micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Proud moments for the fourth estate In an August 15 story for the Press Gazette, Jule Tomlin writes: US news organisations “censored” their coverage of the US campaign in Afghanistan in order to be in step with public opinion in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a CNN senior executive has claimed.The whole story is a must read and I hope some warbloggers do read it and do wonder if their great service was really what they have claimed it was. (Thanks to Amir Butler of Warblogger Watch for the link.) Salon's Eric Boehlert published a story in Monday's edition where he looked at why the media is afraid to tackle the Fire Department of New York. The following passage is is notable: Jimmy Breslin, the longtime New York City columnist, currently writing for Newsday, calls the media's reluctance to puncture the cloak of heroic inevitability surrounding the FDNY's Sept. 11 deaths a disgrace. "Three-hundred and forty-three firefighters die" he fumes, "and nobody fucking says anything?" In several of his columns, Breslin has blamed Giuliani for not getting the Fire Department radios that worked and for not fixing the endemic communication problem between the police and fire departments.Well I don't know if there's anything to add except that it always seems a bit strange to blame sheep. This is human behavoir and acting liking propogandists for power isn't honorable whether you a reporter, columnist, blogger, smart ass or anyone else for that matter. Some want to keep the media compliant to power so they complain about Eric Alterman's mild sympathies for the Palestinians or they fume about the New York Times supposedly trying to prevent the United States from attacking Iraq. Howard Kurtz has a good piece in today's Washington Post about the latter. None of it looks very impressive since it is unclear how much more neutered the mainstream media can get. Some, of course, accept what they are told as fact and, as I explain in "Propaganda Acceptance and Rejectance," some don't. |