[N8 v2.0]

So my question is this... do those in the anti-US liberal media really hate the George Bush so much that they would go along with this on a routine basis? Why?

http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22029_Directed_By_Green_Helmet_Guy

 

[dante]

freakin' biased media. at least they're not taking stock propaganda footage put out by our administration as real news...

 

[N8 v2.0]

freakin' biased media. at least they're not taking stock propaganda footage put out by our administration as real news...

Surely you have some examples?

 

[Tenchiro]

Pointing out that this was photoshopped is like anouncing that the sky is blue. It isn't news when it is quite obvious.

I mean, c'mon!

 

[Tenchiro]

The other instance of digital photo doctoring was discovered by Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report on August 6.

"Rusty Shackleford", Isn't that Dale Gribble's alter ego on King of the Hill?

 

[N8 v2.0]

Pointing out that this was photoshopped is like anouncing that the sky is blue. It isn't news when it is quite obvious.

I mean, c'mon!

And yet the choped pic was run anyway.... Hummm....

 

[ohio]

Surely you have some examples?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?ex=1155355200&en=5c1631334bf62c7a&ei=5070

 

[Tenchiro]

And yet the choped pic was run anyway.... Hummm....

Meh, I just wanted an excuse to post a pic of that guy.

 

[N8 v2.0]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?ex=1155355200&en=5c1631334bf62c7a&ei=5070

far far far from propaganda...

 

[dante]

far far far from propaganda...

prop·a·gan·da ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prp-gnd)
n.

1. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
2. Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.

so what's your definition of propaganda?

 

[N8 v2.0]

so what's your definition of propaganda?

not a few canned press releases that's for sure.

 

[ohio]

not a few canned press releases that's for sure.

A few? It's a systematic approach the the Bush admin has used since taking office, that only ended (hopefully) when they were outright exposed for it, and offered embarassed stammering apologies.

 

[narlus]

it's all about controlling the message...including planting fake reporters. rove's certainly creative, gotta give him that.

 

[atrokz]

A few? It's a systematic approach the the Bush admin has used since taking office, that only ended (hopefully) when they were outright exposed for it, and offered embarassed stammering apologies.

It goes both ways, and if you honestly think its just the left wing nutters you might want to get a check up from the neck up...

 

[atrokz]

Oh, I should say thanks for posting that. good find and hopefully an eye opener for a lot of people.

 

[dante]

not a few canned press releases that's for sure.

glad to hear you have a better definition than American Heritage. Are you a Colbert fan then?

Truthiness is a satirical term coined by Stephen Colbert in reference to the quality by which a person claims to know something intuitively, instinctively, or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, or intellectual examination.

 

[rockwool]

So my question is this... do those in the anti-US liberal media really hate the George Bush so much that they would go along with this on a routine basis? Why?

This has nothing to do with Dubya. In my view it is the photograpers and the press agencies that are "protecting their interests".


Remarkably zombietime.com just mentions half of the most obvious reason to this photo fraud:

"Theory C: The stringers employed by Reuters simply wanted to make a name for themselves, and resorted to fraud to obtain the most spectacular images, regardless of their political outlook."

Of course photographers are trying to get a name in the biz, and maybe a break-thrugh from just part time professionals to full time etc. The competition over who gets published is probably strong.
And their explanation to their theory C is a bit rediculous:

"Again, Theory C requires an almost unbelievable level of incompetence on the part of the Reuters editorial staff. This theory is also doubtful because the propagandistic nature of the photos and captions is almost always anti-Israel."

One doesn't have to make a picture of war propagandistic against the horror of war and in this case, Israel. The civilian victimes of war and the material damage are big enough to speak for them selves without any photoshop manipulation or staged photos. It has nothing to do with incompetance from the part of news agencies.

The other half, which I find to be more important, is that the press agiencies them selves are competing against each other and want to make as much money as possible. Media works the same way; blowing up stories and head lines, some times from stuff barely worth to mention, just to sell more, with words or pictures.
Money is the name of the game. For corporations in masses, and for the individual sometimes it's for survival, and sometimes to boost their ego..

Altough these examples are no biggies. More important here is the principle. This should never be tolerated jsut because it is manipulation of the general publics minds!

 

[rockwool]

it's all about controlling the message...including planting fake reporters. rove's certainly creative, gotta give him that.

