Balanced Media

The hide of some people. Fancy letting an anti-Kerry TV show onto the networks. The Washington Post carries this article that reminds us all of the lack of balance in the media.
Now Sinclair’s decision to order its 62 stations to carry a movie attacking Kerry’s Vietnam record is drawing political fire — not least from the Democratic National Committee, which plans to file a federal complaint today accusing the company of election-law violations. “Sinclair’s owners aren’t interested in news, they’re interested in pro-Bush propaganda,” said DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, whose complaint will accuse the firm of making an in-kind contribution to the Bush campaign.
Australia’s ABC and SBS have anti-Bush documentaries and talk shows several times a week and I’m sure it’s the same in the US. Michael Moore even markets his documentaries as movies and yet a TV network in the States gets hammered for scheduling an opposing view. It works too. A lot of people I know think Bush is the pits but when questioned, they all get their news from the mainstream media. SBS and ABC set the scene and the commercials are only interested in 5 second bites so Bush’s abilities or otherwise are never debated. Kidnapping and suicide car bombers are good for 6:00 pm news. Instant gratification…no substance…no balance. Sinclair’s TV network even had the temerity to send a VP (no less) to Iraq to find some good news as none seemed to be getting through the left wing censors.
Earlier this year, Sinclair sent a vice president who has called John F. Kerry a liar to Iraq to find good news stories that it said were being overlooked by the biased liberal press.
Mind you, they could have saved heaps by subscribing to Chrenkoff. His latest Good News from Iraq Part 12 tends to put some balance into the debate. Talking of Chrenkoff. he is reading from my Library. He quotes Mark W Woodruff’s “Unheralded Victory: Who won the Vietnam War?” and says;
…Highly recommended for history and military buffs, this book makes it painfully clear that the American forces, together with South Vietnamese army and other allies have convincingly won every military engagement of the war, from 1965 to the American withdrawal in 1973, in the process almost completely destroying Viet Cong and inflicting staggering casualties on the North Vietnamese Army. Vietnam War, sadly, is another example of conflict won militarily but lost politically.
The example of Woodruffs book is relevant in Iraq today. I haven’t been to Iraq but I was in Vietnam and I can assure you that the Media snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in such a stunnung manner that for years even I believed it. I don’t now and daily, I see the same tactics being used in Iraq. Readers, some times the truth is hard to find but it is out there. Go look for it.

3 comments

  • I’ve turned a corner in relation to war events. If the person who is denigrating the current political or military situation in a given spot, I ask them how they know that what they say is true. If they don’t answer with something on the lines of “I spent at least a day trawling through every conceivable available news sourse or transcript, and then related the information to the the areas historical context”, I have tendency to either ignore them, set them right or finally, just punch them in the face like they so clearly deserve.

  • CB

    There certainly are many people whose mouths are far bigger than their brains.

    Their is a tendency to believe that the term ‘everybody has a right to an opinion’ menas that everybody’s opinion is equal.

  • Speaking of which: Where is that terminal bollock juggler, Niall? Has he finally disappeared up his own backside?