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its because the media operates by a single rule, which people naturally follow...if it bleeds, it leads. once people start tuning OUT for negative, bloody, murderous, gory stories, thats when the media will change its format.
Thomas Sowell has an excellent column on the subject of media bias as it relates to the Iraq war:
Sowell is right, but he leaves one important issue unaddressed. Why is it that the mainstream media can justify their relentless negativity and their single-minded focus on American casualties? After all, journalists are well aware that terrorists are being killed too, and that much progress is being made on various fronts.
But these things do not deter the legacy media, for a very simple reason: with very few exceptions, they do not respect the mission in Iraq. They take it as an article of faith that the war was a mistake; that the purported absence of WMDs in Iraq (not true, but close enough for the purpose) means that there can be no good justification for the conflict; and that all casualties are, therefore, a waste.
If you really believe that the Iraq war is being fought for nothing, and is not an integral part of the war on terror, then this logic is compelling. There is nothing to report but mounting casualties. Defeating the enemy is immaterial--indeed, in many quarters it is an article of faith that our presence in Iraq creates enemies rather than destroying them--and any progress being made in rebuilding infrastructure, opening schools, etc., is chimerical. I think that helps to explain why most old media outlets are so oblivious to repeated complaints that they aren't telling the whole story.
Are you people ever going to get it?
its because the media operates by a single rule, which people naturally follow...if it bleeds, it leads. once people start tuning OUT for negative, bloody, murderous, gory stories, thats when the media will change its format.
This goes back to the late 1800s and early 1900s when yellow journalism first found its way into our homes. Papers sell better with bad news. People will buy or watch if they think it could adversely affect them. There is also the train wreck theory. We know it's ugly, but we're going to look anyway. If the media only ran "feel good" stories, consumers would eventually tune out. There's no real pressing information for them. Bad news sells.
We won in Vietnam? Now that's serious revivionsist history! That's exactly what I thought standing by the Vietnam Memorial in DC.
I know, spurster. The US had control of Saigon, and maybe 2-3 cities. They barely dared go past the city limits at night. The rest of the country was controlled by the VC and NVA. The various Congresses and administrations were trying to fight a holding war, not a winning war, and flushing US servicemen's lives down the toilet every day. That's why we lost, not because of negative press coverage. The negative coverage was warranted by failed policies that were killing hundreds of kids a month with NO end in sight. The war wasn't lost on the homefront, it was lost in the offices at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and the Capitol building.
Thomas Sowell should be investigated for being a payola reporter. Blaming the anti-war movement for our defeat in Vietnam is a oft used NeoCon talking point. The NeoCons in the Nixon administration, Cheney, Piper, and others felt betrayed when Kissinger and Nixon negotiated a withdrawl of U.S. troops from the peninsula. These wacko's wanted us to stay in Vietnam using much the same party propaganda and faulty logic they are now using to justify us staying in Iraq, and ironicly, or not, for many of the same reasons.But in recent years, high officials of the Communist government of Vietnam have admitted that they lost the war on the battlefields but won it in the U.S. media and on the streets of America, where political pressures from the anti-war movement threw away the victory for which thousands of American lives had been sacrificed.
Bing! Bing!The war wasn't lost on the homefront, it was lost in the offices at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and the Capitol building.
Of course, you'll never get a politician then or now to admit it.
We will not be out of Iraq before the end of Bush's second term. Book it. The Neocons have WAY too much invested in Halliburton projects to let happen what will eventually happen: the fall of the puppet government. The good news for many of us is that this will cost the GOP the '08 election. The bad news is that the dyin' ain't over yet for our boys.These wacko's wanted us to stay in Vietnam using much the same party propaganda and faulty logic they are now using to justify us staying in Iraq, and ironicly, or not, for many of the same reasons.
I guess you could say we lost the war of Iraqi hearts and minds the moment the Abu Gharib pictures surfaced, and the destruction of Fallujah just sealed the deal, but that isn't the way the Neocons, or there elk like Sean Hannity see it. They will blame liberals like Kennedy, the anti-war movement, France, Michael Moore, and Dan Rather before they ever do any real introspection on their own failed policies - the real reasons for our defeat in Vietnam, and, hopefully sooner rather than later, in Iraq.The Neocons have WAY too much invested in Halliburton projects to let happen what will eventually happen: the fall of the puppet government. The good news for many of us is that this will cost the GOP the '08 election. The bad news is that the dyin' ain't over yet for our boys.
I guess you guys know better than the North Vietnamese.
Qualify your comment. Because, well, we're not out of Germany yet either and that war took place over a half century ago.
Are we going to be in combat, in Iraq, at the end of President Bush's second term?
I hope not but with Dubya we can never tell.
Yonivore you are such an idiot.
Having military bases in other countries doesn't mean we are occupiers of those countries.
Thanks for making my point. We started out as an occupying force in Germany and just stayed on.
Vietnam is the media's fault?
Sorry, I'm not buying it.
An agendized left with a complicit media and a weak administration...
We had the military might to win. But, with a demoralized force (thanks to "baby-killer" epithets and such) and fickle politicians (thanks to a vociferous anti-war movement), the war was lost over here...not there. There isn't a single military battle won by the NVA. Not one.
Why is the election the only story?
funny how herr yonivore is quick to fault previous administrations for mistakes in using american force yet cannot bring himself to do the same with the current administration.
my God we went into iraq because saddam had wmds and now were supposed to think its a success because the iraqis had an election. bull .
Because I believe the current administration had used military force appropriately.
Military force is military force.
uh war based on a mistake is not appropriate
The biggest mistake is people actually re-elected Bush.
10 million -- okay, 8 million Iraqis disagree with you. Do you think they'd of had elections this weekend if John Kerry were president? Doubtful.
What mistake would that be?
A diplomatic tool.
well, as long as the iraqis like the president of the united states then i'm happy.
oh gee i dont know how about the presence of any wmd program whatsoever? man bush sold us a lie and you swallowed
What lie?
he's referring to the wmd's in iraq.
can't you read you gotdam juco graduate?
presence of any wmd program
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