US view of Islam declining

[mr_genius]

Swift Boat appeared in the MSM plenty.

 

 

true, but most of the news stories i saw showed both sides of the story. a lot of the news stories showed how unfair some of those 'swift boat' political ads were.

 

the CBS story was a hatchet job, a politically motivated hatchet job IMO.

 

meh, i usually watch 'the Newshour' (pbs) anyways.

[NorthSideSox72]

The Swift Boat and Rathergate situations are not comparable because the Swift Boat Veterans MADE THEIR OWN CASE.  Sure, they were on TV, but their argument was being made by them, not the network.  O'Reilly has left-wing nutcases like Al Sharpton on his show all of the time, but that doesn't mean that he's promoting their ideas.

 

On the other hand, Dan Rather and CBS were the ones who directly presented the case about Bush's military record.

And the networks also looked into Swift Boat.

 

I make no defense of Rather. Instead, I am just trying to point out that as much crap as there was being thrown at Bush about his Guard duty, there was just as much crap about Swift Boat (along with his use of his medals, etc.). The media explored both sides, albeit poorly. There simply isn't this vast conspiracy across the media that you claim exists.

[NorthSideSox72]

true, but most of the news stories i saw showed both sides of the story.  a lot of the news stories showed how unfair some of those 'swift boat' political ads were.

 

the CBS story was a hatchet job, a politically motivated hatchet job IMO.

 

meh, i usually watch 'the Newshour' (pbs) anyways.

Ah, the old McNeil Lehrer show. That is a good one.

[mr_genius]

The Swift Boat and Rathergate situations are not comparable because the Swift Boat Veterans MADE THEIR OWN CASE.  Sure, they were on TV, but their argument was being made by them, not the network.  O'Reilly has left-wing nutcases like Al Sharpton on his show all of the time, but that doesn't mean that he's promoting their ideas.

 

On the other hand, Dan Rather and CBS were the ones who directly presented the case about Bush's military record.

 

 

good point WCSox

[WCSox]

How about the reward offered to anyone who could prove that they served with Dubya in the guard, and could prove it?  No takers.

 

Several organizations and individuals offered cash rewards to those who could offer proof that Bush had fulfilled certain military obligations. The purpose of the offering of these rewards by Bush opponents was not to actually prove his service, but to support innuendo that the service was unfulfilled by showing that the rewards went unclaimed.

(Link)

 

Yeah, I'll bet there was a HUGE sack of money that was left unclaimed. :rolly

 

How about the numerous articles about how Dubya was helping with a political campaign in Alabama when he was supposed to be on duty with the Guard?

 

So, would those contain credible evidence or just opinion? I wouldn't know because you're being intentionally vague.

 

Need more?  You got Google.  Use it.

 

:rolly

 

I'll take that as a, "No, I don't have evidence."

Edited March 9, 2006 by WCSox

[Balta1701]

Oh, did you have evidence to prove otherwise? 

 

I'm all ears...

Actually, the proper answer is that no one has the evidence about Mr. Bush's guard service, and just before the Rather mess, a few people were starting to notice that.

 

In Feb. of 04, Bush did a massive document dump that shut up a lot of people for a few months while they actually went over all the stuff he hadn't released in 2000. But around August of 04, people had finally processed everything in there, and the AP was running a couple of stories saying how every key document that would have been produced which would have answered the questions about Mr. Bush's guard duty turned out to be simply missing. Like 6 or more specific, key documents, which would have been created independently upon his discharge were missing, along with quite a few other documents which would have talked through his last year or two in the Guard, were all just gone.

 

Basically, just as the AP was starting to ask "where are these documents, those are the ones we need and they weren't presented to anyone", CBS ran its forged document story, and suddenly Bush's guard service became a 3rd rail.

 

So, we can't prove Bush didn't finish his guard service. There is some evidence he didn't, which is why it was a question in the first place (a physical saying he didn't report, a couple other shredded documents, testimony by a couple of people), but nothing conclusive either way, and conveniently the documents which would be conclusive have all disappeared. And no one will ever touch that issue again, at least until 20 years go by and people are writing books about how bad the Bush Administration looks in the eyes of history.

[WCSox]

And the networks also looked into Swift Boat.

 

I make no defense of Rather.  Instead, I am just trying to point out that as much crap as there was being thrown at Bush about his Guard duty, there was just as much crap about Swift Boat (along with his use of his medals, etc.).  The media explored both sides, albeit poorly. 

