I've not read anything about that. Link?

Aww shucks. 

The video is a recording of something that actually happened. It is reality. 

I completely understand that the U.S. Military is going to try and keep things classified. No argument that it works like that. 

I understand that those involved in the U.S. Military seek to keep things from being reported on. But it's a game of hide and seek. 

And when, through whistle-blowers or other means, that which is sought is found, the First Amendment and NYT Co. v. U.S. sets in. 

Ah, the old "You haven't been there, man!" approach. 

So, in your opinion, CNN fabricated war footage? 

Yes, in both journalism and political science classes. 

You're speculating and assuming that if WW2 occurred in a world with the current level of media saturation that the atrocities - as they happened - would have still happened. 

I honestly don't know how to decipher a point out of the rest of what your post said. 

Again: Aww shucks. 

People would be able to view the truth and make decisions on current events. 

That'd be just awful. 

I'd rather err on the side of truth and reality though, instead of worrying if it will "hurt the war effort" or cause people to worry their pretty little heads about what is happening on the battlefield. 

The media's job is to report reality. Not support a side. 

While the actions in Cambodia certainly happened close to the edge of total media saturation, I'm talking about the current - as in right now - level of media. Cross-global network, dozens of 24-hour networks in dozens of languages. Bloggers reporting from the micro-level. Camera phones make nearly anyone a cameraman. 

I just don't think that a level of atrocity on-par with the Holocaust or the Dresden bombings would happen in the current media atmosphere. 

Yes, the Balkans saw it's share of genocidal warfare, but was it on the wide-sweeping level of the Holocaust? 

Israel just shot nine people on a boat which was - according to some - violating the terms of a maritime blockade, and the whole world is flipping out one way or another, and Israel is having to rethink it's dealings with aid coming into Gaza. 

I just don't think either side would take the risks of WW2 levels of actions in the current media stage. 

There is no maybe about it.

Again with the "You haven't been there, man!" 

Hypothetically how would WW2 have been fought if the homefront actually knew of how it was fought, how long would it have lasted if the populace demanded actions simular to todays rules of engagement. What would the home front make of the Japanese way of war, since taking of prisoners was unofficially a American troop safety first issue, usually with no prisoners taken decesion. Would America demand a more humane treatment of the Japanese?

 

 

ahahhahahahahhhahaha

 

wow, that was a good one.

 

so, the way the media ignored the acorn scandal, the John Edwards scandal, twisted the flotilla incident, spun the out of control spending, ignored the rhaming through of healthcare, labeled the tea party as radical extremist terrorists, and continually repeat the democratic talking points... nightly on every MSM outlet...

 

That is "reporting reality, and not supporting a side"...

 

wow.

 

I need to change my sig.

 

"reporting reality. Not supporting a side"...

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/reuters-under-fire-for-removing-weapons-blood-from-images-of-gaza-flotilla-1.294780 - http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/reuters-under-fire-for-removing-weapons-blood-from-images-of-gaza-flotilla-1.294780

 

I took media ethics classes too, whale, and the media is pathetically biased, so much so that anyone not jaded wouldn't even attempt to pretend otherwise.

 

http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/Exhibit2-20ConfidenceInMediaHitsNewLow.aspx - http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/Exhibit2-20ConfidenceInMediaHitsNewLow.aspx

 

 

 

Knowing the Army, I wouldn't doubt the video was real and a cover story of the dubbing was organized.  Then told if he posted a response there could have been further disciplinary actions.  Either way, I'm not saying I have or haven't seen anything along those lines before, but it isn't too farfetched.  All the media did was take a story and report.  You can't fault them for that.

 

Showing only the good sides of war causes people to forget the real things that go on during it.  If all you show is soldiers giving out MRE's to families, you would never know that soldier was killed a month later by a woman coming to get a MRE with an IED strapped to her stomach.  The reality of it all sinks in, and it's always more than someone wants to deem as "socially acceptable".

 

why exactly are we there? There is no "goal", that I have heard... It is just this open ended "hopy changy thing."

