NEWSFLASH! -- American Media IS Bullshit

Dec 13th, 2011

Yup. It is. That's our argument and we stand behind it. We have two exemplars we hope will help illustrate this; the first is a clear indicator that, after years of "speech" and "broadcasting" programs pumping out square-jaws and dumb-blondes who couldn't pass a gym class without cheating, the art of independent copywriting is dead:


The second and far more frightening proof can be seen in the chart below.

Image via

Sleep tight.

The Wonders Of Editorial Headline Writing

Oct 14th, 2011

There are dozens of ways news outlets could have framed the victory of the Occupy Wall Street protesters this morning. Headline writing is, after all, really an art form. The power of a brief phrase in bold type to color a reader's perceptions is not to be underestimated. Were it up to me, I would have gone with something like "Bloomberg Blinks" or "Confrontation Averted in New York." Those are just for starters. However, more than one major outlet opted for variations of "Clean Up Cancelled." The thing is, they mostly paired these headlines with images of the park being cleaned up. Just an observation.

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Jon Stewart On The MSM's Dreadful Coverage of Occupy

Oct 7th, 2011

It really is this bad...

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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What Part Of "No" Does The MSM Not Understand?

Oct 5th, 2011

Some of you may remember an old Chevy Chase skit from the first season of Saturday Night Live. Week after week, Chase would announce urgently that "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" as the top story on that show's ground breaking news parody, Weekend Update. I was reminded of this yesterday while watching the bizarre spectacle of nearly every American media outlet as they covered the "eagerly awaited" press conference held by Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) to announce, for arguably the 100th time, that he is still not running for President.

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The media had every reason to be surprised. Wait, no they didn't. As Politico highlighted last week, this may be the most consistent position from any contemporary American politician on any subject whatsoever.

"It's Humanity, Stupid!"

Oct 5th, 2011

William Greider fires back at glib and dismissive coverage of the Occupation Movement:

"The reporters and pundits have been surprisingly respectful, withholding the usual cynicism. They did not jeer and make weak jokes. Still, they couldn’t resist pointing out the incoherence of this motley crew “occupying” Wall Street. What is the agenda? They asked around and duly reported that no one seemed to know. Yes, this is a charming scene, the artists and hippie types gathered in the public square, but still it must be said: they have no agenda!

Let me help the brothers and sisters of the fourth estate. It’s humanity, stupid! That is agenda enough and it is expressed clearly (even existentially) by the gaudy, loving presence of these noble citizens who have seized Liberty Park as their own free space, just up the street from the New York Stock Exchange.

It's Not News Because It's Happening Here

Oct 3rd, 2011

UK journalist Tony Gosling speaks to RT on the continuing dismissal of the Occupy movement by the mainstream broadcast media.

"Outside Approved Channels"

Sept 28th, 2011

If a handful of Tea Party activists, with marching orders from a manufacturing and petrol conglomerate, show up almost anywhere, anytime and carry American flags made in China... well, by golly, that's "news." But, when more than 7,000 citizens without pre-printed talking points gather to protest systemized corruption and inequality in the heart of the most important financial district on the face of the Earth?

cue crickets...

For the most part, American news outlets have taken two approaches to the Occupy Wall Street action; disrespectfully dismissive reports or none. It is ridiculous. It was also thoroughly predictable.

Glenn Greenwald puts it succinctly:

"It's unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive andscornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That's just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it's going to provoke."

Whatever structural critiques can be made about the movement, an area where Greenwald and I don't see things eye to eye, the broad refusal to objectively report on the events in lower Manhattan is a betrayal of the most basic principles of journalism.

How To Tell "News" From "Not News"

Sept 28th, 2011

How do we tell the difference between what is and what is not "news?" Who knows. I do somehow think corporate sponsorship just might actually have something to do with it.

Of course, in the last 24 hours, I have been called  a "Marxist," a "Communist," and a "Fascist" who is "going to die" when "the Tea Party restores freedom and kills" me.

So what do I know. Anyway, here's an easy visual guide to what is and is not "news."

NEWS

Image via PoliticsUSA

NOT NEWS

Image via Digital Journal

Priority Failure, Ctd...

August 1st, 2011

Why aren't we talking about brick and mortar investment and domestic job growth? Well, because we're just not. ThinkProgress notes:

"Mentions of the word over last week’s cable news media coverage on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN:
Unemployed: 75
Unemployment: 427
Debt: 7,583"

Chicago Rally For Wisconsin Update

Feb 28th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker
ClICK HERE to view our coverage from the rally on Saturday

Photo copyright © 2011Nicole Zimmerer

The relative broadcast media blackout of coverage for the largest nationwide pro-labor rally in America in a generation is but the beginning of the marginalization of it's importance. 


What print/interweb coverage has been disseminated over the last 48 hours is alarming for different reasons.

Prior to this weekend's rally outside the State of Illinois Building, we contacted the city and inquired about access to the building's upper floors. We were told the building would not be open for reasons of security and liability. Our interest in access was to make as accurate an assessment of crowd size as possible with an aerial view. In the last 48 hours, numbers have been reported as low as "several hundred" by the Chicago Tribune going up to "850 to 900" as reported in the LA Times.

As is always the case with political demonstrations, there is some argument over attendance. Several angry Walker supporters have e-mailed us to complain about our numbers. Allow me to explain our estimate of "several thousand." The width of the crowd both in front and in back was between 70 to 80 persons. The length of the crowd on either side was between 60 and 70 persons. The crowd was dense enough to make movement throughout it quite difficult. I counted these numbers myself repeatedly from 12:15 pm to 12:45 pm. Let us for moment suppose that my lowest figures were double the actual size; that would still give us a crowd of over 2000.


Of course, this may be the first you've heard of any of this. That "liberal media bias" sure is hard to find lately.

"A Massacre"

Feb 2nd, 2011

Selma Al-Tarzi reports from Cairo for Democracy Now.

More Amazing Good News... Too Inconvenient For American Media.

Jan 7th, 2011

A few days ago, I let loose (quite legitimately, I might add) on Marty Peretz for his recent essay in TNR regarding Muslim reaction to the violence against Egypt's Copts. 

The broader point I was trying to make had to do not just with the general omission from American media of information that reflects poorly on our own country, but also the exclusion of news which inconveniently demonstrates positive action in others. Here are some more current happenings you might not have heard about:

From Ahram Online:

"Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea."

Peretz Chimes In On The Egyptian Bombings

Jan 3rd, 2011

by F. Grey Parker

Well, it was just a matter of time before Marty Peretz, publisher of The New Republic, came slinking back to the discourse on the Middle East. After his tremendous blunders earlier this year in which he first seemed to argue that American Muslims should be stripped of their 1st Amendment protections and then issued an "apology" that only made matters worse, he was relegated to untouchable status in every forum where he once commanded attention. 

He needed just the right moment, maybe even a catastrophe, to get back in the game. 

And then... BOOM. Literally.