How bad is the American media?

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Secular Judaism exists. You don't need to believe in a God to be a Secular Jew, even (I only know the basics, I think that is right though). You placed your words wrong, I think.

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Your nation of origin is irrelevant. This is not to speak for Inuyasha or put words in his mouth, but the reality is, this is the way the media has framed the political discussion in the US. CNN is guilty of it, MSNBC is guilty of it, and whether Inuyasha admits it or not, Fox News is guilty of it. To a certain extent, each of these channels has chosen a narrative to follow, and meticulously built up an impenetrable bubble of certitude around it. It isn't apparent to anyone who regularly watches these programs that criticism could possibly be anything other than a partisan attack, because the channels have invested so much energy in conditioning their viewers to see things that way. It's not in any media outlet's best interest to allow much room to question their reliability. Watch now, as Inuyasha turns on me and levies the same attacks on me. Of course, that's entirely beside the point. For the sake of this discussion, my political beliefs don't really matter. He knows what I believe, because I've told him several times. If he wants to call me out as a liberal or an MSNBC watcher, that's fine. It won't really detract from my argument. The point I'm trying to make isn't that MSNBC is really any better than Fox News. The point is that they all have agendas, they all have an insulating effect on their viewers at some level, and that it is that insulation which is driving the partisan polarization.

The only way to really break the cycle is for viewers to watch everything critically rather than passively, and take from multiple sources so that no single narrative clouds their judgment. But that's precisely what these channels are designed to prevent.

Thank you chevand for getting to the heart of the matter. The media, (and by extention the entire political culture) of the US is sick, for precisely this reason. anything can be turned political, and anything political can then be given a party affiliation, and then it can safely devolve into a baseless hatred slinging contest. I could almost make a game about it if wasn't so depressing.

Prime example. On the food network show Restaurant Impossible, the celebrity chef Robert Ervine goes to failing restaurants and fixes them up and give peace of mind and financial security to the desperate owners. But on the season finale, instead of a failing restaurant, he was given a task by the first lady, michelle obama to help and enlarge a small community center in one of the poorest districts of Washington D.C whose staff work REDICULOUSLY hard to serve a community much larger than they have the resources to deal with. She also wanted Robert to plant a garden, in keeping with her eat healthy initiative. It was a great episode, Robert succeeded and at the end the kids were happy, the employees at the center were almost crying tears of joy. It was beautiful. So after I finished watching it, I went to comments section of the "How are they doing now" article on the food network website and thought
"hmm, I wonder how many posts before this dissolves into a partisan s**t flinging-party?"
the answer... under 5 posts.

The thing that gets me is how personal and vicious it has become. I mean, I enjoy discussing politics. I may not be the most knowledgeable about subjects, and I realize that people feel passionately about some things, but I enjoy talking about them. I don't begrudge people their points of view or their passion. But it's gone beyond that now. What happened to community? Where did the civility go? Is common courtesy really extinct?

My father is a diehard, dyed-in-the-wool American conservative. He was an adamant Bush supporter. I don't see him all that much now that I live so far from my parents, but it's a sure bet that when we do see each other, there's going to be some sort of political argument. And that's okay. I know we still love each other, despite our differences. My niece, his granddaughter, came out of the closet to the family a few years ago. I know he was a bit conflicted about her announcement at first. But I know that it doesn't diminish her in his eyes. Political differences don't have to be impassable barriers.

This is one of the reasons (though I had personal reasons as well) why I moved to Canada. I just couldn't take it anymore. You open your mouth to say virtually anything now, and someone misconstrues it as a political attack and fires off a full clip. I realize a lot of people are understandably angry and frustrated with the way things are, but I just don't understand the animosity and the callousness and the condescension directed at each other, when we're all supposed to be neighbors and family and countrymen. And it just... hurts me to watch it. There are real problems that need fixing, and the only way to do it is to learn to compromise again and work together.

At the end of the day it's hard to blame Bush or the media entirely for Iraq. The American people were lazy enough to go along with it. Later they ran from it but they gave tacit consent in the early days. That's on them. Even lefties like Al Franken supported the war at first. They were all ginned up on fear backed by third hand accounts of what might happen one day.

And if the intelligence was true? Estimates said we might lose 10s of thousands of soldiers to a chemical and biological attack. And Americans were fine with it. Didnt even blink. We would throw away 10s of thousands of soldiers on a *series* of predictions of future events based on guessing. Five years out from majori intelligence failures in Sudan and Belgrade.

That was a big war with big risks and the American people did not particularly care. They own it as much as Bush.

I dunno how well you remember 9/11, but--all supposed partisanship aside--it was a VERY strange time. Bush's apparent approval ratings, depending on which polls you listened to, were in the toilet a day after he was elected. Just watching the news, that's really how it looked. Bush was often mocked for being the "education president" and not a day went by that he got negative reports in the media.

