I read an article over on Fox News which does as a good a job explaining media bias as any I’ve seen.
|
|||||
|
Since postings here today seem a bit thin on the ground, let me recycle a link which I’ve already featured on my Culture Blog, but which I think is interesting enough to make a posting for the mass media. (I originally found it at b3ta.com.) I’m talking about this, this being a site which includes something I’ve read about a lot but never actually seen demonstrated with the relevant contrasts. I’m talking about the ancient and now technologically rejuvenated art of picture retouching. The most striking is the picture you get to straight from the link, but there are lots of others at the same site. Okay I admit it, at this point I did pause a bit to think of a political moral to stick at the end, a thing not needed on a Culture Blog. But I think there is one, concerning the degree to which cameras do or do not tell lies. Put it this way, I think maybe I’ll give this site a mention at White Rose as well. An awful lot of credence is placed these days on photographic evidence. What this before/after site reminds us is that photos are only as reliable as a way to tell the truth as are the people in charge of them. (You have only to think of Stalin’s graphics department.) As it gets easier to manipulate images, so our readiness to trust them ought to diminish. This site shows what is the result of retouching. But does anyone here know how long it takes to do this kind of thing, and how difficult it is? And can all of it simply be done with Photoshop? August 23rd, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
 On BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme (on Monday’s show – if my memory serves) there was a story about the destruction of the forests of Eastern Europe. The BBC journalist would refer to forests in country after country and talk about how the trees were “illegally cut down” and the timber “illegally imported into Western European countries”. I noticed something about the BBC man’s remarks. In each Eastern European country he discussed he talked about the ‘national parks’ or the ‘national forests’ – never once did he talk about privately owned forests being destroyed. Whether forests are owned by old aristocratic families or by private companies (as in the State of Maine) there is no question of them being destroyed for a quick buck – ownership (as opposed to licences, or ‘rights to’ or other nonsense), brings concern for the long term. Of course the BBC man did not notice this – he just claimed that ‘things’ would be improved when the Eastern European nations joined the European Union and there were even more regulations than there are now. August 17th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Behind the headlines, underneath the debate, hidden by the cheery faces of the elite and occluded by the gleaming fabric of the towering glass monuments in Strasbourg, something darker stirs in Europe again according to this report from UPI Those of us who ever bothered to read the small print knew from the get-go that far from being “a great coming together of the European peoples…yadda yadda yadda..” that the whole project was nothing more than an exercise in cynical bribery and vote massaging Nothing new here, of course. Politicians are what they are and, as my Grandmother used to say, from a pig expect a grunt. No, what is new is the sheer scale of this. Most politicians aim to buy a constituency; really ambitious ones aim for a whole country. But these guys are shooting for a whole continent!! I’m surprised that the Greeks have joined in. They, of all people, should know a thing or two about hubris and, perhaps if they had stopped to think for a moment they would have realised that if this thing breaks it will break very, very badly They say that time is a slow but fair judge; fair, but not always merciful January 13th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It seems that the US media now have a new bugbear as the source of all teen miscreant behaviour: Osama Bin Laden. When a teenager (a loner, naturally) in Tampa crashed his airplane into the Bank of America building, the US media rushed to blame Bin Laden. No where has it been suggested that the usual suspects, heavy metal bands, were at fault. Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Rob Zombie are all off the hook. American has a new bugbear and he has a towel-wrapped around his head. Osama bin Laden does share one thing with his musician miscreants co-defendants, they all made really crap and disturbing videos. It seems the media was right one this one, a note was found praising Osama Bin Laden in the wreckage of the airplane, expressing sympathy for him and praising the events of the 9/11. What is more alarming is that the airplane was just trailed and allowed to crash into the skyscraper. It does seem rather daft to watch the airplane crash and do nothing. We are supposed to be re-assured by the fact that the airplane was followed all the way into the building and that there were two F15s scrambled. Surely the whole point of chasing the plane was to shoot it down? No doubt the Al Queda cells left in the world are studying this event closely. Fortunately the boy stole a pathetic little 2 seat airplane. This is proof, not that it is needed, that the Americans still have not grasped the danger of air based terror. NB: It is curious to note that some of the leading hard-core left wing bands in the US have kept very quiet since 9/11. There has been virtually not a hard-left peep from Rage Against the Machine, Zack la Rocha, Eddie Vedder or Chumbawumba. Andrew Ian Dodge “What Sucks? Statism Sucks!“ January 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Here is yet another example of how the newsblog movement*1 has inspired media upstarts to challange established media companies all over the world. The full ‘story’ can be found here.