 

We won't "fix" anything there. We can't afford this war, and when we leave it will just be a mess within a few years... So Why?

 

I heard lots of people in the media and on the left crying out how we needed to get out of there, a year and a half ago... But, now, nothing.... Like it all of a sudden is a "good" war.

 

Bring the soldiers home, and put them on the boarder. Build the great wall along our boarders, and then figure out what to do with the illegals here.

 

 

But, no, we have to send our troops halfway around the world to die... And for what?...

 

So leave already.

Unfortunately there are some (Like those in this thread) who think the job of the media is to support the war effort, not tell the truth. 

 

(oh, and they photoshopped out the blood and knife stab wound too, cause they didn't want to deceive, good old Reuters)...

As has been explained: When you sit on the spot on the political spectrum that you do, everything is to the left. 

From your perspective, nearly everything that happens is some sort of liberal and MSM conspiracy, as you sit to the extreme far right and stare left. 

Which is why the same sad talking points get brought up every time, like a broken record. 

Ignoring the health care debate? Really? 

Much like with soldiers, as was discussed earlier in this thread, people make dumb decisions. 

What's nice about both professions, though, is that there is a chain of command to catch and correct those things. 

Reuters on Monday rejected accusations of biased coverage, adding that it had reverted to the use of "the original set" of images, once the organization realized that the photographs it had published had been cropped.

 

When the little tricks of the trade are done daily to almost every story. In video, a clear way to manipulate the viewer is to shake the camera or position the subject poorly with bad audio when you want to diminish their viewpoint. I see this done all the time, it is a tiny thing, but it works.

 

They also shoot down on people they want to look dumb. As when you are looking down on someone, psychologically you will not take their viewpoint as seriously.

 

All of these tricks I learned while getting my TV and Film degree. And all of these tricks are basic fare in the nightly news to "skew" the view to a certain perspective...

 

But, it is very subtile, and since most people don't have the training to pick it out, they don't notice.

 

I was an editor for years, and I also know tons of tricks to manipulate the viewer when editing a spot. I see these same tricks done there as well... And the public wouldn't have a clue.

 

It is biased, and it is obvious, if you look for it.

 

Here is a good video that shows some of these tricks, including, shooting "down" on palin, multiple cut aways to "level" shot of interviewer, which are edited in to demean palin, and graphics covering up palins mouth... Plus, a distracting close up for the entire interview... All meant to make the viewer feel uncomfortable. Demeaning Palin.

 

The only thing I didn't see was the trademark "bump" of the camera during her responses, and audible, "hisses" from couric, even though her face spoke volumes... How many times could they cut to her disapproving face?... Yeah, bigtime pathetic bias.

 

Not even mentioning the CNN attack... Guess, they got the "truth" out there, huh whale.

 

 

 

 

seriously... THEY PHOTOSHOPPED BLOOD AND KNIFE WOUND out of the picture... No mention of that in the "apology"...

 

Don't worry, they rejected accusations of biased coverage... Just like the white house said they didn't bribe anyone with jobs... Because they looked into that... And they aren't biased.

 

Give me a break.

 

The damage was already done. Of course you realize that...

 

If this were fox news and not the largest news agency in the world (reuters), you would be all over it.  I wonder how many local stations picked up that image and put in on the local news... Then didn't even know about the controversy.

 

 

Zero credibility.

Let me bring your attention back to your statements in a thread where Fox News showed video clips of a completely different thing in the place of a supposed Tea Party rally: 

FreeEnterprise wrote:  At least understand how the news/broadcast TV works. This type of thing happens all the time... Its not like they went and pulled a tape from two months ago. The editor pulled it from a server, based on the name on the footage... Which hardly ever has dates on it, just content.

And we agreed about this. It wasn't intentional. It was still wrong, but you understood how the mistake got made. 

Now, in the case of Reuters: They are a wire service. Newspaper companies pay a lot - Read A LOT - of money to subscribe to premium wire packages like the ones Reuters and AP provide. 

