... (0 comments)Update: Now that it’s Sunday, CNN seems to be stepping up to the plate and is doing some decent reporting.
Here’s an amazing report out from the BBC if you want to see what real journalism looks like:
Update: Here’s a great take on the situation from E.D. Kain:
And an assessment of the state of the MSM from a Daily Dish reader:We are witnessing two revolutions here – one, the “green revolution” in Iran which may or may not be a success, and the other the technology and news information revolution. We are witnessing the unwitting suicide and slow death of the news media as we know it, as they cave to ratings and apathy rather than getting out there and covering a real story, as they aid and abbet the numbing and dumbing down of the American people.
If you were reading the Dish this weekend you were living in a different universe from someone watching Fox or MSNBC. There is very little difference between no information and misinformation. That is what the American people are getting – a starvation diet of no news and lots of empty carbs. Fatty, salty food with no nutritional value. And we’re too damn apathetic to demand better. There is a great divide in the decisions we make as an informed populace vs the decisions we make as an uninformed or misinformed one. The people I know who rely on the MSM for their news consistently know less about what actually happened than my blogger friends do, and have less nuanced opinions about these events. That’s a damn shame if you ask me. It leads to the support of bad policy.
Reading your blog over the past 30 something hours makes me realize why the MSM is really finished. I mean, this point has finally hit home.You are blogging real time events, with descriptions, evaluation, analysis, and eye witness accounts. You are gathering information from a myriad of sources and putting it out there for a cohesive message.CNN, NY Times, et al are merely running an article about “thousands” of protesters. Its a canned message from just a few stale sources.The revolution is definitely on in Iran. And its on in American journalism too.
anon says: it's not a revolution until we see khamenei's head being kicked around the streets of tehran like a football.
Henry says: I agree with Fred: I've seen similar footage and scenes on most U.S. channels and networks! They haven't been as openly critical of Iran's government, but they've certainly shown the same demonstrations! As a former newsman, I don't think anyone has any real proof (yet) that the incumbent has stolen the election, and shouldn't be accusing anyone until they do. We need to let this play out some before we go overboard in criticism….then sock it to 'em!
BBC was slow on the count too. Usually slanted biased analysis. They reported some, but the real story came from Iranians who gave twitter feed. Forget about relying on major media outlets. Big media is dead. Its the age of people's media through social networks and their posts, wither pics or video.
angryrat says: Obviously the media here, in the US, is reluctant to report anything that goes against the conventional wisdom they propagated (and what is obviously false, and used to push policies that are less-than-pure).
A revolt in Iran would somehow question the "crazyfundamentalisteverybodythesamenodemocracyletsbombthecrapoutofthem" Iran that they try to make up over here -just to scare people enough to make a possible military strike appealing, or to justify why we can't talk to them.
The crazy thing is that no one reports here basic facts that 1. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, and as a signatory of the nonproliferation treaty has every right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes 2. Iran does give certain limited rights to minorities, Jews included (more actually than the blacks got during the segregation), 3 the mullahs are not crazy, 4 the CIA overthrew a democratic government over there in the '50s, 5. the US supported Saddam in his war against Iran which killed more than a million Iranian, 6 Israel stated that it has the right for preventive nuclear strikes… So they have every reason to be paranoid.
-
Thanks for that post. I do think many people see through the paranoid propaganda of big media and US government, but aside from the validity of your 6 points, Iranian governments have made their own provocative and cavalier suggestions about attacks on Israel and the US. Its a question of escalating the paranoia. It doesn't help much. And while mullahs may not be clinically insane, there have been many very crazy statements and provocations, would you not agree?
<a href="http://www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player…” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player… target=”_blank”>
” target=”_blank”> <a href="http://www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player_embedded” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player…
<a href="http://www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player…” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player… target=”_blank”>
” target=”_blank”> <a href="http://www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player_embedded” target=”_blank”>www.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3F&feature=player…
-
in the beginning, I was hoping that people protested peacefully, but after watching the cops there beating people like that I think they deserve every beating they get back from the protesters.
taylor says: i agree with henry. i have been aware of this for several days, without doing anything except watching main stream media…
scratt says: Looks like the US media doesn't need to report on Iran as you are *all* already indoctrinated.
The election was not stolen.