Who is Rove?

And who is Stephen Colbert?

sorry for asking but I miss out on a lot living elsewhere..

 

[rockwool]

far far far from propaganda...

N8, if you want to be take seriously then you can't say that if you've read that article. I only read the first page...but it was enough of examples that show that this type of media manipulation is far far far more serious than taking a doll and putting it on top of the masses of a bombed house (which has the meaning to show that this was actually a place of life). Manipulation like that is far more dangerous to the unknowing public than displaying bombed victimes a few hours later, than their actual death, to a bunch of photographers since it is still true that they died from that particular bombing. You can't expect photographers tp be close to all places so that pictures can be taken authentically.

 

[narlus]

Who is Rove?

Karl Rove. reptilian leader of the neo-con movement, along w/ cheney and rumsy they pull the strings to make W dance.

And who is Stephen Colbert?

sorry for asking but I miss out on a lot living elsewhere..

he's a comedian who has his own show called "The Colbert Report". he's wickedly funny (he plays it like he's an ultra-right winger, but has loads of digs to the republicans...some of the guest interviews he has are brutally funny). do a youtube search for some of the episodes, and also look for the transcript for the speech he did for the white house press/correspondents dinner. savagely funny stuff.

no problem. us yanks don't know much about sweden, that's for sure.

 

[Slugman]

N8, if you want to be take seriously <snip>

He doesn't... or rather shouldn't be. N8 likes to troll through this forum and stir up sh*t.

He's a die hard rightie - he will never answer your questions, and will always blame someone else for any problems.

If George Bush was a child molester, N8 will say that it was the child’s fault... and that it really was in the best interest of everyone.

Don't waste your time/energy/logic on N8... there are more important things to do with your time (like watch paint dry...)

 

[dante]

Colbert Report: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colbert_Report

Truthiness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word: 'truthiness.' Now I'm sure some of the 'word police,' the 'wordinistas' over at Webster's are gonna say, 'hey, that's not a word.' Well, anyone who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books.

I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. 'Cause face it, folks; we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No, we are divided between those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart

Consider Harriet Miers. If you 'think' about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination's absurd. But the president didn't say he 'thought' about his selection. He said this:

(video clip of President Bush 'I know her heart.'

Notice how he said nothing about her brain? He didn't have to. He 'feels' the truth about Harriet Miers.

And what about Iraq? If you 'think' about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn't taking Saddam out 'feel' like the right thing?

 

[narlus]

sadly, this is so true:

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country [edit - that'd be N8landers]. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?...

 

[syadasti]

Good reading on the perception of bias - those who think there is a bias are likely to be biased themselves - Duh!

The Science of Bias

Talk of the Nation: July 31, 2006

The Science of Bias

NEAL CONAN, host:

In a few minutes, the taste of country cooking. But just mention the word bias in a conversation about Middle East reporting and a storm of emotion is unleashed, whether you're sitting around a family television set or reading angry comments on a blog. It's hard to understand how two people can watch the same news story and have entirely opposite reactions to it, but there may be a scientific reason for that.

Shankar Vedantam is a national correspondent for the Washington Post. He writes about science and human behavior. His weekly Monday column deals with science in the news. In the past two weeks he's written about perceptions of bias. And he joins us today by phone from England. Nice to have you on the program.

Mr. SHANKAR VEDANTAM (Washington Post): Thanks for having me, Neal.

CONAN: And in your column you wrote about a telling experiment in which researchers showed 144 observers six television news segments about Israel's 1982 war with Lebanon. And what did they find?

Mr. VENDANTAM: Well, it was quite striking. When pro-Israelis watched the news segments, they found an astonishing number of anti-Israel references and very few pro-Israel references. And when pro-Arabs watched the very same news clips, they saw an astonishing number of anti-Arab news references and almost no pro-Arab references.

CONAN: Hmm, so they come to completely different conclusions about the very same things.

Mr. VENDANTAM: Yeah, what might be even more troubling than the fact they come to different conclusions might be that they actually are seeing entirely different things altogether. So this is not just a question of interpretation, it's a question of perception.

What partisans on both sides seem unable to do is to process any aspect of the news that might actually, you know, benefit their side of the argument. So they seem blind to positive news. And ironically, what happens whenever these conflicts break out is the one thing that partisans on both sides can agree on is that the news media is biased against them.

