Paul Krugman on Wisconsin news blackout - "That Iraq Feeling"

[Fozzledick]

I don’t watch cable news, or actually any kind of TV news. But I gather that there’s a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent.

What that makes me think of is January-February 2003, when anyone watching cable news would have believed that only a few kooks were opposed to the imminent invasion of Iraq. It was quite spooky, realizing that hundreds of thousands of people could march through New York, and by tacit agreement be ignored by news networks whose headquarters were just a few blocks away.

And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/that-iraq-feeling/

[babylonsister]

1. AMEN! Rec'd! I hope he writes an article about this b.s. nt

[MadMaddie]

2. Who owns the media?

That's why it needs to be broken up like "Ma Bell"! This is why the Democratic party is having problems getting the message out. That's why Wisconsin news that comes out is slanted in favor of Walker.....we need to wake up.

[TheEuclideanOne]

55. No site of this story on MSN.COM either

Check it out for yourself. I don't mean that it is not the lead story, but you can't find anything about wisconsin anywhere on the main site. See for yourself...

http://www.msn.com/

[snappyturtle]

65. It's after 10 AM and still nothing.....but Charlie Sheen and the Lindbergh baby

are right up there!

I've had MSNBC on for hours now. THere is some coverage of the WI protests....last hour they said that WI should do what Mitch Daniels did in 2005! That in itself is bad enough since Daniels cut out collective bargaining with executive order and union membership dropped precipitously and many lost jobs. However, all is good in IN...according to MSNBC what Daniels did has kept IN's budget in line. It was after this executive order which IF it was such a miracle maker that IN leased the toll road (75 years) which was operating in the black to a foreign investor. Last I heard, some time ago now, the billions garnered in the lease has been exhausted. Yeah, WI do what IN did! :sarcasm:

[defendandprotect]

82. Put the TVs in the closet -- !! WHY is anyone watching MSM?

And as the internet has shown us now how liberal this nation is, remember that!

And when you see election results and pools which make you ask ...

"How could Americans be so dumb?" -- or "How wrong am I?" --

You'll come up with better answers if you remember all of this!!

[ladjf]

60. Within a week after Howard Dean, then a candidate for President

said that if elected he would take steps to stop the media from influencing political matters, his campaign was over. ABC set him up with a microphone that only picked up his voice but not the voices of the hundreds of enthusiastic supporters in the room. The result was that Dean sounded inappropriately loud. The clip was shown hundreds of times per day for the next several day. The effect was that he was engineered out mainly by the media, with the cooperation of some Democrats, especially Dick Gerhardt.

That was a clear warning to any candidate that it was dangerous to take on the media. (and it most definitely is)

[defendandprotect]

81. Corporate-press get 80% of the campaign money -- TV ads, etal --

[texshelters]

77. It's da librul media ya

libtards!

Any idiot that thinks it's liberal need to be forced to take a Norman Soloman media training.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[fishwax]

3. k/r

:kick:

[lob1]

4. The local news here in L.A. haven't even mentioned it,

that I've seen. This clearly shows who in the MSM we can trust. None of them.


Edited to add K&R.

[Joe Bacon]

53. Not a peep about Wisconsin in L.A.

But then, these are the same stenographers who kissed Arnold's ass for seven years, so I expected nothing. And when I ask my friends who fled the Soviet Union, they tell me that the American Mainstream Media is just like Izvestia and TASS, a source of state propaganda.

[steve2470]

5. k&r nt

[TomClash]

6. NYT coverage hasn't exactly been exhaustive

but it's better than the national networks, save Ed and Rachel.

[spanone]

7. k&r

[nilram]

8. It's weird. This evening on NPR, the only mention was two sentences

In the middle of the hourly news update (Sunday evening, 2/27), something like, "It's the 13th day of protests at the Wisconsin state capitol building and protesters are being asked to leave. Some people don't want to go." And you could hear the smirk in the news reader's voice.

They did, at least, talk about how crazy Glen Beck is, and have a nice interview with Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). But to occupy a state capitol and have so little coverage? It's like, say, a presidential election was stolen and the constitution violated with no one calling it out. Unheard of! Unthinkable!


edited to add: And now I hear that that's wrong -- the protestors are being allowed to stay the night. (But I read it on DU, not the MSM.)