As someone who has done photo editing before, both in a classroom and for a product, I know that you are expected to do a lot of work in a short period of time. Now, take that and speed it up by a bajillion, because: 

1) You are working for a wire service, where speed is king. Your subscribers are paying you to get those photos FAST. 

2) You are working on photos of an international incident that everybody is finding out about and everyone is going to want photos for, as fast as they possibly can, and by getting yours on the wire faster, you put yourself above the competition. 

Now, can you actually remove the political blinders for just a split second and see that this is not some anti-Israel conspiracy? It was someone who was told "Crop it and crop it fast, you have 30 seconds to get it on the wire!" 

Yes, the media gangs up on poor ol' Sarah Palin and asks her "Gotcha" questions like: "Other than Roe v. Wade, what other cases do you disagree with?" 

 

Dude, even the conservative Haaretz didn't even accuse them of that. Their story was a wishy-washy "Some are accusing . . ." sans any proof or evidence.  

If this were fox news and not the largest news agency in the world (reuters), you would be all over it.

 

 

 

The "cropper" should be fired. First off because he clearly ruined the photograph picture quality first. Second because he cropped major parts of the picture out.

 

By flattening the image the way he did, it made the blood appear to be dirt. You see that as "whoops". I see that as politicizing.

 

As a future member of the media, I can see why you can't see my position.

 

But, you should think about it, as this stuff goes on daily. Both of us see that that picture when "flattened" was ruined... And why would they do that... Because it looked "better" clearly not. The person manipulated the image to tell a story.

 

That story went out to the world.

 

bias in, bias out.

 

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/reuters-under-fire-for-removing-weapons-blood-from-images-of-gaza-flotilla-1.294780 - http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/reuters-under-fire-for-removing-weapons-blood-from-images-of-gaza-flotilla-1.294780

 

click the pictures on the right, to see the "fixed" reuters photo and the original.

 

That person should not have a job, if that is his/her "skill" level.

 

So to clear this up, when Fox News shows the wrong video package, one showing massive hoards of people for a rally that didn't have massive hoards of people, that is an honest mistake made by someone in a newsroom that is of no consequence. 

When Reuters crops a photo too tight, it's politicizing and helping further the liberal control of the media. 

 

That person should not have a job, if that is his/her "skill" level.

 

No disrespect, as I agree with the majority of your points; but as soldiers we don't really have a say in what we do.  So If whe HAVE to be over there, why not portray whats actually going on.

 

As stated earlier, every power has damage control, be it hamas, politicians, or the Army.  Picking at different situation doens't negate the bigger issue.

 

 

so to crop out the knife, and wound makes sense, if you want people to think the were "unarmed" as all your stories were saying at the time...

 

you also ignored the color issues. Cropping is one thing, but changing the color field the way they did (making skin go from skin color to blue) is another huge issue that was ignored by reuters.

 

They took red out of the photo's. red is the color of blood. hmm. I'm sure that is coincedence, they weren't trying to kill their PREPAID service... (oh, you mean they don't pay per photo, but join a membership...) So the "good" photo's aren't paid for at higher rates... Everyone gets the same money... No matter how butchered up the photoshop job was...

 

wow. No wonder good news photography is so hard to find... Who came up with that idea, a socialist? Gotta pay the losers the same money as the winners. That way it is "fair", but the quality obviously suffers drastically, as the winners will leave that system and go to one that pays what they are worth...

 

media in this country is a mess.

 

 

 

Progressives control the MSM and you pretend that isn't the case.

 

http://biggovernment.com/pcourrielche/2010/06/08/in-praise-of-capitalism-how-the-social-justice-left-uses-economic-incentives-to-create-academic-propaganda/ - http://biggovernment.com/pcourrielche/2010/06/08/in-praise-of-capitalism-how-the-social-justice-left-uses-economic-incentives-to-create-academic-propaganda/

 

hmm. I wonder when the MSM will cover that little story...

 

never.

It was still photos, not footage. 

And the quote was to go against the whole "WHY AREN'T THEY CORRECTING THIS EGREGIOUS CRIME?!?" thing. They did, they posted the original proofs. 