 

I agree with that part. The Swift Boat Veterans were definitely running a smear campaign.

 

There simply isn't this vast conspiracy across the media that you claim exists.

 

But you're wrong here. CBS was directly involved in pushing the falsified documents that lead up to Rathergate. They presented that information on the CBS Evening News, which is supposed to be free of political bias. That's a lot different than simply allowing the Swift Boat Veterans on your show to give THEIR opinion. Unlike Rather, these guys were definitely not operating under the guise of objectivity.

[Balta1701]

The Swift Boat and Rathergate situations are not comparable because the Swift Boat Veterans MADE THEIR OWN CASE.  Sure, they were on TV, but their argument was being made by them, not the network.  O'Reilly has left-wing nutcases like Al Sharpton on his show all of the time, but that doesn't mean that he's promoting their ideas.

 

On the other hand, Dan Rather and CBS were the ones who directly presented the case about Bush's military record.

CBS directly presented a case which was given to them by others. Don't forget, the forged documents didn't make up that entire story. They also had another person, Ben Barnes, who testified that he had helped Bush get into and out of the guard in the first place. The documents were also presented to them by others, and they talked to others about it. Specifically, Bill Burkett, who is probably the guy who did the forgeries, gave them to CBS.

 

So it's not like CBS just forged those documents on their own. The documents were forged by someone else and presented as fact, just as the swift boat guys lied repeatedly and had their statemetns treated as fact by many in the media.

[Balta1701]

But you're wrong here.  CBS was directly involved in pushing the falsified documents that lead up to Rathergate.  They presented that information on the CBS Evening News, which is supposed to be free of political bias.  That's a lot different than simply allowing the Swift Boat Veterans on your show to give THEIR opinion.  Unlike Rather, these guys were definitely not operating under the guise of objectivity.

Um, it was presented first on 60 minutes, not the evening news.

[WCSox]

So, we can't prove Bush didn't finish his guard service.   

 

And nobody can prove that he went AWOL either.

 

And no one will ever touch that issue again, at least until 20 years go by and people are writing books about how bad the Bush Administration looks in the eyes of history.

 

They can be filed right alongside the books about how the media is creating news to push a liberal political agenda.

[WCSox]

CBS directly presented a case which was given to them by others.  Don't forget, the forged documents didn't make up that entire story.  They also had another person, Ben Barnes, who testified that he had helped Bush get into and out of the guard in the first place.  The documents were also presented to them by others, and they talked to others about it.  Specifically, Bill Burkett, who is probably the guy who did the forgeries, gave them to CBS.

 

So it's not like CBS just forged those documents on their own.  The documents were forged by someone else and presented as fact, just as the swift boat guys lied repeatedly and had their statemetns treated as fact by many in the media.

 

I never claimed that CBS forged the documents. But the NETWORK directly made the claim to the public via their employees. That's a lot different than allowing some political hacks on one's show to give their account of what happened.

 

The end result is the same, but the role that the media played in the two scenarios is vastly different.

 

Um, it was presented first on 60 minutes, not the evening news.

 

My bad. :banghead

Edited March 9, 2006 by WCSox

[mr_genius]

lol

 

this thread quickly moved right into G.W Bush vs Dan Rather.

[Gregory Pratt]

Like when Walter Cronkite reported that the Americans lost the Tet Offensive?  Or when Dan Rather reported that Bush didn't fulfill his military service requirement with the Texas Air National Guard?  :rolly

 

I think you're right in regard to those two incidents, mate, or to point out that they happened and were nasty examples of Incompetent Reporting on the Latter's Part and Editorializing on the Former's. But they don't point out to "Liberal Conspiracy from Within." The Tet Offensive report Killed the Johnson Presidency, after all, and Rather was forced from "Power," so to speak. That said,

 

You didn't answer the question.  How is reporting combat deaths of thousands of American troops not news?  Or otherwise worded, how is that politically biased?

 

Walter Cronkite 40 years ago is your example?!

 

The "MSM" as some like to call it will report what people read/hear/see.  If they fail to do that, they fail to exist.  If they choose to not report certain things, other networks will, and again, they will fail to exist.  Its not politics - its business.

 

Exactly.

[Balta1701]

1 more point I'd like to make in this thread.

 

Was the Space Shuttle Columbia's loss newsworthy? Only 7 people died. Yet, there are tens of thousands of others who are killed in other ways every year, as pointed out earlier in this thread.