[bertman]

20. NPR National Petroleum Radio has been doing this shit for years. They were

some of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq War. I had been a contributor since the early 80's, but when I wrote to the ombudsman demanding to know why they were ignoring the anti-Iraq war protests I never got an answer. They never got another contribution either.

[Fozzledick]

22. Bush went to great lengths to destroy NPR as an independent voice

As soon as he took power he replaced the professional managers with Republican party commissars who then brought in psychological warfare operatives from the pentagon and systematically purged all of the journalists.

[defendandprotect]

83. The attack on PBS began decades ago -- go back to "beg-a-thons" ....

that was the beginning of it --

There is no way the right wing can tolerate or survive any left wing reporting!

That's why they must control all media -- !!

This is a liberal nation -- and they're not about to let you know that!!

There's barely anything left of PBS now -- anything!!

Move on -- put the TVs in the closet!!



PLEASE ... !!!


If we want a truly free press-- we're going to have to buy licenses I presume --

as other nations do?

We are going to be -- as far as I can see -- watching more via the internet --

if we're going to actually hear what candidates have to say -- all of them --

including third parties -- we are going to have to watch it via internet!!

That seems to be what Thom Hartmann is setting up now for -- and others --

The future is not going to be showing on corporate-press!!

[Imagevision]

9. Silence the messenger same ole song - this surprises DUers (?) amazing...

[malaise]

10. I am no longer surprised

They are the corporations.

[Larkspur]

11. maybe the protestors should have worn tea bags?

or made real tea. Hot tea is great in the winter time.

[leftstreet]

12. And they're SELLING this to us just like they did Iraq War propaganda

Deficits!

Social Security is broke!

We can't afford Entitlements!

Teachers and Govt workers are draining state budgets!

OMG!!!!11111

What total bullshit. And how well they learn

:grr:

[JDPriestly]

36. Quote found in

The Great Slump, Capitalism in crisis, 1929-1933 by Goronwy Ree. It's listed on the internet as a book but I think it is hard to find. I borrowed it from the Los Angeles library years ago along with a lot of other books on the depression that followed the crash of 1929.

During the Hoover administration, Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma said:

"'Of all diseases known to pathology the passion for a pension such as this is the most debilitating. This is a civil pension. This is the dole. The disease is infectious. The disease is contagious. In the beginning, the disease is acute. It soon becomes chronic, and at last, so far as the individual is concerned, the disease becomes incurable, and so far as the community is concerned the disease becomes endemic, becomes ineradicable . . . It is the paresis of the soul and it defies all cure, defies all remedy."

Generally, the Hoover administration thought like Senator Gore. And it was that philosophy that caused the unemployment rate, foreclosures and misery to get out of control. The rest is history.

Thomas Gore (ancestor of Gore Vidal) was a Southern Democrat but a conservative one. According to Wikipedia, he alone voted against the WPA. Needless to say, he was not re-elected in 1936.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gore

Of course, since Reagan, we have repeated all the mistakes that were made during the 1920s and 1930s. And Walker in Wisconsin is part of that obsession with repeating past mistakes.

Because of people like him, we will have a double-dip, and the recession will not end for a long time. It's the Republican attitude that Gore, although a Democrat, voiced so well in that quote about pensions that is the underlying problem.

Republicans want everybody who isn't rich to pretend they don't have any needs. Nobody needs to eat or have a place to sleep. People are homeless by choice they insist. Nobody has children to feed or mortgages to pay they seem to think. Everybody is supposed to buckle up and pretend that we are doing fine as long as the rich get to keep their tax breaks. After all, the stock market is up. Isn't it?

Happened in 1893. Happened in 1929-1932. And it's happening again.

Focusing on reducing the budget deficits will worsen our economy and our unemployment just like it did in the Hoover administration.

Obama should remind the Republicans of this history.

Here is what David O. Whitten, Auburn University (hardly a bastion of liberals) has to say about the depression of 1893:

The Depression of 1893 was one of the worst in American history with the unemployment rate exceeding ten percent for half a decade. This article describes economic developments in the decades leading up to the depression; the performance of the economy during the 1890s; domestic and international causes of the depression; and political and social responses to the depression.

The Depression of 1893 can be seen as a watershed event in American history. It was accompanied by violent strikes, the climax of the Populist and free silver political crusades, the creation of a new political balance, the continuing transformation of the country's economy, major changes in national policy, and far-reaching social and intellectual developments. Business contraction shaped the decade that ushered out the nineteenth century.