Objective insights, clever punditry and naked babes… the perfect admixture for the next media revolution. As Frederick Hajek would have said “There ain’t nuthin’ that leads to catallaxy more that a bodacious naked 19 years old chick dispensing profundities! Beat that, Keynes, you totally bogus ol’ fart!”. Right on, Fred baby! Gil Scott-Heron blew it big time: the revolution will indeed be televised. *1 = no, the newsblog movement is not something that happens after you take too many laxatives. December 25th, 2001 | Comments are closed
To read an editorial piece like this in the Guardian, of all things, is nothing less than a thing of wonder to behold. Tomorrow’s editorial will be dealing with hell freezing over, cats and dogs living together and the new range of Vaticantm brand contraceptives. December 9th, 2001 | Comments are closed
I just saw over on Muslimpundit that Robert Fisk was attacked and beaten up by a mob in Pakistan. My heart bleed for him. Not. You may be sure he will try to find some way of blaming the US for what happened. Fisk and his dismal newspaper, the oh so ironically named Independent, have been amongst my pet hates for rather a long time. A tip of the turban to those guys. On the other hand, respect to pundit Jeffrey Simpson. There is a good post on Daimnation about how he admits he got it all totally wrong about the war in Afghanistan. There are very few pundits who are willing to do that. An honourable journalist in BigMedia(tm): what a concept! Addendum: Well I’m also a Westerner, Fisk, and I hate you too. December 9th, 2001 | Comments are closed
I just watched the BBC news and must admit it was an admirable performance. Given that Kunduz has fallen, the Marines are outside Kandahar, and the al Qaeda have been pretty much annihilated… they still managed to come up with a full report of utterly negative tripe. They dwelled on a precision strike that hit a Northern Alliance position by mistake. Now the US forces have been hitting targets on the mark nearly 98 percent of the time. So the news chose to show one of the two out of the most recent hundred. They talked at length about 4 British troops that were injured and the possibility of the US now sustaining significant casualties, as if there weren’t already 9000 casualties. The BBC at least had the decency to show workers in the underground of the WTC, although the negativity even came through on that. One got the impression the presenter felt showing the clip was an onerous “fairness” duty forced from on high. Of course they focused on the mistakes that allowed prisoners at Mazar-e-Sharif to retain weapons, and again to dwell on one known American casualty there. And of course they panned their camera over a burning Red Cross truck. I have a few choice words for the BBC media. You are spiteful, biased, hateful people and I very much hope the public stops listening to you and instead gets their news through alternative sources. We are winning dramatically. Weapons targeting has been awesome in its’ pinpoint accuracy. The low level of misses and errors has simply been enough to leave any honest watcher with their jaw hanging. Any honest watcher that is. There don’t seem to be many of those in the media these days. We’ve succeeded in breaking the back of the al Qaeda and killing them off in droves (which makes Mazar-e-Sharif count as a success) while causing incredibly few casualties to innocents. We’ve brought down an oppressive regime in an amazing tour-de-force of military and diplomatic prowess. There is simply very little that one can complain about without being utterly petty. Which they are. The chatterers are under such pressure they are even making snide comments on the air about it. To paraphrase George W Bush: “We’ve smoked ’em out and we’ve got ’em on the run.” So let’s keep the pressure up fellow bloggers! The monopoly has ended. November 26th, 2001 | Comments are closed
For media establishment pundits ranging from lowly tabloid hacks all the way up to the Brahmins of academic political correctness, the world seems to be a much more intellectually hostile place since September 11 2001. Previously unchallenged opinions about the way the world works are now being judged under the harsh light of reality cast by two burning skyscrapers in New York. One of the good things to come out of the horrors of that day is that the western world, or at least the dynamic Anglosphere part of it, is undergoing a most astonishing intellectual ‘shake out’. The system is in a state of flux and it is unclear what the zeitgeist is going to feel like when it all starts to settle down again. One thing is for sure, it will be different. Former prince of the statist ‘left’ Christopher Hitchens is a striking example of this process. Whilst always articulate and insightful, it seems he is also possessed of a critically rational mind capable of simply jettisoning the demonstrably false when the evidence deems that the correct thing to do. One only has to read his devastating carve-up of former fellow travellers like Noam Chomsky to see just how far he has come. In his article in the Guardian called “Ha ha ha to the pacifists” he pours scorn on those who would side with the vilest regimes in the world and claim moral superiority. Of course people do not like being proved wrong, and they like others pointing out their cock-ups even less. Last night I was listening to pundit-lite Michael Brunson on the TV reviewing the early editions of the British newspapers. At one point he became almost apoplectic with a double page spread in the print version of The Sun (a low-brow tabloid) titled ‘Shame of the Traitors’. This article quotes the Guardian, New Statesman, the Independent, the Mirror, members of Parliament, members of the European ‘Parliament’ and sundry others. All made dire predictions about the war, questioned the morality of it and scorned its progress. So was Michael Brunson angry that the pundits had got it so wrong? Hell no! He was outraged that a lowly tabloid like The Sun had questioned the motivation of people making clearly ridiculous unsupported claims to the point they could be described as giving ‘aid and comfort to the enemy’. He said “I fail to see the point of this whole article” and “Why should they criticize people for saying that they believe?”. To give you some idea of what the people whose ‘honour’ Michael Brunson was defending were actually writing:
Rory Carroll, the Guardian, November 9: the day Mazar-i-Sharif fell to the Northern Alliance! This ‘news’ is either Taliban propaganda, astonishingly bad reporting or simply made up to suit Rory Carroll’s anti-Americanism. Take your pick.
Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian, November 13: The recent successes are… unsurprising? I guess Norton-Taylor was not reading the Guardian on November 9 beacuse if he had, he should have been utterly astonished that the Northern Alliance was winning! Moreover in reality Kabul fell with a whimper, not a roar.
Tam Dalyell, Labour Member of Parliament, November 1: so if the Taliban and Al Qaeda were asked “would you like the bombing to continue or stop?”… presumably Tam Dayell would have us believe that they would say “Continue, we would like some more of that invigorating bombing please”. Judging from Michael Brunson’s remarks, it seems that being correct is not a very important part of a pundit’s job. However what is really important is not to point out the stupidity of other pundits or, even worse, that a great chunk of what they said was proved by events to be completely incorrect. That simply is not cricket! And higher up the established media food chain, no wonder they really hate people like Christopher Hitchens, as he cannot be dismissed as a mere hack for some boorish English tabloid… not only is he making the doves of the ‘left’ and ostriches of the ‘right’ look extremely bad, he is an apostate who has been attacking November 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||