Well, that's quite the snoozer

"The MSM (mainstream media) is not in the business of reporting; it is in the business of promoting the MSM," says a blogger. I've heard it also said that the purpose of MSM is to get eyeballs in front of their commercials or advertisements. Either way, promoting itself or its advertisers, they push news or product to capture those eyeballs.

A big way they do it is with drama. As I've written before, there is drama in a close presidential race, not in a landslide. An example is in this posting. Screen shots of a newscast shows McCain slightly ahead of Obama in Virginia and North Carolina. But if you look at the fine print, the Virginia poll is more than 2 weeks old and the NC poll is 9 days old. Why use such old data? Because just after that the numbers turned decisively in Obama's favor in both states and there goes the drama.


Another way to do it is to completely ignore troublesome stories, those that might be politically unpopular to readers or obtuse enough to not hold attention. Lots of news sources cover the War on Terror but do any explore how the "war on terror" is being used for political gains? The Metro Times, Detroit's alternative paper, poses that question, then describes the 10 top stories not covered by the MSM.

1. How many Iraqi's have died? 9 thousand? 1.3 million? The US military says it doesn't count but also says "Civilian deaths are down…" Lots of agencies have computed estimates, but we never hear about them.
2. Is NAFTA being expanded from just trade to also include security issues and why is the discussion secret?
3. What is InfraGuard and might it be used to spy on American citizens?
4. Why does an International Law Enforcement Academy recently opened in El Salvador make Latin America uneasy?
5. What's the difference between a radical and a terrorist?
6. At what point does a war protest become illegal?
7. Why aren't we concerned that some of our work visa programs are the equivalent of slavery?
8. Does Bush need an executive order to cancel a previous executive order and shouldn't the Department of Justice tell the president what is legal and what isn't?
9. Why was nobody listening when soldiers held an event to describe the horror, pain, and confusion of the war in Iraq?
10. Why is the American Psychological Association, in spite of objections of its members, helping the CIA refine torture techniques?

Democracy is built on openness and the media is a guarantee of that openness. We're not getting it. Fortunately, there is a group called Project Censored that started at Sonoma State University 30 years ago that has faculty and students combing through alternative news sources for things the MSM has ignored and then verifying their accuracy. This has become a part of the Truth Emergency Project in which Sonoma State has partnered with 23 other universities, and hopefully will have 100 schools involved. They'll eventually have links to the top 12 independent news sources, such as the BBC and Inter Press Service News Agency.