 

I meant no harm to the soldiers. You are just following orders. I have many friends currently serving over there, and I pray daily for them.

 

It kills me that this has turned into another vietnam. It is HIGHLY political, and if you aren't going to have clear cut objectives, with goals, and an end... Then you are in a quagemire, where news guys can have a field day, destroying the good that is done.

 

And when one reporter does follow extensively and points out the failures of our government, and the cost of lives... He gets pulled and sent somewhere else...

 

It is all political, and as usual, the soldiers, and their families pay the price, along with the public who funds it, while politicians play the fingerpointing game.

 

 

 

We really need a leader in our country... Not a community agitator, who blames everyone else for everything.

Link?

 

 

They took red out of the photo's. red is the color of blood

So, in your mind, they also color-corrected to get the blood out?

their PREPAID service...

You can purchase the rights to use their individual photos (I don't believe the same goes for printed works) after a determined amount of time (So those who pay for the wire get first access). 

Getty works in the same method. AP doesn't though, who knows why. 

Progressives control the MSM and you pretend that isn't the case.

People who like making money control the media, for good or not. 

That is the truth, but on the other side of the coin, just because someone corrects something doesn't mean a confession of bias or conspiracy. 

 

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/06/reuters-brings-fauxtography-to-gaza.html - http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/06/reuters-brings-fauxtography-to-gaza.html

 

guess it was "in the way" of a good "crop" job.

 

 

Maybe I'm a moron or just need glasses, but I'm not seeing a Photoshop. 

Even the article you just linked isn't claiming a Photoshop, just tight cropping the whole way through. 

The article claims the cropping was done maliciously, something, after looking at the photos, I disagree with. They were cropped, it looks like, to focus on the center subject. 

Granted, if they ARE indeed altered via Photoshop, anyone involved in the process - either commanding the shopping, doing the shopping, or approving the shopping, needs to be fired. 

This. 

As often times, people who ask "Why did the left oppose the war then but not now" are missing (either on purpose or not) the reality and nuances of a few years back. 

The majority of the people who were "against the war" were against the War in Iraq, because of it's false sense of urgency and distraction from the War in Afghanistan. Now that the focus has been put back on Afghanistan, there is less of a reason to protest Iraq. 

Also, as the surge has calmed down some of the in-fighting, there is less of a body count to fret about. 

And, the people who are against war no matter what - Generally anarchists and such - still shout and stamp their feet as much as they did before. 

 

Fox news is a SECOND tier cable outlet, meaning it is the second level of purchase on almost all cable outlets, (dish and direct tv, you have to pay for the second or third higher subscription rate to get it).

 

Meaning it is NOT a Main street media outlet.

 

Fox kills the other subscription outlets, (cnn, msnbc, and others) but it is still an expensive alternative, that the normal public would never see... unless they searched it out, and paid good money to get it...

 

That is the difference, the msm has the same liberal spin, no matter the station. Some are more subtle thann others, but the spin is there.

 

 

For example, all of you are talking about how the war in afghanistan is not a big deal and everyone is OK with it.

 

 

 

 

THAT IS BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF COVERAGE!

 

did you know that 2010 is shaping up to be the deadliest year in afghanistan since the war started?...

 

According to your posts, you don't know that.

 

It is out there, but put way down in the news cycle so it doesn't stand out...

 

for political reasons.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/afghanistan.deaths/ - http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/afghanistan.deaths/

 

"But Afghanistan is getting deadlier by the day. From 2001 through 2006, the American casualty rate never reached 100 in any single year. But that number started going up in 2007 and spiked to more than 300 last year. If the current rate continues, 2010 will be the deadliest year of the war, nearly a decade after it started.

The milestone comes just 24 hours after the single deadliest day for coalition forces in Afghanistan this year. Insurgents killed 12 NATO soldiers on Monday, seven of them Americans. Officials with the International Security Assistance Force say it was no single event but six separate attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan. It was the most fatalities among NATO troops in a single day since October 26, when 11 Americans were killed in two helicopter crashes."