CONAN: But the partisans are sometimes very well informed. They may be partisan, but they're well informed. Does information serve as a buffer here?

Mr. VEDANTAM: Yes, unfortunately that was found not to be the case in the experiments that were conducted at Stanford University after the Israeli war in Lebanon in 1982. They found that people who were the best informed among the pro-Israeli and pro-Arab partisans were actually the most likely to see bias in the media.

And Stanford University psychologist Lee Ross thinks this is because people who are very knowledgeable understand a great degree of, you know, historical context, and of course it's the context from their side. But when they see a particular news clip, especially about a news event that took place the previous day, what they often feel is that there's a large amount of context that's missing. The more knowledgeable people are, the more context they find missing and the more therefore they feel that a particular news bulletin is extremely biased.

CONAN: I wonder, was there anything about explicitly partisan news sources? Do people find those more congenial?

Mr. VEDANTAM: Yeah. Explicitly partisan news sources are sort of an interesting phenomenon because, of course, the audience that comes to them is somewhat self-selected. So the audience that tends to come to, you know, an extremely ideological news organization are people who largely share that ideological position.

The people who don't share that position who come, who just sort of, you know, stop in for a visit, you know, invariably shrug their shoulders and say, well what do you expect? You know, they're partisan and they're ideological, and of course they're going to be biased.

So the ironic thing is that most of the, you know, the ire of partisans on both sides is targeted against mainstream media which, whatever their faults, are actually trying to be even-handed.

CONAN: So media like The Washington Post, for example.

Mr. VEDANTAM: Right. And you know, I'm sure this is happening at NPR as well. Whenever these conflicts break out you get an astonishing number of e-mails and calls and really people really upset from both sides who are listening to the very same programs and drawing exactly the opposite conclusions from them.

CONAN: Well, today you wrote about brain imaging and bias.

Mr. VEDANTAM: Right.

CONAN: And that was fascinating, the studies that show what happens inside the brains of partisans.

Mr. VEDANTAM: Right. So the psychologists who studied the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in 1982 were not so much interested in foreign affairs as much as the working of the partisan mind. And that, you know, their results can be applied more broadly than just in the realm of foreign affairs. Certainly they can be applied to domestic affairs and to politics and to why Republicans and Democrats, for example, love to hate each other.

And the latest version of the study is to try and do brain imaging scans of partisans, Republicans and Democrats. And what the studies find is that, you know, most people believe that they carefully weigh the information and then come to certain conclusions. What the brain imaging seems to find is that it's actually the reverse that's happening.

People come to conclusions pretty early and then essentially spend the rest of the time, say in a political campaign, essentially defending their opinions against attacks. In other words, they are resistant to taking in any information that could threaten those preexisting beliefs.

CONAN: Let's get a caller on the line. This is Mishleen(ph). Mishleen's calling us from Portland, Oregon.

MISHLEEN (Caller): Yes, hi.

CONAN: Hi.

MISHLEEN: To talk about the personal bias that we can see on TV or when we're hearing the news - I'm a Lebanese-American, and when the shelling first started in Beirut I was listening to CNN and the news anchor, she was clearly bias and it was so transparent through what she was reporting, talking about beautiful Haifa had been shelled and the beautiful Haifa beaches. You know, and my daughters were listening to the same broadcast with me and we looked at each other and we thought, well, okay, Beirut is beautiful too, but no one is saying beautiful Beirut has been shelled.

When I listen to a news report I want it to be objective and I don't want to see the bias of the reporter or the news anchor coming so transparently through what that person is saying. I want to make my own opinions, and I just want the news to be reported the way they are.

CONAN: And going back to our earlier conversation, Mishleen, do you now watch different news media?

MISHLEEN: I watch CNN, but I also watch the LBCI, which is the Lebanese Broadcasting Company. I have a satellite dish and I also watch Al-Jazeera. And part of the reason I watch both - okay, the LBCI is a Lebanese company. I know that they will have a certain slant on it, so I expect that. But I do watch both just to see both sides of the story and then I make my own judgment on what is happening.

CONAN: All right. Mishleen, thanks very much for the call. We appreciate it. And Shankar Vedantam, this Middle East conflict, as you say, well, it's especially difficult for a lot of us. It's a recurring crisis with highly emotional partisans on both sides. What do you think we can learn?