9/11 happened and all of a sudden NCLB was the last thing on the media's minds. For a few months nobody dared say a thing against the president. They were all to freaked out. And I'm not sure who the first person was to start criticizing the president, but all eyes were suddenly on Bush to see if any reprisals would be forthcoming. It turns out that free speech really is free speech. And if Bush took any issue with it or if Bush COULD have done anything to silence his opponents, he certainly made no move. He didn't say anything about it. Nobody lost their job. Nothing happened. And then the media was a big Bush-bash-fest just as much if not more than it had been when Dubya was still just in the running for the office.

By the time Iraq happened, it was just business as usual with the same ol' people supporting the war and the same ol' people denouncing it. A lot of people were confused as to what exactly Iraq had to do with 9/11. The media was still a little shell-shocked from 9/11, so for those of us at home the bombing of Baghdad was kinda like a televised fireworks display. And if you saw it, you had to admit it was pretty cool. And it was weird, too, because you had the administration actually describe blow-by-blow what it was they were doing and what they hoped to achieve. I was always worried how if middle eastern media got ahold of it the Iraqis could even take the attack seriously. But, like it or not, it was effective.

And then the combat operations ceased and everyone was back to hating Bush--and so it remained for the rest of his two terms.

That's some truthiness for you.

Bush harming his critics never occurred to me. His support came from us being attacked and then naturally returned to pre-attack levels. It had nothing to do with fear of him.. If polled I would have supported him after 9/11 just to show solidarity. That didnt mean I supported his wider policies or would be there for him during the election. His father also hit 90% after Gulf 1 and then lost the election.;

Plus his numbers didnt tank until the second term else he would not have been re-elected. You can't get elected at 28%.

My point was that most Americans went along with it so it's not just Bush or the media, despite their many shortcomings. The default shouldnt be, "oh go ahead... I'm busy". Americans greenlight every conflict. There is never sufficient push back to stop one before it starts. That seems like a problem.



The military does briefings in every conflict. It's what made Colin Powell a celebrity in 91.

Colbert is not a conservative, he's fairly close to center though.

I tried watching multiple news agencies in the past, in fact up until late 2007, I did watch multiple news agencies. However, I started to get disgusted with the blatent partisanship that I saw from MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Fast & Furious is just the latest in a string of scandals that the mainstream media tried to sweep under the rug. In fact, Peacock Network is also under fire for the fact they editted out some key evidence in an interview they had with Jerry Sandusky a while back...

I'm well away that Fox News is center/right, and their opinion shows are largely from a conservative viewpoint, however unlike the other media outlets, Fox News makes a serious attempt to present both sides. Furthermore, for a while Democrats tried to avoid going on Fox News simply because they weren't going to be given a pass on tough questions. It's kinda hard to let the Democrats give their side of the issue when they are refusing to even come on a program...

At the time of the Iraq invasion, the only news media to which I had access was American network television. I could tell from network news reports that there were almost certainly no "wmd"s in Iraq. I don't know why other people thought there were. When the tv showed footage of American tanks rolling across Iraq, meeting no resistance, I was waving my hands at the screen saying, "Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?"
So, yeah, I would say mainstream American media was doing a perfectly fine job of reporting the events and circumstances leading up to the war. I guess most Americans were just too stupid or war-mongering to cop on.

I particularly remember that one of the networks interviewed an Iraqi government official (can't remember what his job title was) just hours before the invasion began. He was practically crying, telling the journalist that they couldn't show America dismantled wmds (which Bush was demanding) because they didn't have any to dismantle. It was clear that the man wasn't lying, and was terrified and desperate. I don't know how anyone could have seen that interview and still thought we should launch an invasion. The man was begging for peace.

It's not a matter of being misinformed. It's matter of mistrusting any information source that goes against what you just know is true deep in your gut. It seems a lot of Americans just decided that he most have had WMDs and aren't going to budge from that view. If it wasn't true then we wouldn't have been justified in invading Iraq and that's just too much for some people to take so it's easier to believe the self-serving lie. You get the same kind crap from some Vietnam vets. Some might literally fly into a rage and try to kill you if you so much as even suggest the cause they fought for wasn't just. What can you do.

Uh sorry, but you are rather ill-informed...

-- New York Post

American Thinker

-- wired.com

While wired.com tried to downplay the discovery in their article, fact remains, we did discover WMDs in Iraq.

National media is horrible here, but local media and public networks are a little more truthful, and lessed biased, although they still have their issues. Like everything else, problems in the media usually boil down to money. If you are wondering why a certain news network aren't doing what they are suppossed to do, follow the money trail.

In America the Media is a propaganda machine that is hard to deal with.

Then I guess you and it have something in common after all.

Yeah the only thing I have in common with it is that I was born in America. I how ever do not act American or talk like a American nor do I dress like one