The "riots" in Iran were no worse than any of the recent riots anywhere in Europe over various world summits. A few thousand people mislead by their own candidate and probably funded by the US indirectly tried to voice their opinion, and just like every election anywhere else in the world the people who lost cried foul. End of story.
-
Schu says:
Let us examine scratt’s statements and projects for a moment. He claims that the election was not stolen, even though the victor declared victory before the election and shut down all coverage of the election. The he projects that the riots are no worse than riots at various world summits. How does he know this, since the victor’s have shut down all coverage of the elections and the riots? Then he projects that the challenger was funded by the US government while not providing any evidence to back such a challenge. And the he claims that this is a done fact and the end of the story. Which the theocrats in the Iranian government truly hope will happen.
not-to-mension says: Hey guys, the only reason that I am posting hear is that like always western media is so off the topic. What is happening right now in Iran is that authority is beating people. I just read a news in BBC persian that authority invaded one of the university and shot some students. My question is that why don't they say the same story in English. Do they want the world to not hear some news. Here is one video that shows how brutal iraninan authority are:
Dave says: It wasn't necissarily that Mousavi (sp?) lost but that the election was called a "landslide" by the state controlled tv station a few hours after the voting began. I disagree that US media ignored the election, MSNBC had foreign correspondent reports all week leading up to the election AND shortly after the riots began…do we really need 24 hour coverage on American news station of an Iranian election? No. However, it doesn't make the events any less important to America
Daniel says: You're completely lying. All the mainstream media outlets I'm aware of have been doing nonstop coverage of this (don't watch Fox News, so not sure about them.. but really what would you expect?)
Stop your sensationalist bullshit. We can discuss this without ignoring reality. BBC isn't doing anything differently than American outlets, but I always visit BBC.com to check their coverage. Usually the most pressing matter on their site are just as frivolous as with American media, often more so.
-
did you actually read the whole post which included this: "Update: Now that it's Sunday, CNN seems to be stepping up to the plate and is doing some decent reporting." If you'll notice, I wrote the post on Saturday, when CNN had barely a mention of the riots, protests and police brutality. As Sunday came around, CNN and other networks started to get more coverage. please do try to read up and get context before flying off the handle.
Wes says: This has been reported on every news site and on TV in the USA. I have plenty of issues with mainstream American media but to say that they're silent on this is a load of crap.
-
did you actually read the whole post which included this: "Update: Now that it's Sunday, CNN seems to be stepping up to the plate and is doing some decent reporting." If you'll notice, I wrote the post on Saturday, when CNN had barely a mention of the riots, protests and police brutality. As Sunday came around, CNN and other networks started to get more coverage. please do try to read up and get context before flying off the handle.
Harry says: Uhh, they are not trying to focus too much attention for two reasons: 1) If we do, then we were the evil outsiders creating all the hub-bub so that the Iran state can blame the uproars as outsider evil doing and 2) we don't want to acknowledge a probably illicitly gained position of office until all things have settled.
I say VERY WELL PLAYED America!
-
i agree that Obama should be quiet about it but in terms of the media, they really ought to be covering this more. Remember Tienanmen?
-
But we really do not have a free press, but a corporate dominated press that wants to keep us fat and happy. But not rocking the boat or investigating anything that corporate America would object to.
-
Leave a Reply
Fast Food
Unhinged vagina-shackler on Komen’s volte face:Cancer is Cancer! Aboration is Aboration!
