Not Watching For The Asteroid

It's no fun for them anymore. Things going as per plan leaves them only good news to report and why would they want to do that?

Why make up "news" stories in a crappy Kabul hotel room when you can do it from your office in the NBC building?

The article seems blissfully unaware of self-indicting content like this -

" She recalled hearing one of her TV editors say, “I don’t want to see the same old pictures of soldiers kicking down doors.”

“You can imagine how much more tedious it would be to watch soldiers running meetings on irrigation,” she said."

Yet, note that these same networks who can't afford boots on the ground have no shortage of well-paid pundits on staff to tell viewers what to think of how the wars are being run.

1. The side the bulk of the MSM preferred has clearly lost in Iraq; staying to report could only reflect positively on the real enemy, the evil Pres. George W. Bush and the evil Republican Party.

2. It was far more important prior to election day to send multiple teams, dozens of reporters, cameramen, etc. to Wasilla, Alaska, home of the real enemy's Vice Pres. candidate, in order to dig up or fabricate dirt to aid and abet the Kenyan Communist, Mr. Hussein Obama's unconstitutional election victory. Post election day, it's far more important to cover the upcoming (again, unconstitutional) inauguration of Mr. Hussein Obama. We need to know about his workouts; Mrs. Obama's fashion tastes; where their kids will be going to school...you know, all that really important stuff.

Of course, if they were there producing stories they'd be so hideously slanted that we wouldn't be any better informed about the progress of the war anyway. Whether they are actually there or not, we still won't miss them because they've been thoroughly uninterested in actual reporting for a long, long time.

I think it could be even more insidious than that. Could it be that the media doesn't want any of the negative news from Iraq to reflect poorly on B.O.?

Could they be focussing on Afghanistan because they figure he'll clean it up in a hurry? After all, much of the heavy lifting has already been done without the cameras present.

I might be off-base, but when it comes to the media, think the worst you can, then reduce estimates by 20%.

What is news coverage MOSTLY about?... Why its entertainment of course and the world audience's appetite for controversial,titillating, colourful and not too in-depth nor complicated coverage dictates the content on view.
Is it a case of the cart before the horse: the chicken before the egg or the tail wagging the dog?...Who really knows?
The viewing population is so voracious for a continuing stream of new content; and the networks exist to generate a profit as the advertisers demand a bigger viewing audience bang for their buck...IT just goes on and on and on!
In the end we are ALL the losers as we live in a system that is out of control and showing no signs of collectively getting back on the track.
Past Societies have imploded ... should we really see ourselves as the enlightened Exception to the rule?!
The irony of the laws of change are of course well documented both flip, and with real concern; but the end result is the same in that it is out of our hands and therefore not realistically within our control.
As for the networks or the mainsteam rags...I believe their days are numbered...only to be replaced with new technology (the net) which in turn is Already becoming the target of federal regulators and will in turn someday fall behind a yet more appealing interloper yet to be invented.
Will we survive?...in the end and barring a cataclysmic event, the answer will lie within economics.

The Iraq war was won by the "wrong" side, i.e. the freedom-democratic rights side and not the freedom-fighter side. Reporting on good news, particularly pro-George-Bush news, like the unequivocal defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is a major political obstacle to the neo-liberal media. It is clear to see that, as far as they are concerned, there is no politically worthwhile news in Iraq.

Non-partisan America, on the other hand, deserves to know that the 4200+ lives laid down in Iraq have not been in vain. They deserve to know that victory has been won. The media are failing Americans in this regard. A war has been won and America has been largely kept in the dark. No screaming headlines. No ticker tape parades. No jubilee from on-air anchors. No American pride. And that, as Kate correctly opines, is why the major anti-American media won't be missed when they shut their doors.

"In the early months of the war, television images out of Iraq were abundant. “But clearly, viewers’ appetite for stories from Iraq waned when it turned from all-out battle into something equally important but more difficult to describe and cover,”

What really makes it "difficult to describe and cover " is being forbidden to use any terms related to "ass kicking" or "victory" by some New York east village pussy editor.

Yeah yeah whatever.
Obama's kids had shaved ice treats at the mall, it's a local Hawaiian delicousy served with fruit syrup over ice shavings.

Of course there is really no issue with this. The 'war' is in Washington isn't it. And Obama will make it all go away, won't he?

The real problem of course is that the writers strike a few years ago didn't drop the costs enough to have them write the news casts. Darn.

Derek

If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead.

Yes, even one human casualty is a tragedy. But the Media errors (purposely ?) are a matter of degree.

They will splash headlines, day after day, over one drop of blood, yet ignore a life-giving irrigation project of billions of gallons. A housing project. School girls in the classroom.

Guilty of selective reporting.
Same as guilty by association.
Same as guilty of false advertising.
Same as guilty by omission.

Strange, how some political types get themselves in a fury over one bathroom drawing yet ignore agenda driven Media output that has a reach of millions.

In the business of making money by making bad news prominent. It sells better.

Same as some Political hacks and the politicians they guide. They are not really interested in good governance - just power. Witness the Chretien-Martin feud/blood letting. The governance itself was not going to be all that different - just the people running the show.

Sure, there's a war in Iraq, but there's breaking news in Hawaii!!

"Obama stopped by the snack bar, where he purchased two hot dogs, two passion-orange sodas, one Powerade and one Coke. He also bought two Spam musubi, a sushi-like Hawaiian delicacy consisting of Spam and fried egg on a slab of rice, all held together with a dried seaweed wrap."

http://tinyurl.com/9r92hw

"taking the presidential retreat from Crawford to Honolulu is change anyone can believe in"

Ed Henry, CNN: http://tinyurl.com/9m4d6a

Finally, it's pay-day for the Lame-Brain Media!

The American political pundit, Dennis Prager, said something this past year that perfectly explains why the media aren't in these war zones.

Paraphrasing: "For a normal person, history is set in stone and what will occur in the future is uncertain. But for a liberal it's the other way around: History is completely malleable. It can be reshaped to fit any narrative the liberal wishes. Only the future is certain because it will be shaped perfectly into the liberal's vision."

And part of the liberal vision is for America and Canada and Britain and Israel to eventually come out on the bottom of every conflict. So why bother report on any military conflict when you already know the outcome? It's just a matter of time. And even if the results don't turn out as you had expected (and hoped) you can still slant your reporting to shape the story anyway you want.

Me cynical? Absolutely. But realistic? You bet!

No need to have American's actually there. They can just get the pictures and video from Pallywood News Network and run those stories because they are always true and don't promote propaganda for one side or the other.

Why expense account reporters on the scene when you've got Al Jazeera as a wire service.

On a happy note going into the New Year, the NYT's stock is down 6.57% right now to $6.53. Digital ad revenues are down which hit the wire services today.

"Online ad revenues for the month contracted 4 percent compared with November 2007, owing to the continued flight of real estate and job classifieds advertising. The collapse of those two bedrocks of its ad model appear to have trumped all the company's smart synchronized banners, its surround sessions and its 10th place ranking among the largest Web players (Nielsen Online). Even for the Grey Lady, it would appear based on these numbers that rapid adoption and innovation in new channels just aren't enough to sustain a business mired in old ones."

You still have to register to view their garbage, how stupid is that given their need for eyeballs for ad revenues.

How can the networks provide resources for Iraq when dozens of their reporters are in Alaska covering Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother's pharmaceutical drug charge?

"You still have to register to view their garbage"

Penny, You can bypass that with 3w.bugmenot.com

why send someone over there when pallywood makes it for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5pXyczxrM

how stupid is that given their need for eyeballs for ad revenues.

Posted by: penny at 3:23 PM

maybe they are "accumulating" a list of E-addies to sell:-)))))

Apparently there aren't any investigative journalists left in Chicago either. But boy they did a great job digging into Joe the Plumber's background. True professionals!

Every time one of these donkeys opens their yap it becomes more clear that they have not a clue.

And still ..... millions receive and repeat everything they say without question.

If anyone has any respect left for the pukes that run our media, do a little research on the terrorist attacks in India recently. Most of our weasel media won't even call the scum that did these atrocities "terrorists". They use terms like "militants" or "gunmen" to describe these sick animals. Please cancel a subscription today and make it a better world.

mark peters :
Well said.

Why not send a few of our angry faced "pundits to help out, why cranky faced Don Martin and Jeffrey Simpson could give the Taliban meanies that "wire brush enema look they both give in the papers, or hit these terrorist bastards with the looks of Sheila Copps and Margret Wente, that will work for birth control if nothing else, and god knows they could use that over there. Yes the National, \Hate Harper Newswatch has a whole stable of mean faced writers that could very well scare the s..t out of these woman hating buggers, Canada to the rescue, send our news people since they will all soon be looking for meaningful work. LOL

Bernie, it's a religious thing with me. I refuse to click on the NYT's site, better to hear it word of mouth than think that they could make 1/1000 of a cent off of my presence there.

The perfect trifecta to occur before I bite the dust is that I lived to see the Catholic church of my grade school years give up its absolute authority, the Berlin Wall fall and the NYT's bite the dust. Two down, one to go.