Iraq Vs. Tsunami: The Duplicity Of The Media

[eauclaireliberal]

Iraq Vs. Tsunami: The Duplicity Of The Media

by Mike Whitney

The American media has descended on the Asian tsunami with all the fervor of feral animals in a meat locker. The newspapers and TV’s are plastered with bodies drifting out to sea, battered carcasses strewn along the beach and bloated babies lying in rows. Every aspect of the suffering is being scrutinized with microscopic intensity by the predatory lens of the media.

This is where the western press really excels: in the celebratory atmosphere of human catastrophe. Their penchant for misery is only surpassed by their appetite for profits.

Where was this “free press” in Iraq when the death toll was skyrocketing towards 100,000? So far, we’ve seen nothing of the devastation in Falluja where more than 6,000 were killed and where corpses were lined along the city’s streets for weeks on end. Is death less photogenic in Iraq? Or, are there political motives behind the coverage?

Wasn’t Ted Koppel commenting just days ago, that the media was restricting its coverage of Iraq to show sensitivity for the squeamishness of its audience? He reiterated the mantra that filming dead Iraqis was “in bad taste” and that his American audience would be repelled by such images? How many times have we heard the same rubbish from Brokaw, Jennings and the rest of their ilk?

Well, it looks like Koppel and the others have quickly switched directions. The tsunami has turned into a 24 hour-a-day media frenzy of carnage and ruin, exploring every facet of human misery in agonizing detail.

The festival of bloodshed is chugging ahead at full-throttle and it’s bumping up ratings in the process.

Corporate media never fails to astound even the most jaded viewer. Just when it appears that they’ve hit rock-bottom, they manage to slip even deeper into the morass of sensationalism. The manipulation of calamity is particularly disturbing, especially when disaster is translated into a revenue windfall. Koppel may disparage “bad taste”, but his boardroom bosses are more focused on the bottom line. Simply put, tragedy is good for business.

When it comes to Iraq, however, the whole paradigm shifts to the right. The dead and maimed are faithfully hidden from view. No station would dare show a dead Marine or even an Iraqi national mutilated by an errant American bomb. That might undermine the patriotic objectives of our mission: to democratize the natives and enter them into the global economic system. Besides, if Iraq was covered like the tsunami, public support would erode extremely quickly, and Americans would have to buy their oil rather than extracting it at gunpoint. What good would that do? <<<

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=6941

[madison2000]

1. Right on target with his comments

You can't see pictures of anything war related unless you make the effort.

[liberal N proud]

2. It's that "LIBERAL" media that is covering all things fairly

only reporting events, never injecting any opinion or favor except when it comes to the supreme leader of the regime.
There must be some oath or code that the regime has coerced reporters and anchors to follow: Any news that will portray the shrub in a negative manner will not be reported. All news items that do not make shrub look godly will be swept under the rug.

[peacebird]

3. Iraqi dead might make war look less glorious and noble

but anywhere else in the world - if it bleeds, it leads! business as usual, besides it gives the corporate media whores something gory to hold up so people don't notice the rising death toll (of americans, Iraqis obviously don't matter) in the war.

LOOK - OVER HERE! Death! Destruction! Mayhem! and not caused by the the US military!

Iraq? Afghanistan? Move on - nothing to see there. Move on.


LOOK - OVER HERE! Death! Destruction! Mayhem!



:puke:

[eauclaireliberal]

6. RE: "Iraqi dead might make war look less glorious and noble"

Bread and Circuses.

[FloridaPat]

4. At church last week everyone was commenting about the

tsunami victums in Asia. They wanted to say some extra prayers for them. That's when I commented that the same number of Iraqis have been murdered. No one knew that. They were upset. However, by the end of the evening, they were still concered for the Asians and not the Iraqis.

One of the people had a friend from Iraqi visit them recently. It is so bad for women over there, that they are on Vallium - 20 cents a bottle. They have to stay indoors and can't really do much over there.

[eauclaireliberal]

5. I guess Dumbass sees this as an improvement over

"...RAPE ROOMS"

Fucking retard.