Mr. VEDANTAM: Well, I think from the point of the news media, from the point of view of reporters such as myself, I think one of the sad messages of the story is that it's probably impossible to write articles that please both sides. And I suppose at one level that's perfectly obvious.

The deeper message from this might be that, you know, people might want to question whether the way they see the world is the way the world actually is, because people with different persuasions clearly come to entirely different conclusions from the very same data.

The other important point I think that's worth mentioning and that came directly out of the studies in the '80s is that the reason partisans seem extremely upset at the news is that they are worried about the effect of the news on neutral observers.

So pro-Israelis are worried that neutrals will drift toward the Arab position, and pro-Arabs are worried about the reverse. And at this, the research essentially finds that partisans on both sides are wrong. Neutral people, I suppose first of all are - can be uninterested, so they just don't pay attention at all, but when they do pay attention they often are able to see the pros and cons on both sides much more clearly than partisans.

So partisans believe that other people, the neutrals, are more susceptible to quote-unquote propaganda, whereas the truth is that I think that people in the middle actually seem to have a clearer perception of things and are less likely to be swayed than the people on either end.

CONAN: Shankar Vedantam, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

Mr. VEDANTAM: Thanks so much, Neal.

CONAN: Shankar Vedantam, national correspondent for The Washington Post, who joined us from London. You can read his column on science in the news every Monday.

 

[rockwool]

This is bull:

"Another description of how Hezbollah intimidates journalists in Lebanon can be found on the Anderson Cooper blog. And this camera crew from TV2 in Norway had its film destroyed and its members menaced by Hezbollah (link in Norwegian) when they tried to film Hezbollah firing rockets at Israel."

The journalist from TV2, Fredrik Graesvik, explains:
"Hizbollah took our camera, but we got it back after they've taken out the tape. We only got a warning. I don't know what they meant by this, but some of the other journalist colegues have said taht they also find the Hizbollah soldiers as very agressive when it comes to photographing."

The article says why this was done after interviewing Ghaleb Kandil, a member of the Lebanese media council, who states;
"The mediacenters of the Israelis are supervising medias that cover the war from Lebanons. Israeli ambasadors around the world are watching the media in the country they are stationed in, surely also in Norway. The Israeli army can use pictures and information from the area that's been filmed to attack that area.

Ghaleb Kandil also says that it's praxis taht there are restrictions on "freedom of press" that can geperdize a countrys security.
Further he says:

"International media, like the arabic, that cover the war from Israel, aren't allowed to film everything eather. I know of three journalists from Al-Jazeera and one from Al-Arabiya a few days ago that were arrested by the Israeli police when they were having a live coverage from a place in Haifa that had been hit by Hizbollah rockets."

Kandil states that Hizbollah does not censor any information about the war. "But journalists know we're in a war situation."


Now, one should naturally question if this part of the information was left out intentionally, from zombietime.com's article, or not.

 

[rockwool]

Karl Rove. reptilian leader of the neo-con movement, along w/ cheney and rumsy they pull the strings to make W dance.



he's a comedian who has his own show called "The Colbert Report". he's wickedly funny (he plays it like he's an ultra-right winger, but has loads of digs to the republicans...some of the guest interviews he has are brutally funny). do a youtube search for some of the episodes, and also look for the transcript for the speech he did for the white house press/correspondents dinner. savagely funny stuff.

no problem. us yanks don't know much about sweden, that's for sure.

Ahh, the serpent race....

Colbert sounds like fun guy, comedians effing with politicians is healthy for any society, definately checking out youtube..

It's a lot easier for us who live outside the US to know about your country because of it beeing what it is, and the media consentration that it has, than it is for you to know about the rest of the world.


Edit: Slugman, yeah I know the phenomena, I find it way more tragic than pathetic htough.


Edit 2: Dante, that was beautiful!

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Who is Rove?

And who is Stephen Colbert?

sorry for asking but I miss out on a lot living elsewhere..

colbert has a show on cnn international on sundays. somewhere around 5pm GMT.
its extremely funny.

 

[rockwool]

colbert has a show on cnn international on sundays. somewhere around 5pm GMT.
its extremely funny.

Don't have a TV but I just saw the Colbert report and Colbert invades Cuba on youtube...he's quick minded and definately made me want want to watch more!

