyone in the room you are in says the same thing, making the most obvious common sense points, yet nobody on any of these networks seems to realize the obvious. Are they all that stupid? No, they are under complete control and they are not permitted to shine a light on anything that goes against the controllers. Simple example, as I watch the Iraq reports there are many reports of Iraqis “Dressing up as civilians” and shooting at the troops. Has one commentator even brought up the possibility that the civilians are indeed shooting at us because we are invading their homeland and killing their people? Can one person speak up? No they can not, because they will lose their job, without question, and without delay. The Distraction Du Jour: Orange alert; this means we will not hear about the 12 year old Powell Dossier given to the UNSC. Laci Peterson; this means we will not hear about Blair coming under fire (while Bush enjoys 70% approval rating), for the lack of WMDs in Iraq. The point is the media uses non vital stories to grab our attention away from real issues. I will prepare a list of these as they happen. Check back soon. What? I can’t hear you! Speak up? This is a VERY effective tool of the current administration. Pay attention, this is a dangerous trend. The silence is deafening. During interviews with any government vermin you will never see any claims challenged unless they do not comply with the current administration’s agenda. Case in point, I was watching good old Wolf Blitzer while he was interviewing a Democratic Congresswoman who just came back from the Mideast. The Congresswoman spoke of the fact that Iraq was violating the “UN no fly zones”. Well, am I crazy or should someone like Wolfy boy, who claims to report the news for a living, realize that the NO FLY ZONES ARE NOT SANCTIONED BY THE UN!!! He never flinched, He let the viewers believe a falsehood; one that just so happens to help the Bush cronies to demonize the Iraqis. A journalist who permits this to happen is a liar! Period. End of story. Intentional selective deception. Is it any wonder that 1/2 of the American public has been led to believe that Iraq was resonsible for the attacks of 9/11 Leading questions. When a “journalist” conducts an interview, there are words and phrases that should be used so as to not slant opinion or imply a conclusion. For example a journalist is interviewing a murder suspect, and poses the question “Were you at the scene of the crime on the day in question?” This leaves the interviewee a fair chance to provide an answer. The conclusion is left to the listener. If the same question is phrased “Weren’t you at the scene of the crime on the day in question?”. By saying “Weren’t”, you have already implied that the interviewee was indeed at the scene. This leads to viewer to believe that an acceptable assumption is that the interviewee was indeed at the scene. This is not journalism. This is not reporting the news. Pay attention Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Hidden Corrections. When the News Entertainment Networks report a story that turns out to be false or incorrect they spend only a fraction of the time retracting the story, depending on the topic.  Double Standards. There are so many examples of this that they require their own section.Continued...click next.
Related:
Report: Journalism At Crossroads - More people are competing to tell stories but, as witnessed by the repetition of cable news networks, fewer stories are actually being told. - Much of the new investment in journalism goes toward distributing the news, not gathering it, the study said. Newspapers have about 2,200 fewer newsroom employees today than in 1990, and network TV news has cuts its correspondents by a third since the 1980s.
 TvNewsLies.org’s Suggested Reading
|
