Repost of a blog covering the stuff in the title. I normally don't do intro text, so this is just filler. I will say that if you read this post all the way to the end, you'll see why the lynching of Don Imus is retarded.
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This is poetic justice for unleashing Backstreet and N'Sync upon the world.
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Why the Media Failed in Iraq. I've seen a number of these over the years. The simplest explanation for me is still that the media (as an economic entity) understood that war would be good for ratings (and it was) and thus had a built-in incentive to help bring one about.
Add to that the strong-arm tactics coming out of Washington (i.e. Plamegate) and you get what we have here....a retarded war.
Gary Kamiya's explanation.
Why did the media fail so disastrously in its response to the biggest issue of a generation? To answer this, we need to look at three broad, interrelated areas, which I have called psychological, institutional and ideological. The media had serious preexisting weaknesses on all three fronts, and when a devastating terrorist attack and a radical, reckless and duplicitous administration came together, the result was a perfect storm.
Some people in "the media" thought this war was idiotic from the start and the explanations and reasons for the rush didn't make any frickin' sense. We were called terrorist collaborators for our efforts. Or we got fired....for example.
NEW YORK (AP) -- MSNBC fired Phil Donahue on Tuesday, abruptly ending the veteran talk show host's return to television after six months of poor ratings.
Donahue's final show will be Friday night. The news show that precedes him on the air, "Countdown: Iraq," temporarily will be expanded to two hours to replace him.
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The move was not a surprise. MSNBC hoped "Donahue" would provide a liberal counterweight to Fox News Channel's competing "The O'Reilly Factor," but the ratings started poorly and didn't improve.
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The political talk show format has yet to prove -- and may never -- that it can support a liberal voice, said Andrew Tyndall, head of ADT Research, a television news consulting firm.
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"Countdown: Iraq," with Lester Holt as host, is one of the network's few success stories, occasionally inching past CNN to second in the cable news ratings.
[full story...published roughly a month before we invaded.]
And there you see the data I used for my hypothesis. Any body who questioned the war was an unpatriotic scaredy cat. While the "Countdown: Iraq" program was surging in viewers. One is left to wonder how popular Donahue's program would be now that the majority of the country has woken up to the fact that we were lied into a war of choice. At the time of Donahue's ouster, only 27% of the country opposed invaded (and 27% is nearly nobody, at least 20% on either end of the spectrum are complete fools).
The Media gave the people what they thought they wanted, a war.
How's that working out for us? How is it working out for them?
General Electric (the company that owns NBC and a big part of MSNBC...oh...and they make a lot of weapons and the stuff that delivers them) has made a ton of cash. GE's own stock has gone up nearly 100% in the last four years. I don't even need mention how other military service providers formerly run by the current VP have done, that's common knowledge...now.
The mainstream (traditional) media companies have so consolidated and monetized our media system, they cannot be thought to be independant voices. It is independant voices that point out the Emperor Has No Clothes. Those who get paid by the Empire usually aren't going to speak up against it.
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I'd do some more about Imus here...but it's such a stupid frickin' non-story I hate to waste any "ink" on it. The story, BTW, is tailor-made for a media that doesn't give a shit about news, and instead only exists to turn a profit. When one has a highly emotionally charged story, where only opinions matter (because the facts are so inane as to defy description...guys says something stupid...apologizes...END OF STORY) and all you need for "news" is to get a bunch of blowhards to sit around and well, blow hard at each other, then the profit margin in huge.
If instead, you say...sent someone to Morocco or Algeria to investigate how our idiotic war in Iraq is inspiring people by the truckloads to join Al Qaida...that would cost money, and it would hurt profits. It is much easier, and profitable, to just sit around and go back and forth about how a shock jock said something shocking.
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In other news, Boston has an idiotic mayor.
The "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" movie behind January’s marketing-stunt-turned-bomb-scare opens in Boston Friday (the 13th, no less) despite Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s plea to local theaters not to screen it "out of respect to the people of Boston."
No such luck. "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" opens Friday on two screens: AMC Boston Common and Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. Elizabeth Wolfe, vice president of publicity for First Look Pictures, said the film’s distributor had no trouble getting Boston theaters to show it.
[full story]
That should be a follow-up to this story, which proved that the "Home of the Brave" is a tired old slogan that should be retired.
Wake up.
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UPDATE: One of the better (IMHO) rants the Sharpton, Jackson, Imus unholy trinity.
Really, if the worst thing you can find is some shock jock saying shocking things, you have it pretty good.
If you want to see a real story regarding racist action in the U.S., this is the story for you.
Washington D.C., April 11, 2007 -- The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), the oldest Sikh American civil rights and advocacy organization in the country, today called upon the Joliet Police Department to investigate the actions of one of its officers when patrolling a local neighborhood.
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On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags.
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Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.
At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, "You fucking Arab! You fucking immigrant, go back to you fucking country before I kill you!"
Mr. Nag's wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Mr. Nag immediately being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to complaints of intense pain and head trauma. Mr. Nag also received numerous bruises and a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.
[full press release]
Kinda puts a few (literally) unkind words into perspective, eh?
FInally, I just lost a bit of respect for Obama over this incident.
April 11, 2007— In an interview with ABC News Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called for the firing of talk radio host Don Imus. Obama said he would never again appear on Imus' show, which is broadcast on CBS Radio and MSNBC television.
"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."
[full story]
Those words are going to come back to haunt you, Mr. Obama. Trust me on that. The same kind of thing is haunting our current President (who is one of the worst ever).