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NEWS DISSECTOR: Media Mesmerized By Iowa Primaries; What TV News Covers
NEWS DISSECTOR January 1, 2008
Media Mesmerized By Iowa Primaries; What TV News Covers
POLITICS AND POLITRICKS
WHO WANTS TO DESTABILIZE PAKISTAN?
COVERING THE SUBPRIME CRISIS
All Eyes on Iowa.
With political campaigns increasingly resembling sporting events, its no wonder that 2500 reporters are in Iowa for the cluster f*ck, microscopically analyzing every burp and maneuver by the armies of politicians and their camp followers, aides and media advisors who have invaded and virtually occupied the state. Little of the reporting reminds us about how few people actually turn up for the caucuses but that doesn't matter.
In a ritual given to picking winners, the horse race is everything. Perception matters more than reality and the candidates all know that. The primary this week has been a year in the making. It will make news for a day and then everyone will move on. The journo brigade, no longer just boys on the bus, will move with them. There will be wall to wall coverage….signifying ????
According to Reuters, The candidates are hunting for votes.
DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Shotgun in hand, rising Republican candidate Mike Huckabee bagged a pheasant on Wednesday as U.S. presidential hopefuls hunted for votes eight days before the first contest in a wide-open nomination race.
After a 36-hour Christmas break, Republican and Democratic candidates poured back on to the campaign trail, battling snow, cold temperatures and air traffic delays as they fanned out through Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Hopefully we'll just shoot pheasants, not each other," Huckabee told reporters during the outing….
The image of the gun-toting candidate-hunter is iconic in U.S. campaigns, partly because the gun lobby is politically powerful, particularly in more rural states.
In this case, it was also a Huckabee jab at Romney, whose claim of being a lifelong hunter was deflated when it turned out he had hunted exactly twice….
How enlightening:
I have now seen scores of polls. One puts Hillary ahead, the other, Obama. And a third says Edwards will take it. Your guess is as good as mine—but watch how quickly all this will be forgotten. Also look carefullt at how many people actually voted.
RALPH BACKS EDWARDS
Nader throws support to Edwards (No, I am not referring to former TV host Ralph Edwards)
MUSCATINE, Iowa - Ralph Nader unleashed on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday - criticizing her for being soft on defense spending and a chum of big business - and expressed his strong support for John Edwards.
In an eleventh hour effort to encourage liberal Iowans to "recognize" the former North Carolina senator by "giving him a victory," the activist and former presidential contender said in an interview that
Clinton will "pander to corporate interest groups" if elected.
PAKISTAN—WHAT NOW?
Bhutto Report: Musharraf Planned to Fix Elections
McClatchy Newspapers' Saeed Shah reports that on the "day she was assassinated, last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday."
US POLICY TOWARDS PAKISTAN—BEHIND THE RHETORIC ABOUT DEMOCRACY
Michel Chossudovsky writes about "The Destabilization of Pakistan:"
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has created conditions which contribute to the ongoing destabilization and fragmentation of Pakistan as a Nation.
The process of US sponsored "regime change", which normally consists in the re-formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power. But at the same time, the fake elections supported by the "international community" scheduled for January 2008, even if they were to be carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse.
There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials:
"It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the "war on terrorism" across the region.
Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan's military…
The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of "chatter" among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place. (Larry Chin, Global Research, 29 December 2007)
FIDAL CASTRO COMMENTS IN A LETTER TO CUBA'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
The news on the events in Pakistan we received today also attest to the dangers that threaten our species: internal conflict in a country that possesses nuclear weapons. This is a consequence of the adventurous policies of and the wars aimed at securing the world's natural resources unleashed by the United States.
Pakistan, involved in a conflict it did not unleash, faced the threat of being taken back to the Stone Age.
The extraordinary circumstances faced by Pakistan had an immediate effect on oil prices and stock exchange shares. No country or region in the world can disassociate itself from the consequences. We must be prepared for anything.
There hasn't been a day in my life in which I haven't learned something.
Marti taught us that "all of the world's glory fits in a kernel of corn". Many times have I said and repeated this phrase, which carries in eleven words a veritable school of ethics.
S.M. Hussain: Pakistan: The Beginning of the Storm
We believe that the fundamental battle taking place in Pakistan is between the secular and western-based educated pro-American elites, against the Islam-championing hard core religious types.
History will show that this period of relative "calm" we attribute to the surge is but the pause before the storm. Hillary Clinton is correct to label the surge a failed strategy. But her motivation for doing so rests more with her desire to position herself politically on the domestic front than it is a reflection of a thoughtful Iraq policy.
