FYI the Globe & Mail is the equivalent to the Washington Post in that it is the Establishment newspaper but has way more integrity.
Patriot game, media shame
LAWRENCE MARTIN
Globe & Mail
"In his speech at the Democratic convention, Jimmy Carter noted how the Bush administration had willfully generated public panic over terrorism. Statistics show that, last year, acts of terrorism killed 300 to 400 people, ranking it so far down the list of dangers to livelihood that it is barely visible.
The threat of terrorism certainly shouldn't be minimized; but it also shouldn't be exaggerated by a cowed media to fit the White House agenda. For anyone who looks at some of history's worst threats -- the German military machine that killed tens of millions, the Soviet Union with a nuclear arsenal that could have turned this continent into rubble -- the terrorism of today, though George Bush has seeded so much more of it in Iraq, isn't anywhere close.
As journalists have been duped so often, admittedly duped, how can anyone say the media system in America is working?
In times of foreign crises, the press doesn't report. It is politically exploited. It is supposed to reflect truth and reality but, by treating politically motivated White House words with face-value reverence, it is distorting that truth and reality and succumbing to patriot games.
"At the Democratic convention this week and the coming Republican fest, rest assured of one thing: No one will mention a crux issue -- how patriotism supplanted journalism in America."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPSt...