That indefatigable blogger, Arthur Chrenkoff, has another round up of the good news coming from Iraq.
It just amazes me how well things are improving there, and how much the prospects for positive change throughout the region have increased since the liberation.
It just amazes me how well things are improving there, and how much the prospects for positive change throughout the region have increased since the liberation.
posted by Finnpundit at 12:38 PM
11 Comments:
Notice the forum. The freaky and easily shaken hordes of investors must be fed consistently with positive visions (i.e. lies or half-truths at best) to not to scare them off from prospective ventures in the foreign soil. Appeareances all so much.
Oh. Are these the same shaken investors who went to work a week after 9/11 tore a hole in their neighborhood? They don't seem to be so easily shaken to me.
American investors are exposed to MSM, just like everyone else, and that MSM, European as well as American, feeds a defeatist image of the war to the world, for its own political purposes. It takes a blogger (and the material is directly lifted by WSJ from Chrenkoff's blogsite) to notice that facts can be viewed from another angle.
And this, of course, upsets a lot of people (like you) who've completely bought the standard MSM has fed you. In fact, it almost seems you're... easily shaken.
Puntti, that doesn't upset me. Your ignorant blindness does.
Recent news seems not so good.
I quote another source:
The attacks came a day after the US Senate unanimously approved an emergency spending bill authorising a further $82bn for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other activities.
Money well spent? Hopefully. But for who? I think rather many US citizens still disagree on this.
Anonymous, you cite two news sources, CNN and BBC, that have a clear anti-war bias. So it's no wonder they would frame the news in that way. Both of them are part of the MSM.
What Chrenkoff does is show there is another way to look at the facts. And you should attempt to do that, too, instead of being constantly suckered in by the MSM.
Three questions if you've got the time: 1) What is the "MSM" and what isn't? 2) Isn't "another way of looking at the facts" just an alternative bias to the one you perceive in the "msm"? 3) Do you think that a bombing that kills 60 Iraqis isn't newsworthy? 4) If it is 'newsworthy', how can any media report it without then being open to having an "anti-war bias"?
Oopps... that's four questions. Sori. Kiitos.
Main Stream Media is all television and news publications the world over who profit from reporting news. As there is always a profit motive involved, it is suspect, whether it is left-wing or right-wing. MSM earns its living (or earns its subsidies, same thing) by holding on to its target audience's attention. Therefore, there is an interest in creating controversy, or "drama", if you will, as the attention span of most human beings - who are naturally self-centered - is rather short.
Because the bias of MSM is based on self-preservation of their power and influence (they make their daily bread that way) it is very different from an alternative point-of-view which might hold that there really isn't that much to worry about. In Iraq, things are looking up, and that's not good for people (like journalists) who have to justify their jobs and existence by creating drama.
The notion that 60 people were killed in a bomb blast is news, but there are bomb blasts going off in Nepal that don't get anywhere near as much attention, since Americans aren't there, and anti-Americanism is a proven money-maker for MSM.
The big suckers are the people who believe MSM, and who are not able to read between the lines: - unable to discern that the choice of words in describing an event are often based on bias. The blogosphere represents the first time in history that the people have the power to break the monopoly of MSM. And the wonderful thing about the blogosphere - which is growing exponentially - is that people are able to help other people in uncovering the bias of MSM.
Of course, some people, especially Europeans, will never break the habit, since they've been weaned on the concept that state news agencies are infallible.
"Of course, some people, especially Europeans, will never break the habit, since they've been weaned on the concept that state news agencies are infallible."
As opposed to the Chinese. Or the Arab nations. Or the Latin Americans. Or... or...
What about bloggers making their money from click-thrus? Surely the best way to get a loyal audience is to just pick one line and stick to it (as you seem to be doing)? Then you get the people who agree with you and want reaffirmation that they are right; plus those who take contrary positions but have sado-masochistic tendencies (or at least the romantic notion that informed debate can actually change a free thinking person's opinion... there just seem to be fewer and fewer of those around today). I don't see how that differs from the "MSM" - they have to hold their target audience as well after all.
The other funny thing about blogs is that they continually reference the "MSM" - Chrenkoff himself does this. Look at where he gets his new: The Scotsman, ABC news, The Indian Express, The BBC, The IHT, The IWRP, Yahoo, Reliefweb etc etc. Its hardly like our indefatigable blogger is fearlessly cruising the roads of Iraq finding all this out is it? All he does is trawl the MSM looking for the good news in amongst the bad news. I'm not sure what that is besides an alternative spin. Having said that - good on him for setting it all out, but he might have a crappy day when he's in a foul mood and do exactly the same but from the opposite direction "more bad news from Iraq". I'm not sure what that would prove either.
The wonderful thing about Salam Pax and various similar if less famous blogs around the world is that they were doing "on the ground reporting", but a lot of political blogs are in a parasitic relationship with the "MSM". Just because you got a story from one blog who got it from another blog who got it from another blog still doesn't alter the fact that at the end of chain tends to be the evil "MSM".
There's nothing wrong with blogging, but freedom-lovin'-cowboys-out-on-the-frontier -of-the-new-cyber-age is just sooo 2000 darling. Time to get over yourself and climb down off that pedestal.
You’re being a bit obtuse about the issues. Click-thrus are not a proven profit stream, so I don’t think you can claim that a profit motive is behind the blogger phenomenon. The fact remains most bloggers do it for other reasons than money. That is not the case with MSM jornalistic and editorial staffs.
Bloggers will also never replace journalists, but they are replacing the editorial staff within MSM that decides what is newsworthy, and how that bit of news should be presented. Although some bloggers might luck out and be on the spot at a news event, nobody seems to think that MSM journalists will be replaced completely. However, we might see MSM change, as the political power they once had erodes in the blogosphere’s favor.
These points have been raised ad nauseum within the blogosphere, especially in the context of Rathergate and the Eason Jordan fiasco. For you to bring up these issues now… is sooooo 2004.
And it sounds like you’re one of the many thousands within MSM that feels threatened by the emergence of the blogosphere.
Yea,
People just keep dying in Iraq and Puntti keeps telling us how things are going great. Oh yes, I forgot. We should not trust any news sources expect senor Finnpundit, who obviously has no bias whatsoever and spouts such idiotisms as "[A]s an American, I oppose any cooperation with the freeloading welfare states of Europe, and would support their destruction. But it is ironic that welfare statists would work against that entity (the US) that is their main financial support."
Great work, now return back to planet earth, please.
Iraq is a disaster.
It's a disaster for the Iraqi people, who are occupied. It's a disaster for Bush, who will go down in history as a b*ffoon. It's a disaster for the US people, who have already forked over $240 billion, and will fork over much more before they pull out with their tails between their legs. And it's a disaster for the US military, who are in yet another defeat, and whose recruitment is drastically below requirement.
One wonders what the next 'masterstroke' might be.
The evidence speaks to the contrary. What you are really saying is that you want it to be a disaster.
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