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2007-04-26 Fifth Column

How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah: Harvard's Cautionary Report

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Posted by anonymous5089 2007-04-26 06:49|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Jeepers! Isn't this news like, 9 months old to us Rantburgers?

Ya think any of the MSM will read about this? It is from Harvard!

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-26 07:05|| 2007-04-26 07:05|| Front Page Top

#2 The abstract from the paper summs it up nicely:

Based on content analysis of global media and interviews with many diplomats and journalists, this paper describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate, becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare. The paper also shows how an open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda.

Any lessons there for Nancy and Harry?

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-26 07:07|| 2007-04-26 07:07|| Front Page Top

#3 I really don't think they give a rat's ass. All the hippie journos want to portray "freedom fighters" as the good guy and organized govts. as the evil interlopers.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2007-04-26 07:26|| 2007-04-26 07:26|| Front Page Top

#4 From page 34 in the report - it made my irony meter twitch: When the bloggers [in the U.S.] discovered that photographs had been doctored, the credibility of the bloggersskyrocketed and our credibility plummeted. Nessman added, After that everything that we did was suspect. And that makes it very difficult to cover a war, to have honest people who are trying, who are not doctoring photographs, who are not taking one side or the other, but who are trying to present the truth of what is going on there, and have everything we say be examined, which is fair, but basically be questioned as a lie, and starting with that premise that the media is lying.

Sort of like when you presume everyting a military person says is a lie?

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-26 07:39|| 2007-04-26 07:39|| Front Page Top

#5 How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah

No shit Dick Tracy. The surprise meter does not budge.

Posted by JohnQC 2007-04-26 10:11|| 2007-04-26 10:11|| Front Page Top

#6 It took a lot of guts to publish this. I sure hope the author has tenure---otherwise he's gone.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-04-26 10:47|| 2007-04-26 10:47|| Front Page Top

#7 I chanced upon a Bill Moyers propaganda piece last night on PBS. Forced myself to watch. Its focus was on the admin's WMD justification for going into Iraq and that the administration lied/inflated data and had virtually no evidence to back up their claims.

Reporters from Knight Ridder did the digging and came to the conclusion that the admin's case was groundless. That no other journos picked up on this or replicated their efforts was the theme...the media didn't do its job because it was silenced by the right wing attack machine or was swept up in the patriotic fever following 9/11.

It featured such luminaries as Dan Rather (!!!) and Phil Donahue. Lots of negative about Fox, less so the other cable outlets (surprise). It was carfully crafted to show the administration in a truly horrible light and did its job well. It was also crafted to show Republicans in a negative light. They had some old footage of Ronnie, but nothing at all negative about any Democrat, including Clinton.

But it was just rich with irony. While I applaud that it raised issues of jounalistic ineptitued / laxness, that failing was focused on just the single issue of the WMD - need for war rationale. What about all the other things that the media has refused to do/investigate?

Moyers was followed by another anti war show that featured Cindy Sheehan types. I couldn't watch it.

I'm all for journo's doing a better job, but it would be nice for once to see them focus on facts alone rather than propaganda.

If anyone else saw this I would be interested in hearing your opinion about it.

Posted by remoteman 2007-04-26 14:15|| 2007-04-26 14:15|| Front Page Top

#8 Watch network TV? That's why I have a DVD player.

The auuthor of the paper was Marvin Kalb. Wasn't he an MSM guy some time back? Or was that another Marvin Kalb?

Guess I could Google him....

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-26 14:35|| 2007-04-26 14:35|| Front Page Top

#9 Marvin Kalb is a Senior Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and Faculty Chair for the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Washington programs. Kalb was the Shorenstein Center's Founding Director and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy (1987-1999). The Shorenstein Center and the Kennedy School are part of Harvard University.

Kalb spent 30 years as an award-winning reporter for CBS and NBC News. At NBC, he served as chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief, and host of Meet the Press. His work landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Kalb was the last newsman recruited by Murrow to join CBS News, becoming part of the later generation of Murrow's Boys. During many years of Kalb's tenures at CBS and NBC, his brother Bernard was also part of the news staff at CBS.

A media guy come over to the dark side?

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-26 14:37|| 2007-04-26 14:37|| Front Page Top

#10 Usually I can't stomach Kalb. Most of the times that I watch him on TV, eventually he says some dumb shit thing dimly shrouded in intellectualism that reveals his main stream press biases and agendas.

Posted by JohnQC 2007-04-26 14:42|| 2007-04-26 14:42|| Front Page Top

#11 Here is the link to the PBS piece called "Buying the War" - the comments section has gone crazy. Lots of the "Bush caused 9/11" stuff.

Buying the War

Posted by remoteman 2007-04-26 15:27|| 2007-04-26 15:27|| Front Page Top

#12 Conclusion: To win a modern war, Fuck the media, kill everyone in sight and don't stop until everyone left alive surrenders and places their lives in your hands. Even then, kill a few more for past acts.

Posted by wxjames 2007-04-26 19:41|| 2007-04-26 19:41|| Front Page Top

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