 

Based on the "you shouldn't cover the deaths of soldiers because you don't cover other deaths", any death which doesn't significantly increase the amount of people killed per year should be ignored. But we paid attention when Columbia (and Challenger) were lost, and we pay attention when U.S. troops die. Why? Because there is something special about those deaths. They're unique. They're dying because of something unexpected.

 

Based on those sorts of statements, the death of Ronald Reagan should have received no more coverage than the death of one of my family members, because they're both dying. But we attach a significance to the value of the life and work done by many people which goes above that of your average person. It simply is beyond me how someone could expect that the media should totally ignore all of the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, because there are so many other deaths that we choose to pay attention to as well.

[WCSox]

I think you're right in regard to those two incidents, mate, or to point out that they happened and were nasty examples of Incompetent Reporting on the Latter's Part and Editorializing on the Former's. But they don't point out to "Liberal Conspiracy from Within." The Tet Offensive report Killed the Johnson Presidency, after all, and Rather was forced from "Power," so to speak. That said, 

 

I can see how Rather may have just been careless and wasn't attempting to be malicious (although Mary Mapes certainly was, given that she was talking to Joe Lockhart about it). But Cronkite is a different story. He's an ardent anti-war liberal who hated Johnson and his intentions definitely were maliclious. He abused his position as an impartial anchorman by flat-out lying to the American people so that he could force a President out of the White House.

 

It simply is beyond me how someone could expect that the media should totally ignore all of the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, because there are so many other deaths that we choose to pay attention to as well.

 

It's beyond me as well, because that's not the point that I was trying to convey...

 

When people are attacked and killed in a war, it's not news.

 

What I was trying to say in that statement is that when soldiers go off to war, it's expected that some of them will be lost. It's unfortunate, but it's EXPECTED. However, it wasn't EXPECTED that planes would be flown into the WTC and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, resulting in the death of almost 3,000 innocent civillians. It wasn't EXPECTED that 230,000 innocent people along the Indian Ocean coast would've perished in a tsunami. It wasn't EXPECTED that over 1,400 innocent civillians would be killed as a Category 4 hurricane flooded New Orleans.

 

But we paid attention when Columbia (and Challenger) were lost, and we pay attention when U.S. troops die.  Why?  Because there is something special about those deaths.  They're unique. They're dying because of something unexpected.

 

Bingo!

 

But there's nothing "unexpected" about a soldier being killed in combat. Unlike the previous examples, there's no pretense of innocence. They all have guns! It's a freaking war!

 

So, why are the casualties highlighted on the front page of the NY Times every single freaking day? I'd like to think that the Times is doing their part to honor the lives of these great men and women who make the ultimate sacrifice in defending our country's freedom and values... but I'm not that f***ing stupid. The high frequency, front-page visibility, and overwhelmingly negative tone of these reports make it very clear that the journalists and editors at the Times don't give a rat's ass about the memory of these soldiers. They're using their deaths as an opportunity to further their own selfish political agendas.

 

Based on those sorts of statements, the death of Ronald Reagan should have received no more coverage than the death of one of my family members, because they're both dying.  But we attach a significance to the value of the life and work done by many people which goes above that of your average person.

 

That's a good point. But there's a fine line between honoring great people because it's the right thing to do and using their greatness for one's own selfish reasons. Unfortunately, the liberal media seems to be more interested in doing the latter.

Edited March 10, 2006 by WCSox

[Rex Kickass]

When we were being told about how this war would be run, we weren't told that there would be 130K plus troops in Iraq three years later. In fact we were promised significant troop reductions within a year. So that would be unexpected. We were told that we would be greeted with flowers and candy. So an insurrection would be unexpected. So I guess that would be unexpected too.

 

So I guess that makes it news then.

[FlaSoxxJim]

When we were being told about how this war would be run, we weren't told that there would be 130K plus troops in Iraq three years later. In fact we were promised significant troop reductions within a year. So that would be unexpected. We were told that we would be greeted with flowers and candy. So an insurrection would be unexpected. So I guess that would be unexpected too.

 

So I guess that makes it news then.

Why do you hate America? Posts like that just give comfort to the terrorists you know. (And they do lurk these boards. . . )

Edited March 10, 2006 by FlaSoxxJim

[YASNY]

In all this talk about the Swift Boat ads, and the use of them as an example the media is not left oriented, there is one point that has not been mentioned. The Swift Boat ads were ... Paid Advertisements! That's right. There was someone with a political agenda buying TV time to further their agenda.