 

The media controls the message, and they are terrified that the democrats will lose in November, so they are covering the war, less and less, while soldiers are dying faster and faster...

 

And it is no wonder when you realize how inept our "leader" is... Just look at his handling of the accident (notice I call it an accident... weird how you never hear that term in the media... EVER, when referring to the gulf oil spill accident... hmm, they aren't biased though... )

 

Most people don't even think about the war anymore... And when the problems started coming out, from the reporter posting what he was witnessing in afghanistan first hand, and how the leadership was causing troops to be killed.

 

They kicked him out...

 

http://bigjournalism.com/rfutrell/2010/05/25/who-in-the-msm-will-stand-up-for-michael-yon/ - http://bigjournalism.com/rfutrell/2010/05/25/who-in-the-msm-will-stand-up-for-michael-yon/

 

 

It is all political now.

 

protect the message, save the incumbant.

Funny, when I pull up Direct TV's website, they have Fox News in with the same package as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and HLN. That's the 150 "Choice" package, which appears to be the cheapest. 

And when I look up DISH TV, in their cheapest package, "America's Top 120," there is also Fox News, along with CNN, MSNBC and all their news friends. 

And, hey, maybe it is just the greater Orlando market, but both Comcast and Bright House Networks - the two cable providers here - have Fox News in the "Extended cable" setting... Along with CNN, MSNBC, HLN and CNBC. 

So, I'm assuming that you consider CNN, HLN, MSNBC and CNBC to also not be part of the MSM grouping then, right? 

THAT IS BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF COVERAGE!

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/afghanistan.deaths/ - http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/afghanistan.deaths/

 

 

http://edition.cnn.com/ - http://edition.cnn.com/

 

hmm, I don't see it...

 

I didn't see it yesterday either. Know how I found it.

 

google search...

 

They bury stories that don't fit the "mold" for convenient "truth".  I couldn't even find this story on their web site... only through google so they could say they "covered it".

 

You would think that story would be a headliner... As in top story on the network news, and in all the papers... I forwarded it to Drudge...

I've honestly never heard it referred to as a "Main street media." It's always been "Mainstream media." 

Are these interchangeable with you, or different? 

Any "network" that is not free over the air, is not Main street media.

I'm saving this one. 

So, if that news story from yesterday were "important" it would still be on the main page of cnn... Right?...

Really? Like, really? 

No. No, the affiliated website to the biggest 24-hour news network in the country is not going to leave a story up on their front page from yesterday. That's not now news works. 

The key to the usage of the word "news" is that the information is, you know, "new."

But, what I did find on the front page is a story about http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/09/afghanistan.violence/index.html?hpt=T3 - four U.S. soldiers being killed in an attack this morning.

They bury stories that don't fit the "mold" for convenient "truth".  I couldn't even find this story on their web site... only through google so they could say they "covered it".

If this were really one big liberal conspiracy against conservative America, why even research, source, write and post the story at all? Why devote the people to it? Why pay people to do it? 

Nothing like a refreshing dose of revisionist history early in the morning. 

 

Lets (whoops Let's) play a game.

 

This week was one of the deadliest since the war began.

 

Point out the stories that reference that on the big news sources right now...

 

One caveat. It must be on the first page of the site, as that is "headline" news.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/default.htm - http://www.usatoday.com/news/default.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ -

 

 

 

and for laughs

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

 

 

I haven't looked at them, but these are the "normal" news sites for most Americans I would assume.

Front-page stories involving Afghanistan: 

NY Times, check. 

CNN, check.

Ugh. ABC News is awful all around, blank. Why did you make me go to their site? 

CBS News, check. 

MSNBC, check. 

PBS, check. One of the better written ones too. Those guys know how to copy edit. 

Ugh. I'm going to end up giving Huffington Post a site view. Yeah, no story on Afghanistan that I can see. They'd rather have some ugly giant front about the oil spill. 

Anyway, that makes the score... 

Six out of eight. 

