I should also add that it isn't just down here. Take a recent study in London about global warming coverage.

"Every newspaper is a commercial organisation," he said, "and when you have a terrifying image on the front of the paper, you are likely to sell more copies than when you write about solutions."

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5236482.stm

>Scary, but I believe we agree again. In addition to the problems you mentioned I would add:
>
>Unmitigated bias from both sides
>Blatent plagerism
>Outright forgery
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_fraud
>
>The entire profession has gone from objective reporting to opinion journalism in the last 40 years. As I've said before, feel free to judge the source of any cited article, becuase their bias will be inherent in whatever is written.
>
>This is why I use the internet for news gathering. I can look at a story from many sources and form my own opinion.
>
>>Hi Jake,
>>
>>I think TracyH has it right - you can't trust your media down there (U.S., I'm up here in Canada) anymore.
>>They are large corporate entities who have to "protect" the shareholders' "value" and and also have to grow that value.
>>
>>You need only look at recent events like the big New York paper (Times?) that bent to judicial pressure and released the name of a confidential source or those that withheld stories for a LONG TIME - not just hours or a day - at the behest of the Administration, etc. Just the fact that they pass the stories by government officials tells you something is amiss.
>>
>>I'm sure there are still a few privately owned media outlets that try hard to be straight and timely, but by and large they're all in someone else's pocket.
>>
>>They even take great care when stories involving large advertisers are concerned. They also disguise corporately related press releases as "news" and actively promote whatever it is. For example, the book publishing arm will buy a manuscript with conditions like 'first public interviews to be on our 'sister' network, first execrpts in our 'sister' publications, etc.
>>
>>They also use any excuse they can to bury meaningful stories, just to lessen the heat on government or corporate buddies.
>>
>>You should trust NOTHING that come out of **ANY** corporately owned news organization. Period.
>>
>>cheers
>>
>>
>>>>>>Metin, it's not about the last punch. It's about what's been going on for years and years. In any case I think everyone knows it's not about the 2 soldiers. It's about Israel and Hezbollah.
>>>>>
>>>>>It's also about public perception. As a commentator put it when it was about Gaza just a week before this, "Israel has the power to somehow dictate the narrative and reset the clocks at will - in American media, the story starts when they say it starts".
>>>>>
>>>>>Look, 95+ percent of the people here, the so-called public opinion, don't remember, and probably have never heard, that Israel was regularly violating the truce. For them, it all began when Hezbollah attacked. And that's also the current administration's story as well. CNN as a weapon, remember?
>>>>
>>>>If anything, CNN is a weapon of hezbollah.
>>>
>>>As is al-Reuters.
>>>http://hotair.com/archives/top-picks/2006/08/07/breaking-reuters-pulls-all-920-of-adnan-hajjs-photos/
>>>http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07348592.htm