Unnatural story selection - Media still aims for easy targets - But 2004 better than 2003 overall

Dec. 26, 2004. 09:25 AM
Unnatural story selection - Media still aims for easy targets - But
2004 better than 2003 overall

ANTONIA ZERBISIAS azerbis@thestar.ca
MEDIA CRITIC
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Page&cid=970599109774&ce=Columnist&colid=969907624636

"What is the role of a free and independent press in a democratic
society? Is it to be a passive conduit responsible only for the
delivery of information between a government and its people? Is it to
aggressively print allegation and rumor independent of accuracy or
fairness? Is it to show boobies? No. The role of a free press is to
be the people's eyes and ears, providing not just information but
access, insight and, most importantly, context."

- From America (The Book) by The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

It is, one hopes, a positive sign that a book of media and political
criticism ends up as book of the year by Publishers Weekly.

It is, however, not a good thing that it took a fake news show on a
comedy network to give Americans the real deal on their country.

At least 2004 was an improvement on 2003. This year, some of the
mainstream media, at least some of the time, stepped out of the
pro-war, pro-George W. Bush conga line and stopped beating the war
drums.

The New York Times copped to having swallowed the administration
hook, line and clunker about weapons of mass destruction. The New
Yorker and CBS showed the extent of American war crimes at Abu Ghraib
prison. The networks gave big play to Kevin Sites's video of an
American marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi in a mosque. Another
embedded journalist encouraged a National Guardsman this month to ask
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of armoured Humvees
- probably saving many American troops and contributing to the
almost-certain demise of Rumsfeld's long political run.

But it wasn't all good.

[...]

As America (The Book) points out, the media have never been freer -
and "the status never quo-er."

full story

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OR

http://tinyurl.com/6zede
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Via / By / Excerpted / From / Tip from / Thanks to:

Bill Doskoch
Toronto, ON

http://billdoskoch.blogware.com

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