Watching different views....

[Ruben]

Everyone by now has seen the clip on which a statue of Saddam gets toppled from an intersection in Iraq. These same images later portray a mass of Iraqis jumping in jubilation. Later, a small child can be seen hitting what was once the head of the statue with his sandal.

After watching those same images on: Fox, CNN, CBS, NBC, Televisa, BBC and Al-Jazeera it is interesting to compare/contrast what all these companies have to state.

They all, some regretfully, announce the nearing victory of the Coalition.

The American media (Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS) basically carry the same message. That of the victory being imminent and so forth. The BBC basically carried the same message, but a little more raw.

Televisa, however, was a bit neutral. It didn't make the entrance of coalition forces to Baghdad as this huge parade as the American media made it to be. None the less, they still carried the condentation that the regime is about to be toppled.

Al Jazeera, this is where it gets wacky. Televisa showed an interview carried out by an Al Jazeera reporter who was interviewing one of the Marines that had entered the capital. He was pretty straight face, no emotion. All of his comments where somewhat remorseful. There was an attempt to change the words behind what the soldier was saying, but the attempt was botched or aborted.

All Arab reporters working for papers in the Islamic world seem to think that this "invation" and "occumpance" can be tied to the whole Isralei/Palestine problem. Their "excuse" is that the US helps out Israel oppress the Palestines. To me, this all seems like hogwash. Its easy to pin point everything to the Israeli/Palestine problem, but yet there is no one willing to do something about it.

Just my opinion.

[Steve]

From Reuters.

Celebrating Iraqi-Americans Condemn Al-Jazeera
Wed Apr 9,10:41 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

DEARBORN, Mich. (Reuters) - Iraqi-Americans celebrating Baghdad's fall to U.S. troops on Wednesday protested the presence of reporters from al-Jazeera, accusing the Arab news channel of siding with Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s deposed government.

Spontaneous celebrations in this Detroit suburb, which has one of the largest populations of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims outside the Middle East, occurred all day, as people danced or paraded in the streets in noisy caravans of cars draped with flowers and Iraqi or American flags.

The festivities turned ugly late on Wednesday when scores of men, among a crowd of about 1,500 demonstrators in a Dearborn park, sighted an al-Jazeera correspondent and his cameraman and began hurling insults at them.

"Down, Down Jazeera," the men shouted angrily, as police moved to surround correspondent Nezam Mahdawi, who had just flown in from Washington to cover Iraqi-American reaction to the collapse of Saddam's rule.

"Go Home Jazeera," the protesters chanted. Police advised Mahdawi and his cameraman to leave for their own security, and they left after a long standoff.

Qatar-based al-Jazeera is widely watched in the Arab world and many Arab-Americans consider its coverage of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) more accurate than U.S. television stations, though not without anti-American bias.

"It's a great message to send for all these hypocrite Arabic networks, especially al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi," said Cassy Mahbouba, head of a group affiliated with the opposition Iraqi National Congress and a leader of the anti-Jazeera protest. Abu Dhabi is an Arab-language satellite station that competes with al-Jazeera.

"These networks talk about freedom and democracy but they don't represent freedom and democracy," Mahbouba said. "To the last moment they tried to support the dictatorship regime."

Mahdawi, a 37-year-old native of Kuwait, said al-Jazeera was getting used to charges of biased news coverage even as it strives for strict objectivity.

He said al-Jazeera, Launched in 1996 and with an audience of some 35 million, had been accused of everything from supporting Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, to working with the CIA (news - web sites) or Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

"We get used to that, and we are doing our job," Mahdawi said.

[antizionist]

Good points. If you watched CNN and CNN International you would get two different views as well. CNN is geared for Americans, whereas CNNI is for the rest of the world (although some can get it with satellite).

For example when CNN showed the repeated pictures of Saddam's statue falling and the several dozens (out of the millions) of Iraqi's celebrating (most of whom where Ahmed Calabi's American-Iraqi militia flown in from Michigan by the Pentagon. But CNNI showed a split screen of that plus the thousands of casualties of war. The pictures of dead children, men and women with body parts blown off and countless bodies in the hospital. Why is that? Why does the same company decide that they can show the world but not us Americans the real ramifications of this war. Are we to be shielded from this?

I think it's because had they shown those pictures, they would have gone against the grain. The cable news networks have become nothing but cheerleaders for this administration's war, and by showing us what the rest of the world sees would have probably been unfairly criticized as "anti-war". There is a reason why the rest of the world feels the way they do, it's because the majority of them get both sides of the story, not just one sided views. Imagine if we truly had "fair and balanced coverage".....

- Here is a great article exposing the US Army propaganda coup:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=55268&group=webcast

Historic moment?
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/nyc/saddam3.jpg
EWF probably draws more than that.

[gurentai_pt1]

The cable news networks have become nothing but cheerleaders for this administration's war,
Agreed 100%. But that's how it is in any country, they spin it to how they want it perceived.

What's sad is simple common seense should tell you something is up....up until now I had just been watching US-CNN and even then I knew it was fishy because they were showing the same scene over and over in that square. They were saying "The people of Iraq are celebrating" yet there's millions in that city, and all day they showed just that ONE square.

I didn't think much of it though until I saw the Japanese news boradcast here. Very much like Anti is describing CNNInt'l, much more graphics of the suffering. Also much more graphics of Iraqi on Iraqi violence. The liberated people were so liberated, they felt it necessary to lynch a high Priest. Again, sad.

[gurentai_pt1]

I'm not saying that because of this the taking out of Saddam was wrong (although I STILL disagree with how we went about it). However, there is a serious problem with the way the US media is handling this. Extremely one-sided.

[DJChopstix]

Originally posted by gurentai_pt1
I'm not saying that because of this the taking out of Saddam was wrong (although I STILL disagree with how we went about it). However, there is a serious problem with the way the US media is handling this. Extremely one-sided.

I agree, but I don't think that you'll find a MAJOR news outlet talking about the negative things that we've done. Agenda-Setting Theory (wow! I did learn something in my major!) is basically what it comes down to. Since major news outlets are seen as credible and legit, they are pretty much able to dictate what news we see and don't see. I think the real problem is with those that take this one-sidedness as gospel.

[gurentai_pt1]

I think the real problem is with those that take this one-sidedness as gospel.
Amen to that.

Only problem is, I recently went to the south on a business trip and lost all hope of much of the country being able to think critically and decipher what is agenda setting and what is not.

No offense to rednecks or nuthing, but seriously, it was in a sense scary down there.

[DJChopstix]

Originally posted by gurentai_pt1
Amen to that.

Only problem is, I recently went to the south on a business trip and lost all hope of much of the country being able to think critically and decipher what is agenda setting and what is not.

No offense to rednecks or nuthing, but seriously, it was in a sense scary down there.

Yeah...that's true. But I also think that that has a lot to do with the fact that the population in the South is a lot more homogenous and there isn't much variation or need for tolerance, let alone differing views of opinion.

but I think that it all starts with the question "why?"

[gurentai_pt1]

But I also think that that has a lot to do with the fact that the population in the South is a lot more homogenous and there isn't much variation or need for tolerance, let alone differing views of opinion.
Yeah, but we need to add to that just about every part of the country. I didn't realize until I started traveling all over the US (to shitholes like Knoxville, Cleveland, etc) that there are still many people who do not ask.... "Why?", they just go along with whatever is put out there.

This is a genralization, I know there are intellectual people out there but still it's not like the major cities.

Although, Knoxville has some hot ass Cracka chicks.