GREG PALAST REPORTS FROM ECUADOR Good and Evil at the Center of the Earth- A Quechua ChristmasCarol
Correa is one of the first dark-skinned men to win election to this Quechua and mixed-race nation. Certainly, one of the first from the streets. He'd won a surprise victory over the richest man in Ecuador, the owner of the biggest banana plantation.
AFGHANISTAN
We know that this was the bloodiest year for American soldiers in Iraq despite the so-called surge. What about Afghanistan?
AP: 110 US troops die in Afghanistan in 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007. Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police, and large swaths of the country remain outside government control………
ISRAEL GOVERNMENT ATTACKED FOR POOR WAR ON LEBANON
But not for the massive use of cluster bombs against civilians:
Israeli parliament report blasts army over Lebanon war
JERUSALEM (AFP) — A report by an Israeli parliamentary
committee on Monday placed responsibility for failures
of last year's war against the Lebanese Hezbollah
militia on the military.
The military leadership "ignored basic principles of
Israeli strategy, which aims to bring the battle to
enemy terrain and to protect the civilian population,"
Tzahi Hanegbi, the chairman of the foreign affairs and
defence committee, was quoted by local media as saying
in presenting the report.
He listed three major errors: reserve units were not
mobilised early enough, it took too long to realise
that air power alone could not halt Hezbollah rocket
fire into Israel, and a ground offensive should have
been launched earlier.
The report also accused military chiefs of "not having
developed its operational plans and not to have
prepared an appropriate plan of attack against
Hezbollah" and criticized the government for "not
having presented the army with clear objectives."
The Network News Top Stories For 2007 And Other Media Mishigas
ANDREW TYNDALL: THE TOP NEWS STORIES ON TV FOR 2007
Andrew Tyndall is a media researcher par excellence and a great counter. He tracks what stores are covered on the networks and how much time they devote to each. Here is part of his count for 2007. See his website for more at tyndallreport.com
TOP TV NEWS STORIES OF 2007
The War in Iraq was Story of the Year by a wide margin.
The networks monitored the progress of Commander in Chief George
Bush's troop build-up—-the so-called surge—in Iraq and the
simultaneous debate on Capitol Hill about bringing troops home.
That storyline effectively ended in September when Gen David
Petraeus testified to Congress that violence in Iraq was moderat-
ing and the President ordered the extra troops home. Before that
testimony, the Iraq War averaged 30 minutes of coverage each
week; in the year's final 15 weeks the average was a scant four
minutes.Non-war coverage of Iraq continues its steady decline.
In the fall, the networks turned their attention to Campaign
2008. Next year's race for the White House attracted more
coverage than the last four penultimate years combined.
Only two other international hotspots—Pakistan and Iran—
appeared in the year's Top 20 besides Iraq. The networks'
foreignbureaus had their lightest workload since 2001.
The War on Terrorism is cooling down even as P***t Earth, as
Nobel Laureate Al Goreinconveniently warns us, is heating up.
Coverage of the Environment (476 min v 302 last year) now
matches that of Terrorism(483 min v 1191 last year).
The Healthbeat (1110 min) had its third-busiest year since 1993,
when Hillary Rodham Clinton, in vain, proposed universal
care. CBS (423 min v 334 in '06, 279 in '05) leads the way.
The Most Newsworthy Woman of the Year: Benazir Bhutto,
assassinated during her bid to return to power in Pakistan. The
Year's Most Newsworthy Man: the aforementioned Petraeus.
TOP TWENTY STORIES OF 2007
mins Total ABC CBS NBC
Iraq: US-led combat continues 1157 370 379 407
Virginia Tech campus massacre 244 79 80 84
Wildfires in southern California 221 76 79 66
NYSE-NASDAQ market action 208 51 76 80
Winter blizzards, icestorms 182 59 47 77
Pakistan in political turmoil 165 53 48 63
Military injuries, disabilities 160 57 55 48
Real estate mass foreclosures 133 51 35 46
Illegal immigration debate 124 47 39 39
2008 Rodham Clinton campaign 120 41 44 35
Military families face problems 119 41 40 38
Hurricane Katrina aftermath 116 20 25 71
USAttorneys fired by DoJ 116 33 46 37
Tornado season 112 41 39 32
Airline delays, cancellations 108 39 26 43
Iran military expansion feared 106 32 37 36
2008 Iowa caucuses previewed 104 39 33 31
Global warming climate change 103 38 25 41
2008 Rudolph Giuliani campaign 95 30 28 36
Crude oil, gasoline prices increase 92 42 23 27
GLOBAL WARMING—THE NON ISSUE FOR PUNDITS
Marc Cooper writes:
The New York Times lead editorial on January 1, 2008, "The One Environmental Issue," provides a perfect example of how big media undermines efforts to address important progressive issues.