. . . .

Hard times intensified social sensitivity to a wide range of problems accompanying industrialization, by making them more severe. Those whom depression struck hardest as well as much of the general public and major Protestant churches, shored up their civic consciousness about currency and banking reform, regulation of business in the public interest, and labor relations. Although nineteenth century liberalism and the tradition of administrative nihilism that it favored remained viable, public opinion began to slowly swing toward governmental activism and interventionism associated with modern, industrial societies, erecting in the process the intellectual foundation for the reform impulse that was to be called Progressivism in twentieth century America. Most important of all, these opposed tendencies in thought set the boundaries within which Americans for the next century debated the most vital questions of their shared experience. The depression was a reminder of business slumps, commonweal above avarice, and principle above principal.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whitten.panic.1893

Why can't we learn from history? Why do conservatives have to be so stupid? We already learned how depressions work and what causes them in the 1890s and the 1930s. And each time the conservatives made fools of themselves with their ineffective, dogmatic attempts to solve things with "free market" solutions. "Free market" ideas cause depressions. They do not cause the recovery from a serious depression. They never have. They never will.

Progressives will once again come to power. What is happening in Wisconsin is just the beginning, just the first little stretch of a toe that signals that the country is waking up.

[AlbertCat]

70. Why can't we learn from history?

Meh.... who cares about dead white guys?

I've got to go watch them do Beatles songs on "American Idol!"

[defendandprotect]

84. We do -- but one of the hardest things for Americans to get is that the right wing is

politically violent --

steals elections --

and lies --

And as long as Americans don't speak to one another about these things every day --

and the corporate-press isn't acknowledging it for them --

and our Dem party isn't challenging it --

these voters don't question it all -- TV says "everything is OK" -- then must be.

Shirley, if anything were wrong, my neighbor would be talking about it --

My TV would be saying so -- and Democrats would be telling me about it!!



:evilgrin:

[The Wielding Truth]

39. I'm sick of it! I'm going to make some phone calls tomorrow. CBS NBC ABC and NPR

[defendandprotect]

85. Many of us here have been trying for more than 20+ years to change rw media ...

it's not going to happen -

What you'd be asking for would be the collapse of the GOP and the corporate--press!!

The right wing has to control all media because if they didn't they'd be finished in a week!!

Yeah -- you can complain -- wouldn't deny you that --

But the idea of monitoring these networks now and complaints will get you nowhere.

Yes, we should all know what they're doing and people monitoring will tell us.

But asking them to be honest is like asking Gaddafi to be honest --

They'd be undermining themselves!!



:)

[defendandprotect]

89. +1000% --

[Skip_In_Boulder]

13. If it wasn't for the Internet

I wouldn't know there was any kind of a problem in Wisconsin.

[SaveAmerica]

14. My feelings exactly

[Kurovski]

15. Who the hell isn't sick of this crap by now?

I talked to a couple of neighbors who had little idea of the extent of wisconsin or overseas protests.

[RainDog]

16. the mainstream American media is a propaganda tool, sadly

we also saw this during the elections when some candidates were virtually ignored - when Dean's scream of enthusiasm became a way to knock him out of the race...

it's good to wake up and finally realized that Americans are fed a steady diet of propaganda because then you no longer have to wonder if the power structure that exists is worth saving.

it isn't - not as it is currently configured.

the invasion of Iraq woke up A LOT of people here. this moment in time will wake up A LOT more - and a lot of them are younger voters.

it's good to know who your enemies are.

[defendandprotect]

86. It's worse than that ... it's part of the right wing crime way ... and cover up --

and you can start with 9/11 MIHOP!

[seafan]

17. Yep. Our "media" are a #@%&*$% joke.

Krugman calls it 'That Iraq Feeling'.


That feeling never goes away.



Digby notes wryly:

I didn't know that yesterday was the Tea Party's "birthday" but wasn't surprised to see that CNN celebrated it. It has, after all, been a big story for them over the past two years what with following them all over the country and reporting every gathering of more than four people as a national event. Now, the rise of a real populist movement in America that isn't actually backed by major corporations and wealthy individuals is stale. Been there, done that and all that rot.

Fox, however, is following the Madison story closely and is working hard to set the narrative:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. but they cramed the Teabaggers rallies down our collective throats ...I remember

24/7 coverage....shows ya who owns the MSM....it ain't the Liberals!

