Mainstream media - April 2006
Where to begin? Bias? Government echo? Complete fucking lack of any commendable investigative journalism qualities? All of the above? BINGO!
The recent speech by Stephen Colbert about US President George W. Bush is a prime example of whats fucked up. Even if its not in my country, it still applies here. We are led to believe that the real highlight of the night was the skit that Bush participated in, which was cuddly, mild and inoffensive. Oh Georgey porgey, the leader of the most powerful nation on this planet, he couldn't string together a complete sentence to save his life. He asks Condi if he can go to the loo at the UN. Awww, how cute. Beware my projectile vomit.
For those who missed it, here's a few memorable quotes from the speech by Mr. Colbert.:
"By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail."
"Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term."
"We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
"Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash."
"I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."
"As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side."
"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."
"Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home."
If you've been following this laugh of a presidency in any way whatsoever, one of those has to at least induce a snigger. However, aside from witty comic relief, the essence of the speech was the public defecation into mainstream media's all-swallowing mouth.
Where's the newspaper uproar over the fact we were spoonfed "intelligence" to start the absolutely catastrophic liberation invasion of Iraq that, at the very least, was misleading? At the worst, it has been reported this "intelligence" was actively hand-picked and distorted by the people running a country that's apparently a champion of democracy and liberty.
Where's the reporting of the fact that prior to the liberation invasion, Saddam Hussein had just started selling oil for Euro's, challenging the US dollars stranglehold on the world economy via petrodollars?
Where's the questioning of the fact that the Secret Service did not follow procedure on September 11? An agency dedicated to protecting the President apparently deems it not neccessary to whisk him away to a safe, secure, secret location, so his publicly announced appearance at a primary school could not be compromised. Isn't it their job to think worst case scenario? Surely they'd been informed of the attacks that had just occurred and should have begun defensive planning measures immediately. Call me a conspiracy loony if you like, but to me that suggests prior knowledge.
At home, why did the Australian press completely saturate its papers/broadcasts/websites with the story of the two trapped miners? Don't get me wrong, those blokes are incredibly brave and courageous surviving what I can only imagine would have been intensely scary. The issue for me is the barrage of coverage that amounts to pretty much nothing. A large proportion of prime time news televesion was devoted to reporters saying the same thing repeated ad nauseum. Anyone with half a brain could reason that its going to be precarious, dangerous work, and that giving a timeline on a possible rescue would not only raise peoples hopes unnecessarily, it would also put undue pressure on the real heroes - emergency rescue crews - trying their best to help the trapped men.
The timing was too close to Australia's recent interest rate raise, coupled with a Federal Budget handing out tax cuts to the $150,000-and-over tax bracket. (a pleasant $120 a week). Again, I may be called cynical, paranoid or a complete lunatic conspiracy theorist, if one of those descriptions is your preferred mechanism to avoid facing an underlying issue, but its a little coincidental that we get an "Aussie battler" pair like the two men trapped in the mine all over the media, and then bang, another wedge jammed into the growing divide between rich and poor.
I'd like to finish this rant with a saying that I can't properly credit, since its a mix of something I read somewhere, sometime, on the 'net, and my own personal editors license. "Democracy and secrecy are inversely proportional. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other" - Anonymous + me
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