Nobody really goes to Huffington Post for hard breaking news. They go because they like to hear people tell them what they want to hear in a neat little package. 

It's just like Daily Kos, Drudge or BreitBart. It's choir preaching. 

I'd rather avoid that kind of thing all together, honestly. 

 

 

Americans are jaded from the length of the war, a headline like, "deadliest month in afghanistan" like we would have seen under bush, would be more appropriate, don't you think?

Yeah. Because that is not news at all. 

That story needs to be written. I think that the news is doing a disservice for not researching the why. 

However, to claim that 1) The media is ignoring Afghanistan all-together, and 2) People are jaded to the war because of the media is a bit of a stretch. 

 

I just find the media's selective coverage "troubling".

 

Especially when the stories were so much more against war and loss of life in afghanistan during the bush reign. I clearly remember body counts being headlines often.

 

And after this week... there is a big difference in the coverage between bush war, vs  obama war.

 

 

29 dead this month alone... In 9 days...

 

could this be related to the 'new' rules of engagement?...

I suspect the difference is Iraq v. Afghanistan. 

From the beginning - and still now - a lot of people questioned why we were going into Iraq. It was a hot-button issue. People saw it as a distraction and a conquest 

I think that led to a lot of body counts and selective coverage into Iraq by the media (24-hour networks were the worst perpetrators), because they knew the public would eat it up. 

Very few people were ever against the War in Afghanistan to start with. The media wasn't as selective when we were ONLY in Afghanistan, before Iraq, if you recall. 

It doesn't make it right, but it's at least some explanation, I think. 

 

hmm. glad they just report the truth and don't take sides.

 

 

Kinda like how katrina was bush's incompetance. But, it is obama wasn't "mad" enough... Till he cussed about how he was looking for someones posterior to kick. (should be kicking his own imo)

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/06/09/unlike-katrina-media-stay-away-bp-competency-questions - http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/06/09/unlike-katrina-media-stay-away-bp-competency-questions

 

 

It wasn't false, and it wasn't a headline thing. 

Today's headlines clearly say "Four dead in helicopter crash." It's not sugarcoating going on now. 

There was more written about the War in Iraq, because the general populous was swirled up and would pay to read about it, or drive up page views and ratings. 

If I've harped one thing this entire thread, it's that the media is not driven by neither left nor right, it's driven by the almighty dollar. 

It's the news business. 

 

 

would sell a lot more than "Helecopter crash kills 4"

 

So, it is hard to follow your logic.

 

As a business man, I would go with the first headline.

 

 

I blame leftovers from the Bush administration... lol

 

 

 

course there is this...

 

http://bigjournalism.com/libertychick/2010/06/09/academia-gate-as-big-labor-and-media-push-researchprop-on-our-kids-whos-really-paying-the-cost-part-1/ - http://bigjournalism.com/libertychick/2010/06/09/academia-gate-as-big-labor-and-media-push-researchprop-on-our-kids-whos-really-paying-the-cost-part-1/

 

interesting media spingate.

FreeEnterprise wrote: "29 dead in 9 days"     would sell a lot more than "Helecopter crash kills 4"   So, it is hard to follow your logic.   As a business man, I would go with the first headline.

There is a REASON that NPR does some of the best investigative journalistic work available right now, the reason why they are still able to do research journalism like others won't do: They exist outside the boundaries of the corporate setting. 

Simply put, their motivation isn't the almighty dollar and maintaining the bottom line. 

The current state of the media isn't a liberal conspiracy. It's been murdered by greed.  

 

 

no reason to discount it...

 

This is a HUGE story. Public colleges proactively paying for propoganda to diminish conservatives ideas...

 

With tax payer money.

 

If you can't see the implications and how much this damages every single university listed... As their "research" is now suspect... Any study they do, will now be seen through the eyes, of "well, they were just going for this result" instead of true study...

 

The implications are huge. Many heads will roll from this little experiement, when the public finds out...

 

Course I'm sure the media will try and keep it under wraps, aka acorn.

