TV News Programs Seem Focused On Making Sure NSA Defenders Get Nearly All Air Time
from the of-course-they-do dept
Remember back when CBS's John Miller defended his laughably bad propaganda piece for the NSA on 60 Minutes by claiming that "the NSA story has been a fairly one-way dialogue..." in which only critics are having a voice?Right. About that. Fair & Accuracy in Reporting is noting that the big Sunday talk shows seem to be dominated by NSA defenders, very rarely allowing NSA critics to even appear. On NBC's Meet the Press, nearly all of the time was taken up by some of the NSA's biggest defenders, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Mike Rogers. David Gregory also had on Newt Gingrich and Harold Ford, who both more or less supported the NSA. The only critic was a very brief appearance by Reddit's Alexis Ohanian, given very little time compared to everyone else. On CBS's Face the Nation, a similar pattern played out. Mike Rogers made another appearance, along with Obama advisor Tom Donilon who attacked Snowden. Then there was former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell, who's been spouting a lot of nonsense about how the metadata program could have stopped 9/11 -- a claim that has been debunked so many times it's barely worth discussing any more. The only person interviewed who was critical of the NSA was Senator Marc Udall, who was, again, given much less time than the others. (CBS News, by the way, has also now hired Morrell, where we expect him to take over John Miller's role as the intelligence community's mouthpiece now that Miller has returned to the intelligence community.)
We've seen similar things going on pretty much every Sunday. The idea that the NSA doesn't get to have its side of the story told is a complete joke. When it comes to network news, it's pretty clear that the reverse is true.
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Filed Under: nsa, nsa defenders, surveillance, tv news
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Of course is seems one-way when you are only monitoring the calls of the people complaining about the monitoring.
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Glenn Greenwald
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There is such a divide between the people and the government mouthpieces on the old style media. If it wasn't so sad it would be comical. Both of us cant be right.
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This is what happens when corporations are allowed to buy up all of the press and consolidate it to where a few corporations own all of the news.
A commenter on another post stated "We need a revolution." He's right but the revolution we need isn't like any revolution we have seen before. We need a systematic dismantling of all corporations, on a global scale, breaking every single one of them up into smaller pieces until we eliminate the crony capitalist system that prevents us from solving any problem, big or small. Only then will we truly be free. This is what the younger generation understands more so than any of us. This is what is coming.
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Therefore this is NOT what is coming.
Things will, alas, get worse before they get better, and they will only get better when people insist on being properly informed before deciding what to believe, then taking a more active role in overseeing the governance of the country by getting more involved in the political process.
Until more of us take responsibility for ensuring we are governed properly instead of merely outsourcing it to corrupt politicians that we then complain about, forget it.
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It appears that you just discovered the obvious.
The CIA Invests in Narrative Science and Its Automated Writers
http://allthingsd.com/20130605/the-c-i-a-invests-in-narrative-science-and-its-automated-write rs/
Where Does Facebook Stop and the NSA Begin?
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/10/facebook-personal-data-online-privacy-social-norm
"New media" outlets are just like "old media" outlets except aren't yet known to be Establishment outlets, but that's the way to bet. Don't trust anything you read.
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Hopefully, after a month or two of wasting millions of tax dollars exploiting old media, they'll decide to try their hand at new media, and get torn to shreds 24/7 by angry mobs.
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But because the NSA is full of wonderful folks just like us, they would never abuse their positions. LOL, LOL, LOL!
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That's how advertising works, right?
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Over 50 years of experimental and practical evidence shows that this isn't correct. Most people will begin to believe almost anything they've heard repeated enough times. It even works if you're just repeating things to yourself.
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Ever since the passage of the NDAA last year, which has made the releasing of government propaganda into the nation's news legal, more and more of this has shown up.
For some mysterious reason, a whistle blower like Snowden is faced with espionage, theft and conversion of government property charges. Yet an un-named official can release info on a CIA under cover and break their cover with no repercussions whatever, despite it putting that agent's life in danger. Or more recently, after the passage of the NDAA, you see all these pro-spying claims, one after another. If anyone else has info and tries to counter it with hard facts, they are not a supporter and can and will be charged with national security implications for the audacity of telling the truth.
Still, the government is fooling itself on pulling the wool over the eyes of most citizens who get it. Sooner or later this is going to come to a head. How bad the public reaction to it is depends on how long they stretch it out, hoping to over come the disgust and at the same time they are firmly establishing their trustworthiness as public and ex-public officials. I don't think there are as many in the population as the government thinks is being fooled by all this.
It tells you where we are today and it's not pretty when the government can flat out lie about its intentions and results of what it achieves. It really sounds to me as if the government is extremely scared of the tiger it is riding getting out of the cage.
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This blatant bias in the media is increasingly common
-In 2009 when discussing the economic stimulus, the news media invited far more critics of the stimulus then supporters on programs. CNN invited 7 opponents of the stimulus for each supporter of it.
-When Scott Walker was pushing his controversial anti-union bill, all the Sunday morning political talk shows invited anti-union people on their show. Only after being shamed into it when people pointed out how blatantly biased the guest selection was did one of those 5 shows, Meet The Press, invite a pro-union person on that Sunday, but they still had 3 times as many anti-union guests as pro-union guests on the most 'balanced' show.
-Aereo stories about the lawsuits over reboarding free over the air footage, and a lot of other IP and such stories are almost always heavily biased in favor of legacy industries. The TV news media organizations also have a strong financial interest in supporting the legacy industries, as they're typically a part of the legacy industries.
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Re: This blatant bias in the media is increasingly common
Happens in the US with evolution or global warming.
To the point where actually a majority thinks the nutcases are right, in spite of all science.
It's starting in Europe too, but the public is not yet that indoctrinated. Most people here think creationists and global warming deniers are total wackos (about the same as people believing in UFOs).
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News media seems to operate under the Pareto Principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
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So they only put relevant people on TV, and btw all the coverage I have seen show the US TV to be very balanced (far more than here) taking comment from both sides of the argument.
They just done allow (or want) crackpots who make stupid and unsupported claims.
Maybe one day you get asked to appear Masnick, (when you do,, please decline for your own good).
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I bet your mommy still has to hold your hand to cross the street.
Good to see that you at least admit that you are a nobody.
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Joke?
I don't think it's funny.
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Well, because...
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Why do we let the media get away with this?
We all know it's been debunked, but why are network news shows letting this get by? Where's the hard-hitting journalist who will call these people out for this nonsense?
But this goes back to the issue of how the media has to play nice to large organizations out of fear that their press credentials will be revoked. Challenge a senator about the NSA? Sorry, you're not invited to the White House correspondent's dinner. And you'll have to sit in the back of the room during any press conference... assuming you're allowed in.
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