(0 comments)Since it’s Mitt Romney week everywhere, I figured I’d post this op-ed by an ex-Mormon, which is a pretty interesting take at the institutional culture of the LDS church. Not much to say about it, but it’s definitely worth 5 or so minutes of your time. (0 comments)Why Bipartisanship Is Impossible, In One Sentence
When one party climbs back to power by promising action on the economy, does nothing on it, and instead spends literally all its time trying to hurt the other party. (0 comments)New From The Gingrich-Cain Front
Newt rants about cable movies he doesn’t like, and flips out when Herman tries to seize control. Catch all the fun here. And the main site is here, as always. (0 comments)Headline of the Week: Making Rapeanade
Leave it to TBogg:
(0 comments)Rick Santorum Suggests That When Life Gives You Rape, You Should Make Rapeanade Back when I was in junior high and the Clinton Impeachment was going on, I could hardly have imagined that Clinton would be used as an excuse for wrongdoing by Republican leaders. But that’s where we are. Interesting, isn’t it? (0 comments)Catch up with the official Gingrich-Cain “Great Statesmen” series over at @GingrichCain12. (0 comments)Only 65% of White Americans Have a Favorable Opinion of MLK Jr
…with a whimper. Drum is worth reading on this. I think he’s just got to be the most overhyped and overcovered guy who never managed better than third place since…Joe Lieberman? (0 comments)Mitt Romney's Overwhelming Inauthenticity
It’s amazing to me that Mitt Romney brings up France as a scary comparison point to himself so often when he spent years there and speaks the language. It’s such a minor point, but telling. Of all the people running for president, Mitt Romney has to be the most aware that the rightwing caricature of ... (0 comments)Mother Teresa Doesn't Deserve Sainthood
Case in point. It’s amazing how all the famous/respected Catholic figures from the 1990s have turned out to be incredibly corrupt, isn’t it? I’m sure they’re somehow connected. Of course, as I’m a Protestant I know little about such things. (1 comments)I Fixed It! Ban Sitting Politicians From Running For Another Office
Wonkette reminded me of one of the provisions that I want to write into my fantasy Constitution:No person who holds any elected office shall be permitted to seek election to any other office until he shall have permanently vacated his current post.
(2 comments)The Kardashians want their own magazine?
Unintentionally hilarious: “Bachmann, 55, told a small group of supporters Tuesday night that she was staying in the presidential race…”What other kind of group of Bachmann supporters could there be?(0 comments)Santorum Finishes #2, Sliding Down In The Final Minutes To Lose To Romney
I was really hoping that Santorum would win the Iowa caucuses. The disgustingly puerile humor would have lasted for WEEKS! (0 comments)Good stuff: The National Labor Relations Board announced on Wednesday that it had adopted new rules that would speed up unionization elections, its last major policy decision before it drops to two members and can no longer make new decisions. It approved the rules in a 2-to-1 vote. The labor board said the new rules, which have ... (0 comments)A Dinosaur Infringed On A Patent For Rocks...
Reading this lead-in to an article today made me think of cavemen and dinosaurs:“The long-running antitrust suit Novell filed regarding Microsoft’s alleged tactics to prevent WordPerfect from running properly in Windows 95 seemed to be on the verge of conclusion…”
... (0 comments)
(DOWN THE VINE
Syndication
Thanks for this, it's important to get the real story to as many people as possible. Peace
America is doing what it does best i.e. creating chaos. Its no secret that the 1st Iranian revolution was sponsored and directed by Americans, and simply because they didn't like the leadership back then. And its happening again, what are the odds?
This story may be a "surprise" to people in West but its something we knew was going to happen because the signs were all over Iran and everyone was scared, other then the participants who were waiting for the outcome. So lets see, this wil be the 2nd Iranian revolution brought by the American and *NOT* by the Iranians, I say because I am one of them.
I think its more that they are lazy, dont wanna pay people to work on weekends. still not an excuse though
Maybe the American media knows something about their audience that we don't want to admit -- apathy is a serious problem, especially when anything outside our borders is concerned. Frankly, I find it appalling that they are not doing a better job of covering this, especially last night when so much news was breaking on Twitter. They risk rendering themselves obsolete.
In a rare turn, I'm actually going to play devil's advocate for the media on this one. The Iranian "President" shrugged off questions of the election's legitimacy as creations of Western media during his press conference/love-in today. The only testy exchanges were the results of questions posed by CNN and the AP. I think right now the outrage should be coming from Iranian people and not so much from us. We might further endanger the lives of journalists on the ground there who have been coralled since the election was called. If we're right about this- which I am certain we are- then the citizens of Iran are smart enough to know we are right on this too. Let's all take a breath and see how this plays out in the short-term before expressing outrage.
I don't mean to suggest that Americans need to be expressing greater outrage over this situation. My concern is that Americans remain uninformed about the reality of the situation because our media is opting not to cover it.
lol.
you guys are dumb. The American people will hear about it and not give a shit. I think you fail to realize how dumb the average population of your country is.
I'm glad I have people like you working for me.