 

Day 1 google search. Big government only news site covering it.

 

http://news.google.com/news/more?hl=en&q=cry+wolf&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dBl5jBuWeHVmdnMbg3u_SP7Ob6atM&ei=Zs0QTKq9M8-gnwf48sXXBw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&cd=1&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQqgIoADAA - http://news.google.com/news/more?hl=en&q=cry+wolf&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dBl5jBuWeHVmdnMbg3u_SP7Ob6atM&ei=Zs0QTKq9M8-gnwf48sXXBw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&cd=1&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQqgIoADAA

 

here is an interesting commentary.

http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2010/06/academic_astrot.html - http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2010/06/academic_astrot.html

 

and I couldn't agree more with this article.

 

http://bigjournalism.com/libertychick/2010/06/09/academia-gate-as-big-labor-and-media-push-researchprop-on-our-kids-whos-really-paying-the-cost-part-1/ - http://bigjournalism.com/libertychick/2010/06/09/academia-gate-as-big-labor-and-media-push-researchprop-on-our-kids-whos-really-paying-the-cost-part-1/

 

"Yesterday’s story on the http://bigjournalism.com/pcourrielche/2010/06/08/in-praise-of-capitalism-how-the-social-justice-left-uses-economic-incentives-to-create-academic-propaganda/ - “Cry Wolf” project has exposed a dangerous pretense that has been prevalent, yet well disguised, for some time in our institutions of higher learning. It’s an important post.  A small committee of professors and academic professionals, normally held in high regard, have blatantly betrayed the trust of the public and quite possibly smeared the reputations of all colleges and universities nationwide.  By soliciting “paid activists” to create research papers that are intentionally designed to silence opposing viewpoints, they have undermined the political system and manipulated the governmental policy making process.  And in the meantime, they’ve also implicated all of academia in the manufacturing of their propaganda.

It is an abuse of their power, and an abuse of the institutions they represent.  It is appalling and repellent.  Perhaps even against their employers’ rules or the industry’s ethical code. Consider it an ominous warning — this will have a dire impact on our political and economic system in the future, if we remain apathetic in the face of such a rhetorical and intellectual assault.

In fact, both the rhetoric and the intentions demonstrated in http://www.docstoc.com/docs/42447084/Drier-Email - Peter Dreier’s email are a classic example of much of what is wrong with today’s educational institutions: hypocrisy, bias, recklessness, and a blatant disregard for differing beliefs and viewpoints.

As Americans, we place an enormous amount of pride in the quality of our nation’s system of higher education.  In our country, colleges and universities have long been the bastions of research, the sources to which we turn for information that is expertly developed; for data that is honestly mined, analyzed, reviewed and responsibly published by noted researchers so that individuals, business people and policy makers can make well-informed decisions.

By way of discreetly distributing this now-public http://www.docstoc.com/docs/42447084/Drier-Email - Request for Proposals , Peter Dreier, the Cry Wolf Project coordinators, and members of the project’s Advisory Board, may not only have called their own credibility into question, but they may have actually risked discrediting the entire educational sector as a respectable source for research.  Some of the phrasing in the RFP clearly demonstrates why any rational person should question such credibility:

We therefore need to construct a counter narrative that demonstrates the falsity or exaggeration of such claims so that the first reaction of millions of people, as well as opinion leaders, will be “There they go again!” Such a refrain will undermine the credibility and arguments of the organizations and individuals who use such dire social and economic prognostications to thwart progressive reform.

These so-called scholars have freely admitted, in their own words, that they intend to “undermine the credibility and arguments” of those who happen to hold opposing viewpoints to theirs. No unbiased research methodology, no respect for the opinions of others, no intellectual honesty. Just pure propaganda, put to the service of their ideology. That’s not scholarship: it’s naked advocacy."

 

And then July surpassing it...

 

 

It just became a big story. 'Bout time.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100730/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100730/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38481601/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38481601/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

 

 

Clearly we aren't going to "change" things over there.

 

We need to leave. We can't afford it, and the taliban aren't even there anymore...