[travelingtypist]

23. That contrast is so easy to see.

They think everybody is teabagger stupid out here.

[defendandprotect]

87. Agree -- but why are you watching MSM TV? They have no purpose but to lie and demoralize left -- !!

If they told the truth the corporate--press would be gone in a week and

the GOP with them --

Truth is their enemy -- it must be blocked because if they don't they are

finished!!

[applegrove]

19. I've seen it on the news. But I am in Canada. I guess the demonstration are playing

well in international news and not so much in the USA. I thought these events in WI had broken through the MSM a bit inside the USA.

[KT2000]

21. Candian news is so much better

as is the BBC. Man - they are hearing about this in Egypt!

[lunasun]

24. Yep only a few degrees away from what happened in Egypt et all during protests , or in China

with what is seen or not seen via airwaves,except more illusionary here but at least some chance still here with radio

and while we have it still , the internet. And our phones are not cut off etc.but still the truth does not come out of

the tubes here

''None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free''

[defendandprotect]

88. ''None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free''

[lonestarnot]

25. If I hadn't lived through it, I would not have believed it although I knew certain issues were

suppressed from coverage for many years prior to Iraq.

[Puregonzo1188]

26. And yet the Tea Parties get coverage.

[Johnny Morales]

27. I'm not surprised

Our American Corporate News Establishment (yes ACNE)is only interested in non-controversial topics that are more like entertainment than information.

It's been this way ever since the fairness doctrine was killed under Reagen.

It will stay this way until it's reinstated.

[w4rma]

68. No. They love to cover controversy if they can spin it to help the corporate powers. (nt)

[deacon]

28. And, he is correct. n/t

[PADemD]

29. We need to start protesting at the M$M headquarters, too.

[20score]

30. Thank you Paul Krugman! Now if we could only figure a way to get this out to people who don't read.

[Wolf Frankula]

31. Liberal Media My A$$!!

I have seen NOTHING on regular TV news about Madison. Zipperoonie, niks, zero. In the MSM papers I saw today, the events of Wisconsin get a little paragraph, next to the latest hijinks of the Westboro Boobtis' Church.

Wolf

[HEyHEY]

32. I am not so much for reading articles that begin with an admission of ignorance

But, in this case, he's correct.

[WheelWalker]

38. The first difficulty is to see that the problem is difficult.

[hay rick]

33. K&R

[WheelWalker]

34. Truth to Power.

:kick:

[grahamhgreen]

35. kick

[Imagevision]

37. FOXnews Roger Aisles to indicted possibly as early as tomorrow for bribing Judith Miller with offer

of 10 million not to expose Rudy Giuliani (caught on tape) Will M$M consider this also to be a non story (?)

[Major Hogwash]

79. Maybe as early as Wednesday or Thursday, perhaps, but not on Friday this week at least

But, we'll have to see if they are going to carry the news, what, no, they decided instead to focus an hour long program on ice sculptures in Aspen, oh look, someone carved 8 tiny reindeer with Santy Klaus!

[kaffy4x4]

40. TV coverage doesn't matter

as much as it once did. Look at what happened in Egypt, in their country. Al Jazzera was where most people turned for coverage, not CNN or FOX. Social media, the internet, was reporting from the ground. Organizing happened between tweeting one another. There is a lot to learn from that up rising and I don't think we are that far behind the curve. We had good coverage from ED for nearly a week. Maddow still reports nearly nightly. It only takes one or two msm channel to get the basics out. And where are these people getting their information, from the same places we are, from the ground, citizen reporting. The proof is in the head line this morning. We picked up one Rep that will vote our side, this opens the door for two other to walk through and it won't take long. This is a success story and we should all be celebrating!!

[Enthusiast]

41. My outrage grows by the day.

I can't see what is to be done about this. When the Democrats(?)were in the majority they didn't mention the fairness doctrine or restoring fairness to the media. I have no answers only anger.

[Lastactiongyro]

42. EveryTime American Corporate Media Blacks out an

Event is another nail in the coffin for Corporate Media. Why? Because people are finding other venues to get their info from. Corporate media is making itself obsolete.

[SpiralHawk]

43. Spooky (R) indeed

RepubliCorp Media (R) going occult with the truth.

As they so oten do...

[MaeScott]

44. We have to make the noise that the msn won't re Wisconsin and..

....the related states protesting in unity. The msn does not intend to give it much coverage, that much is clear.
So we have to keep the noise up...go Wisconsin! Letters to your local newspapers everyone!