 

[ohio]

It goes both ways, and if you honestly think its just the left wing nutters you might want to get a check up from the neck up...

I'll assume you meant right wing.

It's not that the Democrats don't try, but they don't have near the ability, capacity, and audacity (balls) to spin and manipulate the way the Republicans do. I don't know if being incompetent at evil is any better than being evil, but it is certainly less damaging.

 

[atrokz]

I'll assume you meant right wing.

.

try again...

 

[rockwool]

Good reading on the perception of bias - those who think there is a bias are likely to be biased themselves - Duh!

Bias is natural.
When a person truly in his heart is trying to report a thing like this objectivly and portray the suffering on both sides etc. his reporting will still be subjective because of his previous knowledge that he has aquired through life, and because of that he might actually have a view on that specific issue that "red side" is guilty of a bit more wrong doings than "yellow side" is.
Subconsiously subjective through the eyes of reporter X.


In the story I found a few things I recognized.
It's like when coach gives you constructive critisism after a game, both negative things you should drop and positive things to build on, and the only thing you have on your mind later taht day is the negative bits..
About the Palestinian conflict people get so emotionally involved taht it becomes personal that the negative things said blinds the positive:

"Mr. VENDANTAM: Yeah, what might be even more troubling than the fact they come to different conclusions might be that they actually are seeing entirely different things altogether. So this is not just a question of interpretation, it's a question of perception.

What partisans on both sides seem unable to do is to process any aspect of the news that might actually, you know, benefit their side of the argument. So they seem blind to positive news. And ironically, what happens whenever these conflicts break out is the one thing that partisans on both sides can agree on is that the news media is biased against them."


Next thing is way to common, and reminds me of my social sience teacher when we discussed the Yugosalvian conflict, that people close their ears to arguments and childishly go "no" to every new well proved fact that is beeing handed to them and don't come up with anything them selves:

"And the latest version of the study is to try and do brain imaging scans of partisans, Republicans and Democrats. And what the studies find is that, you know, most people believe that they carefully weigh the information and then come to certain conclusions. What the brain imaging seems to find is that it's actually the reverse that's happening.

People come to conclusions pretty early and then essentially spend the rest of the time, say in a political campaign, essentially defending their opinions against attacks. In other words, they are resistant to taking in any information that could threaten those preexisting beliefs."


This is a good example of how the news in the US is biased:

"I was listening to CNN and the news anchor, she was clearly bias and it was so transparent through what she was reporting, talking about beautiful Haifa had been shelled and the beautiful Haifa beaches. You know, and my daughters were listening to the same broadcast with me and we looked at each other and we thought, well, okay, Beirut is beautiful too, but no one is saying beautiful Beirut has been shelled."

What could seem like a small thing but what it does is that it manipulates the feelings of the viewer who now has something to assosiate to, a beautiful town and its beaches, while the other side that is not beeing mentioined with anything positive that we can relate to, we don't grow any good feelings for.


This I find a nessesary to get as objective information as possible:

"CONAN: And going back to our earlier conversation, Mishleen, do you now watch different news media?

MISHLEEN: I watch CNN, but I also watch the LBCI, which is the Lebanese Broadcasting Company. I have a satellite dish and I also watch Al-Jazeera. And part of the reason I watch both - okay, the LBCI is a Lebanese company. I know that they will have a certain slant on it, so I expect that. But I do watch both just to see both sides of the story and then I make my own judgment on what is happening."


This part is tricky:

"So pro-Israelis are worried that neutrals will drift toward the Arab position, and pro-Arabs are worried about the reverse. And at this, the research essentially finds that partisans on both sides are wrong. Neutral people, I suppose first of all are - can be uninterested, so they just don't pay attention at all, but when they do pay attention they often are able to see the pros and cons on both sides much more clearly than partisans.

So partisans believe that other people, the neutrals, are more susceptible to quote-unquote propaganda, whereas the truth is that I think that people in the middle actually seem to have a clearer perception of things and are less likely to be swayed than the people on either end."

It states that neutral people can se both the positive and negative things mentioned on both sides better than the partisans, but it doesn't say anything about the bias, like in the example above, which the neutrals and anybody who isn't familiar how propaganda works, are victimes of.


Edit: damn good Colbert