The editorial opens with the statement that "The overriding environmental issue of these times is the warming of the p***t. The Democratic hopefuls are in the 2008 campaign are fully engaged… The Republicans do not go much farther than conceding that climate change could be a problem." It goes on to note that "Polls suggest, however, that voters are increasingly alarmed… There is also a growing appetite for decisive action, everywhere, it seems, except the White House. Governors in more than two dozen states are fashioning regrional agreements to lower greenhouse gases, the federal courts have order the executive branch to begin regulating these gases, and the Senate has begun work on a bipartisan bill."
In addition to the White House there is another major institution that has failed to notice this important issue - big media. The editorial concludes that the media has missed the issue, "In a recent study, the League of Conservation Voters found that as of two weeks ago, the five main political talk-show hosts has collectively asked 2,275 questions of candidates in both parties. Only 24 of these questions even touched on climate change."
The editorial points out the important consequences of the failure of the press to play its proper role. "One result is that even candidates who urge comprehensive change have not been pressed on important questions of cost." The more important result is that the public is not made fully aware of the differences between the candidates on this critical issue."
PUBLIC IS ALARMED EVEN IF MEDIA ISN'T
Despite the media lag on the issue, public awareness of global warming grew—another sign of the diminishing audience and respect for TV News.
There were numerous small steps forward to meet the greatest challenge of our day, including in the biggest carbon polluting country, the United States. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a respectable energy bill; the ultimately adopted energy bill will modestly improve energy efficiency in the United States. Many U.S. states are doing much more, most importantly requiring electric utilities to source an increasing amount of their energy from renewable supplies. The Sierra Club and grassroots groups have combined to defeat dozens of coal-fired power plant proposals. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Bali in December ended with a fizzle, thanks largely to U.S. intransigence, but even at Bali, there was agreement that climate change is a real threat.
This last point is probably the main achievement of 2007. There is now no serious argument about the reality of climate change and the need for action. Going forward, the challenge is to generate the political will for meaningful carbon emission cuts, immediately and for the long-term.
THE ROSE PARADE TOOK PLACE IN PASADENA YESTERDAY BUT AS LINDA MILAZZO REPORTS, THERE WAS ALSO ANOTHER ONE THIS YEAR:
On New Years Day, thanks to the 2008 White Rose Coalition (WRC), a GIANT rendering of the Preamble to the Constitution will be carried at the end of the Rose Parade by American patriots in the PEOPLE'S PARADE FOR DEMOCRACY.
The 2008 White Rose Coalition is a convergence of patriots from pro-peace/pro-impeachment organizations across the nation, including the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center (LANIC), CODEPINK, Troops Out Now, World Can't Wait, ANSWER, Progressive Democrats of America, the Green Party, Veterans For Peace, United For Peace and Justice, The Backbone Campaign, Office Of The Americas, Brave New Films, and more. They have assembled under the banner of the White Rose Coalition in tribute to the resistance movement in Munich in 1942. Caolition members will employ a wide variety of visuals throughout the Rose Parade broadcast to drive home the urgency to end the war in Iraq and impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney. The 2008 WRC is the brainchild of Los Angeles attorney, Peter Thottam. Thottam, a former Green Party candidate for California Assembly and Director of LANIC, has assembled a stellar array of progressive leaders to march in The PEOPLE'S PARADE. They include Camp Casey Peace Institute founder and San Francisco Congressional Candidate, Cindy Sheehan, CODEPINK Co-founder, Jodie Evans, CODEPINK human rights activist, Tighe Barry, who was recently arrested in Pakistan for challenging Musharraf's martial law, and Marcy Winograd, President of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles and 2006 Congressional candidate for California's 36th District….
UNDERNEWS: RECORDING INDUSTRY ONCE SANG A DIFFERENT TUNE ON PERSONAL CD COPYING
BOING BOING - Dan Gillmor points out that the recording industry used to have a different opinion on personal use. It removed the following statement from its website: "If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail."
Gillmor adds: "Also, from the Supreme Court oral arguments in the Grokster case, Donald Virrelli, on behalf of the entertainment companies: 'The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.'"
