>>John;
>>
>>Seems like there are in fact few realities we are aware of. When it comes to the media they are very selective in what they tell us. About five years ago I did a search on how many countries in the world were at war (civil or otherwise). I came up with 58 and the media had three. It is interesting that the media will report a problem which may be newsworthy for weeks and do no follow-up at some future date. Does that mean the problem went away or was no longer newsworthy? Every few years the media in the San Francisco Bay Area will do a special on Patty Hurst and the SLA. What a waste of time!
>>
>>Tom
>
>
>Agreed. The media seems to have a vested interest in feeding the masses what they want them to believe. Tell me why the Serbian war was so important that the US had to get involved, yet the wars in Africa have not been. The media has hardly said a thing about them.


Ask them to tell you why the bombing of an asprin factory was of such strategic importance. Some wag will probably tell you that, like the other instances when Bill's impeachment troubles took front page, a little 'wag the dog' bone was good enough to give the media a chance to 'change the subject'. When the war was over the prior news was 'old news'. But, like you, I wonder why some news is never old neww, and is always trotted out like a dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors.

While in college my sociology prof required that that the class read and report on an article in NewsWeek, Time and the New York Times every week. I became addicted to the Time. I also trusted everything I read. Same with TV news. Why should they lie?
In 1982 I was aligning a commercial satellite dish and happened to be on weststar, which was an ABC news feeder. It was active all the time, not just when the daily news was being broadcast. What caught my attention was the strains of "Hail to the Chief". For 15 minutes I watched as RR received a standing ovation at the NOW meeting in New Orleans. He spoke for about 15 minutes and during the course of his talk gave several jokes. The audiance laughed at all but one joke. He finished his talke and received another standing ovation as he departed. That was what I saw. Uncut. Unedited. A live news feed. (They encrypted them now). Reasoner and Robins were in different studios but communicating through the feeder channel. I listed as the discussed 'how' to present the story to give the message THEY wanted to give.
I was stunned. The story they broadcast was even more stunning. They started with "President Ragan received mixed reviews at the NOW convention" and showed a photo-sound byte of RR giving the joke that no one laughed at. Then, for one minute and 45 seconds, they let Ellenor Schmeel rag on about how Ragan was going to drag woman by their hair back to the stone age. It evoked the same response in me that watching Jane Fonda in Hanoi did. It was my news epiphaney.

Prior to that incident I had no reason to suspect (because I had no way of knowing, not being at the sites of the major news events) that the news was being slanted as badly as it was. But, since then, I have been given plenty of evidence. NBC's bogus fuel tank fires, Peter Arnnot's 'reporting' from Bagdad. The smearing of Quayle, admittedly no genius, but certainly as smart as Gore. How many times have we heard that bogus report of drug using by Quayle, compared with Gore's cocaine sniffing? ABC and the rest didn't report the Republican convention, saying it was a non-event, yet gave glowing accounts of the Democratic convention. The RNC had to broadcast it their self, even if was primarily to avoid the incessant hachet jobs done on them by the 1,400 reporters, 95% of whom are Democrats, or farther left. Who can forget Dan Rather's fawning 'interview' of Bill and Hillary as she 'stood by her man'. "Why schucks, Mr. President, if I'd done a tenth of want you've accomplished so far I'd quit and consider myself ahead of the game" - Dan Rather, on one of the first of his many 'rehabilitations' of Clinton. Remember that taped converstaion Gennifer Flowers had of Clinton where he said that they should simply call any reports of their relationship as 'dirty Republican Campaign tricks'? Compare the count of that story with the number of times we've heard about Genrich's wife. God, folks, there were so many, many incidents glossed over, misreported, or covered up by the media you'd have to be brain dead not to see a pattern there. The Florida count and subsequent 'reporting' is only another brick in a very tall 'curtin'.