I do, a majority of us voted for Barak Obama as President, a man with NO executive leadership experience, and little legislative. (I didn't vote for him, needless to say).
there are some moments in world events that are just too dramatic to pass by. even if amahdi stays in power, something truly earth-shattering has happened in iran. the american tv news media has absolutely dropped the ball on this one. all you have to do is picture a little white girl getting kidnapped in iran on friday and picture the 24-7 coverage we'd be treated to. larry king would have on the mother, nancy grace would burst a blood vessel with rage, fox news would blame it on obama appeasement, etc. i fear we have come to the last stage of empire — a fat, gluttonous, apathic polity whose fear of the outside world will drive us to self-immolate into a shadow of our former selves.
Ordinarily I would be right there with you. There's no excuse for not having booked someone with some foreign policy gravitas on the networks in advance of today and that is symptomatic of our shared grievances with cable news. Just read an article by Spencer Ackerman @ firedoglake that cites Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, that warns us to stay back though: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/06/13/ira… Just food for thought.
i think you might be conflating the idea that Obama and our government should be cautious and hands-off with a question of whether our news media should cover it. I agree that obama should stay out of it for now, but when it comes to the media, we really need more coverage
Americans are apathetic about their own elections. They've allowed the politicians to replace more accountable voting machines with blind electronic ones. The 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections were a sham- as possibly the last one was. We will never know and no one seems to care.
Some of the best reporting I saw came from Jim Sciutto over Twitter. http://twitter.com/jimsciuttoABC The police seized his video equipment, so he and his crew were shooting footage from a damn cell phone and tweeting about it live.
While that was going on, over on Headline News it was non-stop coverage of Amanda Knox, Casey Anthony and the Palin/Letterman thing. Nice to see that Pretty White Girl Syndrome trumps violent civil unrest in a country with a sizeable percentage of the world's oil reserves and that has been trying for years to develop nuclear weapons.
The right wing nut cases usually scream about the liberal press, but in reality the press is owned and controlled by international corporations. They want to do business with Iran and will not allow anything they own to rock the boat. Even PBS is controlled by it large donors. We saw this when every examination of the Bush/Cheney machine was shutdown.
Wow, Like we dont all know that election was rigged from the start! LOL
RT
<a href="http://www.absolute-anonymity.us.tc” target=”_blank”>www.absolute-anonymity.us.tc
Perhaps it's more of a glass house issue. How can we display condemnation for another country's voting inaccuracies when we have so many of our own?
What are the odds that the protests are supported by western covert ops and by laying low we are giving the impression that we are a disinterested party. Things are rarely as obvious as they seem.
how does rioting by some people lead the rest of us to conclude that the election was stolen?
It is not true that Am news media do not report this. I have seen stories in papers and have of course YouTube and the Net with Am sites that give as much news as the Brit papers…the post is more an attempt to badmouth Am press than to give us update on Iran…TV at CNN had big roundtable discussion of the election and its aftermath. CNN is about as mainstream Am media as you can find.
cnn has gotten better today, as my update above indicates. their coverage yesterday was horrible
Saying that all Americans are apathetic and don't give a **** is massive generalization pure non-sense. There are plenty of us here looking for any information and following the situation the best we can. Yes, I've been shocked about the low level of coverage about election results and ensuing rioting. I hope this ends well, and people remain safe.
Then perhaps the Americans was involved in this rigged election. They don't want someone to stand up against their present in Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't exactly standing up against the US, far from it. I think it just a show so that the US have one more reason to be in the Middle East. The more I think about it, the more it look like Vietnam. They brought Diem into power of South Vietnam thinking they can manipulate him, but it turned out Diem was a needle in their eyes so they staged a coup d'état to kill him. Afterward, hell broke lose and they found themselves losing to the Vietcong. Ahmadinejad is just a loud mouth that really have nothing against the U.S agencies. He is probably subsidized by the U.S agencies.
The U.S. wants the Middle East to be in peril so they can have a reason to get involved. Why? They need a base against Russia and up coming China's rise to power. I smell a WW3, and the Middle East is where it gonna explode. Empires come and go. The Greek, Persian, Roman, English, France. Now's the the U.S turn and some other country will rise to take that place. It's all in the history book. Humanity keep making the same mistake over and over, killing innocence in the process.
Perhaps some aliens up in the cosmos rigged this election so they could sit back and watch how pathetic we all are.
Well, lucky grassroot like these are,
[youtube b2B5wAdcbUI