Of Palestinians rejoicing

[Doug Millison]

Yes, and these two examples may be just enough to
demonstrate how far the country has shifted in the
past generation,  how the maintream media have drifted
from debating serious issues (should we be making war
in Vietnam, at a time when serious debate was underway
about the wisdom of our actions in that theatre; at
what point do the President's actions become criminal
and invoke a Constitutional crisis, at a time when
even the staunchest Nixon supporters realized they had
to cut him loose because of the damage he had done and
the danger he posed to the republic).  In recent years
both the NYTimes and Washington Post have climbed on
the same tabloid news bandwagon to a certain degree, 
repeating all the to the salacious gossip about
Clinton-Lewinsky for example, and now cover the march
to war with little attention to alternative voices.  

Are you somehow trying to make the point that the NY
Times and Washington Post don't currently reflect the
ideology of established authority and commercial
interests in this country?  How would you demonstrate
the validity of such a claim?  

How many front-page Times stories, for example, have
quoted critics such as Noam Chomsky along with the
various retired generals and other war hawks and
consultants for weapons makers who are routinely
called upon to add perspective and depth to these
papers' regurgitations of  "leaks" from senior
Administration officials?

--- Don Corathers <crawdad at one.net> wrote:
> Yo, Doug--
> 
> Was the Times reflecting the ideology of the
> established authority when it
> published the Pentagon Papers? Was the Post, when it
> went after Nixon's
> pantscuffs like God's own rabid dog?
> 
> Don Corathers
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Millison" <nopynching at yahoo.com>
> To: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>;
> <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 7:17 PM
> Subject: Re: Of Palestinians rejoicing
> 
> 
> >
> > With all due respect, Paul, you don't seem to have
> > much insight into the process of journalism and
> > publishing, and how ideology is necessarily
> reflected
> > in that process. Having worked as a professional
> > journalist for nearly 20 years, and having taught
> > journalism, I have studied this issue in some
> detail.
> > It's safe to say that the NYTimes and Washington
> Post
> > reflect the ideology of the established authority
> and
> > commercial interests in the U.S., and you don't
> have
> > to be located anyplace specific on the political
> > spectrum to make and support such a statement.  
> These
> > newspapers certainly don't come any where near
> > publishing anything that could be properly
> described
> > as "objective" i.e., untainted with political
> bias.
> >
> > To get anything like an objective or complete
> picture
> > of what's going on, a reader needs to gather
> > information from a wide variety of sources, you
> need
> > to take into consideration the obvious political
> > biases of each, and put together a mosaic that
> comes
> > closer to an accurate portrayal of events than any
> > single publication can provide.  The classic
> example
> > is the one that taught it to me first -- waking up
> in
> > the morning in Paris and reading yesterday's news
> > through the lenses of the various daily French
> > newspapers, each reflecting a different
> perspective
> > related to the politics of the parties they each
> > represented, ranging from l'Humanite (voice of the
> > French Communist Party), through Liberation and Le
> > Monde (progressive left and Socialist), to Le
> Figaro
> > and others center right and right wing.  We don't
> have
> > so rich a spectrum of political discourse
> reflected in
> > major daily papers in the U.S., of course, but a
> > reader can pull together a pretty good view of
> things
> > if she's willing to invest some time in reading
> across
> > a spectrum of viewpoints.  That presupposes an
> > interest in getting a more complete picture, of
> > course, and way too many people in the U.S., in my
> > opinion, don't have that interest.
> >
> > What is a "fact"?  You might find it fruitful to
> > explore the assumptions that are built into this
> > simple-sounding concept, and move on from there to
> see
> > how presenting "factual information" (your term)
> in a
> > newspaper is quite a bit more complicated, and
> fraught
> > with opportunities for bias, than you seem to
> imagine.
> >
> > This is a good topic for discussion on Pynchon-L,
> > given the way that Pynchon plays with perspective,
> > narrative strategies, and so forth.  Given your
> > staunch defense of each PoMo concept that comes
> down
> > the pike, Paul, I'm surprised that you don't think
> to
> > apply some of that same kind of analysis to the
> > newspapers and magazines you read and the
> broadcast
> > news you watch.
> >
> > Most of the stuff I've been excerpting and posting
> > from other Web sites have been opinion pieces
> > (buttressed by their authors with "factual
> > information") anyway, so your comments are
> off-target
> > in that respect in the first place.
> >
> > -Doug
> > www.Online-Journalist.com
> >
> > --- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > >  This is something one
> > > cannot do with the selective
> > > facts presented on the type of Internet site
> that
> > > (forgive me) you, Doug,
> > > all to often in my humble opinion,  promote on
> the
> > > p-list. It's of course
> > > your right.
> > >
> > > But back to the Times and the Post and the many
> > > other good (or at least
> > > fair) daily papers in the U.S. and throughout
> the
> > > world. Hope this doesn't
> > > sound insulting to anyone but one needs to KNOW
> HOW
> > > to read The Times and
> > > The Post. A typical sequence of national news
> goes
> > > like this. Some momentous
> > > crisis occurs that the Administration in
> Washington
> > > is implicated in in some
> > > way and must react to and manage. The first
> attempt
> > > to spin things the
> > > Administration's way goes out in practically
> > > minutes. The next morning the
> > > front page stories in the two papers will pretty
> > > much tell things the way
> > > the Administration says they are. Nobody
> believes a
> > > word of it of course.
> > > Why do the papers bother? Well  in the first
> place
> > > THEY haven't had time yet
> > > to discover what might really be happening. Also
> I
> > > think they realize the
> > > power they truly have and feel obliged to give
> the
> > > government the benefit of
> > > the doubt at least for a decent interval. Next
> day
> > > however a few doubts are
> > > cautiously expressed. Some reliable but
> unnamable
> > > souce within the
> > > administration has revealed this or that. By the
> > > third day all stops are
> > > out. The big time reporters with inside sources
> are
> > > fevrrishing competing to
> > > pick holes in the official truth. By the fourth
> day
> > > even the official truth
> > > has changed. And this process goes on until the
> > > events creating the news are
> > > no longer relevant. Or something more momentous
> has
> > > come alone.
> > >
> > > Anyway. And, Doug, I'm not trying to get you to
> > > change. Don't even want you
> > > to change. I love the p-list too much just the
> way
> > > it is.
> > >             P.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Doug Millison" <nopynching at yahoo.com>
> > > To: "Phil Wise" <philwise at paradise.net.nz>;
> "Paul
> > > Mackin"
> > > <paul.mackin at verizon.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > > Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 2:20 PM
> > > Subject: Re: Of Palestinians rejoicing
> > >
> > >
> > > > Sorry, but you're dreaming if you think that
> > > manstream
> > > > newspapers like the NY Times and Washington
> Post
> 
=== message truncated ===


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