MARK CRISPIN MILLER ON BILL KIRSTOL AT THE NY TIMES
Here's some news so shocking that the Times itself announced it in a whisper:
Bill Kristol, an extremist party operative and one of Rupert Murdoch's staunchest propagandists (he is a FOX News regular, and edits Murdoch's Weekly Standard), will now have his own column in The New York Times.Despite what Andrew Rosenthal told Editor & Publisher (below), this certainly is not a question of free speech. Whereas William Safire was, and David Brooks is, a pundit offering mostly right-wing views, Bill Kristol is an avid instrument of BushCo's most disastrous policies-especially the occupation of Iraq, which
he promoted with a lot of specious claims that all turned out to be completely wrong, and which he keeps defending even now. He is, in short, a specialist in partisan disinformation, and therefore someone whose assertions should be sifted with great care. That he should now be gifted with a weekly forum in
The New York Times is, frankly, staggering. Why not give Karl Rove a weekly column, too?Kristol's new assignment is especially remarkable considering his history of wild demagogic thrusts against that very newspaper. As Greg Mitchell notes below, Kristol has routinely scored the Times for failing to support Bush/Cheney, calling the newspaper "irredeemable," and suggesting at one point that it be prosecuted by the government for having dared report the banking records scandal. Such a call suggests that Kristol's views are more fascistic than conservative; Safire, a strong libertarian, never would say such a thing. That Kristol has now been ask to hold forth regularly on the Times's own op-ed page is, again, completely flabbergasting.
It may, however, also be reversible. Here's something you can do to mark the New Year: contact Clark Hoyt, the paper's public editor, and tell him what you think of this bizarre new hire:
Clark Hoyt
E-mail: public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652I was amused to read a blogger from New Jersey who also denounced Kristol's appointment because he doesn't conHsider him a real conservative and brands him a radical Trotskyite.
A REPORTER EXPLAINS: WHY WE MISSED THE SUBPRIME CRISIS
Your letters
LETTER ON WRITERS STRIKE
Bradley Laing writes:
I have some confusions over the writers strike. In part, that may be because
nobody knows, so confusing accounts end up in the news accounts I've seen and heard.First confusion: is there a date in January or February of 2008 that the writers strike *must* be settled by for there to be a "spring television season"?
Is there a date by which the strike must be settled, or there will not be *any programming at all* in the spring?
A Television critic on Public Radios "Fresh Air" said a week ago that it was already too late for a "Spring television season." Slightly before that in the interview, he said that it would take months for drama scripted programming to resume, and only a week for situation comedy programming to resume.
Depending on which part of the interview, he was either saying: it's over, no original scripted programming at all in march, April and May of 2008. Or he was saying, there is still time for a ragged scheduale of sitcoms, but no dramas, if the strike is settled soon enough.
But what he thought would be "soon enough"—I don't know.
J. J. Abrahams, show runner of the series "Lost" wrote that if the strike stretched on for three months, there would be no spring 2008 TV season.
The strike started November 5, 2007. Does that mean February 5, 2008 is the day that *both* sitcoms and drama programming for march, April and May are impossible?
Or does it leave open the possibility of sitcoms, even for the "May Sweeps?"
Lastly, somebody, I cannot remember who, suggested that the networks would pay for new episodes, and stretch the 2007-2008 season out into June, July, August of 2008. Because the idea of a "TV season" is the networks idea, and they can abandon it if they want to. And just run shows, instead.
One thing that seems likely is that January and February are a mixture of reality shows, game shows, filmed mid-season replacements, and leftover established shows, on the networks.
What I really, really would like to know is how the mass audience will behave. Will they bolt to movie theaters? Public events? Stay and watch the reality shows? Fill in the Blank?
Another confusing item is the idea of pilot episodes. Abrahams seemed to think the pilot season would die on February 5, 2008, with no news network series until January of 2009. The Public Broadcasting interview seemed to think they could save the pilot season by settling soon enough, for broadcasting in fall 2008.
A news account said something like 50% of the pilots could still be salvaged if the strike ended in early February. Which is not the same as Abrahams idea of the pilot season dying altogeher in early February.
—Maybe nobody really knows, and it is all guess work.
READERS: FEEL FREE TO RESPOND….
A KENYAN SAYS: TEXT MESSAGES NOT ALLOWED
I sent a text message to my family and this is what I got…
"The ministry if Internal security urges you to please desist from
sending or forwarding any SMS that may cause public unrest. This may lead to your prosecution"Hello? 260 people dead and it will is expected to rise.
What the heck is going on in my country?
ON MY ARTICE ON MAO—TWO EXPERTS DISAGREE ON IT
Bud Nathans writes from Florida:
Danny Schechter refers to Mao as Mao Tse Tung.
This old Wade-Giles romanization of Chinese was laid to rest nearly 30 years ago.
It's helpful if we all embrace the current pin-yin system, in order to finally universalize transliteration into the Weste
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