:: writing skills or true intellect? ::
Anyone with a firm grasp on the English language can write something that will pass as intellectual truth. This is one of the greatest problems with American Journalism today. It's a problem with LJ users too.
I read a lot of LJs and Blogs written by people of the conservative persuasion. These are often (but not always) well-spoken, articulate, and seemingly rational people. But one thing that I find very commonly is that many of these people simply recite what they hear in the mainstream press, and as a result, they think that they are better informed than those from the left and that this explains why liberals and progressives have such "wacky" ideas of how the world should work. It's a kind of pseudo-intellectual elitism. And it's actually dangerous.
The thing is, many liberals and progressives shun the mainstream media. We already recognize that the American Media is a tool for the people in power - very few reporters in the media dare to question anything anymore. They like the salaries they are paid by the huge war-hungry corporations that sign their checks. So they show up, they do their jobs, they read the teleprompters and write articles that quote White House press releases and they forget all about journalistic integrity. The mainstream media is primarily used to "manufacture consent." (as Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have written about here.) The basic idea is this: Our leaders believe that they know what is best for us, but what is best for us isn't always easy to explain, and in fact, isn't necessarily always best, either. So it becomes necessary to have a media system which will essentially shape public opinion and build support where support wouldn't naturally have existed. For example: The invasion of Iraq. We were given a lot of reasons for why we needed to invade, EXCEPT for the REAL reasons. I don't need to discuss that any further here, I've covered it in previous posts.
But to the self-proclaimed "well-informed" people - the conservatives, republicans, Bush supporters - the term "well-informed" means you read news clips on FoxNews.com every day or you catch the 10:00 news or the headlines in the local paper. Tell me, when was the last time you heard a tally of how many Iraqi or Afghani casualties there have been in the War on Terror? When was the last time you saw an interview with an Iraqi or Afghani citizen who has lost the better part of his or her family as the result of these wars? There are a lot of questions that go unanswered when relying on the American Media for the story.
To put it simply, when was the last time you heard a point of view in the American media that wasn't a pro-American one? And it sure doesn't count when Bill O'Reilly invites a war protester on his show to be berated, bullied, and told to shut up.
It's funny, these very same people who claim that ignorance runs rampant through our society - that there are too many lies and fabrications, and too little effort by the common citizen to dig for the truth - these are the same people who have never heard anything but the American point of view on America's foreign policy. These are the same people who criticize Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 without ever even going to see it.
If you really want to understand the world, and particularly the role which the United States plays, you've got to make some effort to understand it through the eyes of those who are directly affected by our policies. The War on Terror has a completely different face to an Iraqi man who is just trying to survive and take care of his family. Incidentally, believe it or not, the same hypothetical Iraqi man was having an easier time of it under Saddam Hussein than Iyad Allawi.
Americans are by far the leaders of the world when it comes to completely failing to understand or sympathize with the opinions, needs, and perspectives of those several billion other people with whom we share this globe. It's time to change that, if we ever hope to see our nation survive.
If we continue to ignore them, to bomb them, to economically strangle them, they'll never stop hating us and there will be no end to the "terrorist threat." And if we, the American people, don't start educating ourselves about the world, we'll be powerless to stop our own steady decline. It's already happening, folks.
Here are some links to a few organizations that are working to correct the overwhelming bias in mainstream American Journalism:
Disinfopedia
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Institute for Public Accuracy
PR Watch
I read a lot of LJs and Blogs written by people of the conservative persuasion. These are often (but not always) well-spoken, articulate, and seemingly rational people. But one thing that I find very commonly is that many of these people simply recite what they hear in the mainstream press, and as a result, they think that they are better informed than those from the left and that this explains why liberals and progressives have such "wacky" ideas of how the world should work. It's a kind of pseudo-intellectual elitism. And it's actually dangerous.
The thing is, many liberals and progressives shun the mainstream media. We already recognize that the American Media is a tool for the people in power - very few reporters in the media dare to question anything anymore. They like the salaries they are paid by the huge war-hungry corporations that sign their checks. So they show up, they do their jobs, they read the teleprompters and write articles that quote White House press releases and they forget all about journalistic integrity. The mainstream media is primarily used to "manufacture consent." (as Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have written about here.) The basic idea is this: Our leaders believe that they know what is best for us, but what is best for us isn't always easy to explain, and in fact, isn't necessarily always best, either. So it becomes necessary to have a media system which will essentially shape public opinion and build support where support wouldn't naturally have existed. For example: The invasion of Iraq. We were given a lot of reasons for why we needed to invade, EXCEPT for the REAL reasons. I don't need to discuss that any further here, I've covered it in previous posts.
But to the self-proclaimed "well-informed" people - the conservatives, republicans, Bush supporters - the term "well-informed" means you read news clips on FoxNews.com every day or you catch the 10:00 news or the headlines in the local paper. Tell me, when was the last time you heard a tally of how many Iraqi or Afghani casualties there have been in the War on Terror? When was the last time you saw an interview with an Iraqi or Afghani citizen who has lost the better part of his or her family as the result of these wars? There are a lot of questions that go unanswered when relying on the American Media for the story.
To put it simply, when was the last time you heard a point of view in the American media that wasn't a pro-American one? And it sure doesn't count when Bill O'Reilly invites a war protester on his show to be berated, bullied, and told to shut up.
It's funny, these very same people who claim that ignorance runs rampant through our society - that there are too many lies and fabrications, and too little effort by the common citizen to dig for the truth - these are the same people who have never heard anything but the American point of view on America's foreign policy. These are the same people who criticize Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 without ever even going to see it.
If you really want to understand the world, and particularly the role which the United States plays, you've got to make some effort to understand it through the eyes of those who are directly affected by our policies. The War on Terror has a completely different face to an Iraqi man who is just trying to survive and take care of his family. Incidentally, believe it or not, the same hypothetical Iraqi man was having an easier time of it under Saddam Hussein than Iyad Allawi.
Americans are by far the leaders of the world when it comes to completely failing to understand or sympathize with the opinions, needs, and perspectives of those several billion other people with whom we share this globe. It's time to change that, if we ever hope to see our nation survive.
If we continue to ignore them, to bomb them, to economically strangle them, they'll never stop hating us and there will be no end to the "terrorist threat." And if we, the American people, don't start educating ourselves about the world, we'll be powerless to stop our own steady decline. It's already happening, folks.
Here are some links to a few organizations that are working to correct the overwhelming bias in mainstream American Journalism:
Disinfopedia
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Institute for Public Accuracy
PR Watch