[pretzel4gore]

7. something doesn't make sense.....

with these new picture cellphones, taking pics, even making vids is easy as...all you need is good supply of batteries and so on....while nothing can be expected from western sources, why aren't the iraqis, arabs, or anti imperialist types making pictures available on the net, and why aren't they readily available to email to the asshole element? the al jazeera can make pretty graphic vids (for bush promotion) but noone seems able to do same thing with ...100000 chances, all lost. of course, no one noticed that bushinc blackmailed the US, over a period of weeks, into supporting the war ...not even ONE PERSON noticed! (though both zbig brezinski and Wesley Clarke mentioned on whoremedia tv the fact that the US would look extremely foolish if they never used the army after positioning it on iraq's borders with all threats flying)

[progressivedancer]

8. Sigh :(

I wish the media would be more balanced. I also notices a double standard in media coverage between Irag and the Asia Tsunamis. However, I really wanted them to cover the Asia disaster in detail because people need to know the scope of the disaster. It seems as if that was the only way to motivate people to donate money. What is going on in Asia is truly significant and needs to be covered, it isn't your ordinary disaster of the day. The media coverage IS very disheartening and really fleshes the extreme meloncholy that people all over Asia are facing, but if that's what it takes to get people to donate to my neighboring countries, then please show it. Asia is too desperate for aid to contemplate these things, we just need help period.

[Skittles]

10. how does showing the results of the tsunami preclude showing Iraq?

why can't both be covered?

[Old Mouse]

9. This is not correct

The two stories are not comparable.

As horrible as mankind's continued inhumanity may be, the tsunami is a natural event, a surprise visit from nature that killed a hundred thousand people in a single instant. There was no real warning, no chance to escape.

This could have been any number of completely unpredictable surprises at any spot on earth... an earthquake, a cyclone, a meteorite. A natural calamity that reminds us of the vulnerability and insignificance of our species, our entire civilization.

This time it was a 9 point quake. Next time could be a 10, or 12. It could happen in two weeks in Siberia, of in the seconds in Cleavland. It creates a fear greater than mere death, greater than our own mortality. This event reminds us that this planet will one day see the end of our kind.

You can't blame the media for the excess coverage. Nature just reminded everyone still living that we're just monkeys, and now we need to get our ego back.

[progressivedancer]

11. What?

I didn't say both can't be covered, I just said I'm glad that they are covering the Tsunami disaster and hope that they show the same consideration for the Iragi war DISASTER.

[pretzel4gore]

12. the world needs a free press, with global integrity and reach

cnn should be it, but cnn is a criminal run organization, unfortunately...btw have you been given the
'Welcome to DU!' yet?

[eauclaireliberal]

13. RE: "the world needs a free press, with global integrity and reach"

Got this from a friend. Be careful, it's not PC to laugh at it:

http://www.udargo.com/burton/Tsunami/

[pretzel4gore]

15. reminds me of the 'fox' news anchors giggling when hurricaine

threatened cuba....the burton piece says everything about 'fox' news....too bad treason like that displayed openly by 'fox'news and cnn etc are allowed to go on year after year w/out any action taken....

[Old Mouse]

16. The title of the article

argues the situations comparable, when in fact they are not.

To use the tsunami tragedy to highlight the lack of coverage in the middle east is to reference the disaster for political purpose. Although Bush's control over the media is the main reason for democratic failure, contrasting a global tragedy of this magnitude to make a point, however noble in intent, is inappropriate.

[baby_bear]

14. Is the U.S. the only place where the truth of Iraq is not shown or told?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/23FBDBB2-C104-4E69-BA80-F476CC64C4A1.htm

This is about people trying to come back to their homes in Fallujah.

<snip>
One of the causes of major complaint were stringent and intrusive security measures.US forces stationed around the city have to issue ID cards to those they allow back in, a document that has to be carried at all times. Citizens must leave their cars outside Falluja; no vehicles are allowed in except approved buses that herd people back and forth.

At the beginning of December, one prime-time US news channel had a military official telling Americans that Fallujans would "be finger printed, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centres". "The marines will be authorised to use deadly force against those breaking the rules."

But the destruction of Falluja and the treatment of its residents comes as little surprise to Professor Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University in the US. He points out that the British also chose to "make an example" out of Falluja when, in 1920, they launched a massive air campaign and flattened the city.

"Things have changed fundamentally for the worse with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, particularly with the revelation that the core pretexts offered by the administration for the invasion were false. And particularly with growing Iraqi dissatisfaction with the occupation and with the images of the hellish chaos broadcast regularly everywhere in the world except in the United States - thanks to the excellent job done by the media in keeping the real human costs of Iraq off our television screens."


</snip>

b_b