Wiley- "The news media is the most powerful organization in our society The news media is more powerful than the president or Congress or anybody else. The news media decides what you think about. They decide what you think about, what you talk to your friends, your fellow workers, your fellow students about. The news media decide what problems we're going to try to solve, the order in which we try to solve them. Not only do they decide the agenda and the priorities, but they decide, to a great extent also what is the framework to work within which we're going to hold the public discussion about the problems."
Over at Mere Rhetoric, we get another fine example of the media setting the language, setting the framework with which we engage in our discourse on the most pressing issues of our day. In this case, perhaps the most pressing in the conflict between cultures. This is the third in my series on Lying Without Lies, how the media has abdicated their role in our society as the watchdog, keeping us informed. Putting aside our prejudices on the Middle East conflict, let us examine the media's behavior as a rudder to current policy in world events. In Israel, those who pay attention to the media's abuses against Israel's reputation in the world, can predict their tactics because the Israelis have been so maligned, so consistently.
Top 10 Stupid Media Tricks From Week 1 Of Operation Cast Lead
Since the impending ground invasion is about to send media outlets into hitherto unseen fits of anti-Israel histrionics, it's probably best to get this out of the way now. Submitted for your approval, the ten most obnoxious, offensive, or just plain stupid examples of anti-Israel media bias from last week.
10) The entirely predictable complaint - set up weeks in advance by some of the liberal foreign policy community's leading failures - that Israeli self-defense will ruin Obama's grandiose foreign policy goals.
9) The interminable stream of "Israel rejects 48 hour truce" articles. You'd almost think that (a) Hamas wasn't also categorically rejecting any renewed truce or (b) Hamas hasn't always rejected any interest in a renewed truce. But since Hamas is categorically rejecting any renewed truce just like they've always done: kind of biased.
8) The first few hours of Fox News coverage. Just weird.
7) Washington Post: Hamas barrages are "amateur rockets" that merely "nag" Israel
6) The LAT's "surprise" that Israel would launch an offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli politicians were saying for weeks that post-ceasefire rockets and missiles would draw an Israeli response. Maybe all those complaints from pro-Israel bloggers - about how the media doesn't seem to know that Israel exists except when Palestinians are under fire - are actually literally true?
5) The moronic "each side blames the other for violating [the] cease-fire" line that CNN used in their write-up and repeated dozens of times on air. Technically true but somewhat misleading since one side is, well, lying. Bonus points for describing in a general sense how the 6-month ceasefire was constantly "weakened" without mentioning which side was weakening it.
4) CNN's credulous coverage of Cynthia McKinney's Walter Mitty fantasies. An Israeli warship rammed a pleasure yacht and opened fire on its hull but the yacht escaped almost totally unscathed. I'm sure that's exactly what it happened. Doesn't it kind of seem like Karl Penhaul is an overeager journalism undergrad, imagining himself in the trenches of a brutal struggle between intrepid investigative journalists and The System?
3) The Times Online story about how Hamas has no interest in imposing sharia on the Gaza Strip. No of course it's not true.
2) The Juicebox Mafia's combination of pretension, indignation, and aggressive stupidity.
After the jump, last week's #1 example of brazen anti-Israel propaganda thinly veiled as journalism...
1) The AP's unblinking write-up of the magical super-secret truce that Israel ostensibly violated by launching its offensive. The UN's Palestinian shill - yes I know that's redundant but "shill" is actually in this one's job description - told the press that Israel got Hamas to accept a "48-hour lull" before the fighting so that the sneaky Israelis could launch their offensive. The AP dutifully passed that on. Her proof was that the Palestinians only launched one rocket that Friday. The AP also passed that on. Except the Palestinian actually fired 25 rockets that Friday. That part didn't make it into the AP story.
References:
* Brzezinski: Israeli Campaign Against Iran Will Detonate US-Israel Relations [MR]
* Predictable Media Meme Congealing: Israeli Self-Defense Is Bad For Obama [MR]
* One-Third Of Hamas Launchers Too Deep In Residential Areas To Hit By Jet (Plus: Temporary Truce Rumors Debunked?) [MR]
* Hamas: No, Of Course We're Not Renewing The Ceasefire That We Never Obeyed In The First Place [MR]
* Hamas: As A Reminder, We're Not Renewing The Ceasefire We've Been Breaking On A Daily Basis [MR]
* What The Hell Is Going On At Fox News? [MR]
* Washington Post: 'Amateur' Rockets 'Nagging' Israel
* LAT:
Israel Launched "Surprise Offensive" To Win "Favorable Terms" (Plus:
Even Hamas Can't Pretend They Didn't Trigger Current Round Of Fighting) [MR]
* CNN Making Strong Play For "Most Biased Media Outlet" During Operation Cast Lead [MR]
* Who Violated the Ceasefire First?
* CNN Lends Credence to Protestors Embellishment [NewsBusters]
* CNN: Did Colombia Commit War Crime in FARC Hostage Rescue? [NewsBusters]
* Confirmed: Hamas Goals And Tactics Now Officially Indistinguishable From Al Qaeda [MR]
* The Juicebox Mafia on Gaza [Pollak / Commentary]
* UN Palestinian Stooge: "It's Obvious" That Israeli Attack Violated 48-Hour Truce That No One Knew About Until Now [MR]
* UNRWA Pours Millions Into Terrorism, Blames Israel (Plus: UNRWA Complains That Israel Is Blocking UNRWA Funding. Hmm) [MR]
This is no joke. Please stop making light of it. Between the evil which openly desires to kill or rule us and the media misinforming us to encourage discord so they can line their pockets, we are going to cease to exist as a culture.
You must view this video of Brigitte Gabrielle explaining the progress of Islamic jihad across her home country to know the threat arrayed against Israel and now the whole world. Making light of this threat and the media which are supposed to be informing us is not something to take lightly. This is feeding the ambivalence we in the West, feel.