 

The media coverage surrounding those ads, you know, the coverage that got the ads free air time, was usually an attempt to discredit the ads. They'd show the ad, then dissect and editorially discredit what they just showed. To use that as an example of the conservatives getting a fair shake from the MSM is laughable, at best.

[BigSqwert]

The media coverage surrounding those ads, you know, the coverage that got the ads free air time, was usually an attempt to discredit the ads.  They'd show the ad, then dissect and editorially discredit what they just showed.  To use that as an example of the conservatives getting a fair shake from the MSM is laughable, at best.

So the fact that all the 24 hour news networks were covering nothing but this story for weeks helped Kerry in some way?

[YASNY]

So the fact that all the 24 hour news networks were covering nothing but this story for weeks helped Kerry in some way?

 

It didn't help Bush, because they fileted the hell out of these ads. Show the ad, followed by some angry democrat or journalist blowing steam out of their ears.

 

EDIT: On second thought. The ads themselves did, in fact, help Bush. As Kerry started to go into a defensive mode instead of an attack mode. However, whether or not the coverage helped one or the other is not the point. The point I was making was the media attempted to derail the effects of the ads. The ads, given as a comparative example to Rathergate is, as I said before, laughable.

Edited March 10, 2006 by YASNY

[Balta1701]

It didn't help Bush, because they fileted the hell out of these ads.  Show the ad, followed by some angry democrat or journalist blowing steam out of their ears.

 

EDIT:  On second thought.  The ads themselves did, in fact, help Bush.  As Kerry started to go into a defensive mode instead of an attack mode.  However, whether or not the coverage helped one or the other is not the point.  The point I was making was the media attempted to derail the effects of the ads.  The ads, given as a comparative example to Rathergate is, as I said before, laughable.

The media, aside from CBS, sure did a damn good job of destroying the CBS memos also. As soon as other media outlets, specifically the WaPo and LA Times got their hands on the memos, they utterly shredded the work CBS had done authenticating them.

 

Most of the statements by bloggers about the memos, i.e. claims that there were no typewriters which could possibly have produced those memos in the 70's, were simply false. They probably were produced by Word, but the claim was that they only could have been produced by word, which was wrong.

 

However, once other media outlets got their hands on those memos, they fact-checked them, found obvious, glaring contradictions, and even blew CBS's supposed authentication of the signature on the documents away.

 

So, CBS made one incredibly stupid, probably biased move, and they were punished harshly for it. The Swifties were rewarded quite handsomely for their work.

[WCSox]

So, CBS made one incredibly stupid, probably biased move, and they were punished harshly for it.  The Swifties were rewarded quite handsomely for their work.

 

The difference, of course, being that the Swifties don't run one of the major media outlets in the country. There was no pretense of objectivity on their part; everyone knew that they were a bunch of right-wing hacks. However, nobody expected that Dan Rather, a supposedly impartial anchorman, would showcase a fake document on 60 Minutes that was obtained from a left-wing hack.

[YASNY]

You can also make a case for the fact that NBC,ABC, FOX and CNN tooks shots at CBS because they are their competition. It seems to me that would be a factor.

[NorthSideSox72]

You can also make a case for the fact that NBC,ABC, FOX and CNN tooks shots at CBS because they are their competition.  It seems to me that would be a factor.

Which is exactly the point I made earlier. It business. If one network ends up going at a story at too steep an angle, the other networks will take the more direct line up the middle and beat them to the punch. In other words, if a network starts veering off to one side or the other of the aisle, and misses stories because of it, they will pay for it in ratings.

 

Its not liberal media bias - its dirty laundry, and the same thing will happen to whomever goes into Congress in 2006 and the Presidency in 2008, regardless of party.

[YASNY]

Which is exactly the point I made earlier.  It business.  If one network ends up going at a story at too steep an angle, the other networks will take the more direct line up the middle and beat them to the punch.  In other words, if a network starts veering off to one side or the other of the aisle, and misses stories because of it, they will pay for it in ratings.

 

Its not liberal media bias - its dirty laundry, and the same thing will happen to whomever goes into Congress in 2006 and the Presidency in 2008, regardless of party.

 

Ok, you've scored a point here. I still fervently believe the MSM is liberally slanted.