[tomp]

45. IT'S FASCISM! nt

[The Hitman]

46. But what about even left0leaning media like Huffington Post?

There was so little coverage of the nationwide protests on Saturday. I wish I had taken a screenshot.

I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but clearly here there is some sort of agreement by the media to ignore this as much as possible.

[harun]

91. Corporate Media is Corporate Media and Huff Post is Corporate Media.

[border_town]

47. Maybe we are

more wise to this trick this time around? But then again, the average American's attention span...

[kentuck]

48. I remember it well.

If a tree falls in the forest, and the media ignores it, does it make a noise??

[myrna minx]

49. In addition, it makes perfect sense that TPTB want to destroy net neutrality too.

They have to control the message. Right now we are able to circumnavigate around the big media, but we unwashed plebs won't have this luxury for long.

[TheKentuckian]

50. My local news gives brief coverage and calls it "a protest against a right to work law"

The corporate media is bullshit.

[fasttense]

54. I know they did the same thing here on one of the FOX affiliates.

They called the 2 week long protest a protest against a right to work law (right for CEOs to be king law). It confused me enough to go look up what was really happening. The news talker implied that since TN had already passed the right for CEOs to be king law it was no big deal. There was just this one isolated day of protest the confused looking TV talker implied. Of course that was a couple days ago and I stopped watching the TV news.

[TheKentuckian]

75. Same deal here but this was our Corporate Broadcasting affiliate. Our Faux, is sadly

probably the pick of the litter for local news unless you're talking sports or weather then there is a debate that mostly depends on age (weather) or affiliation (sports).

Generally, we have the same gang of corporate mouthpieces and local interests jokers that took over when the last generation of actual news people retired. Some went to the Faux affiliate when it fired up to give them some heft and talent and maybe that is why they have some middling level of integrity now by being the last channel with reputable news people.

[Keith Bee]

51. Krugman rocks!

Had Obama taken his advice regarding the stimulus, we'd be in much better shape now.

[PA Democrat]

52. Good Morning America's top 2 stories?

The Oscars and Charlie Sheen.

Useless drivel. I shut it off.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

56. RT, short for

Russia Today.

RT

This is available over the air in northern Virginia on MHz's channel 30.4. MHz is the same organization that broadcasts Al Jazeera English over the air, on channel 30.5.

America’s workers revolution gets personal

[rbixby]

57. Its a daily story here in MN

But we are a pretty blue state for the most part (except for Michele Bachmann, and I blame that on inbreeding in that part of the state)

[JBoy]

58. But someone said a bad word at the Oscars. Sorry, news is full.

[a la izquierda]

63. Hah, that's what I said this morning...

I was in the kitchen making coffee, husband had the local news on. They airhead anchors were lamenting the downfall of society because the actress cussed. My husband yelled "They bleeped the word out!" My response: "There's something wrong with this country if they're worried about someone saying Fuck on TV."

[Mosaic]

59. I have a theory

This whole drive by the ruling class to reassert their power is all because they are threatened by our black president, and they either are conscious of it or do it subconsciously. The rich don't believe in equality, and a responsible media is vital for economic equality. It is up to we the people, through the Great internet to be the new media.

[flamingdem]

62. We don't have a choice! But praise be for the internets nt

[Maineman]

61. A strategy:

Several decades ago when US auto companies were thriving, the unions would pick one of them on which to focus their efforts. I think we need a similar stategy today, focusing on one (non-auto) company at a time. Dishonest news media, fraud based financial companies, profiteering drug companies and medical insurance companies, big oil, etc. One at a time is probably the only strategy that would succeed.

[deutsey]

64. Exactly...this is why we have to be our own news media

Gather what you find here at DU or other online places and distribute to people you know on FB, via email, whatever.

[snappyturtle]

67. Yes!

[Helga Scow Stern]

66. Santa Fe New Mexican still part of blackout in not reporting weekend protests.

Just small AP blurbs minimally alluding to what's going on in Wisconsin. Their lead letter to the editor today was anti-union. I am holding my breath that in a day or so they will print the slew of letters they must have received from outraged readers for their blackout of the 1000-strong protest here Saturday. They strive to appear balanced. We'll see. They do a lot of good reporting on what our new Tea Party governor is trying to pull. And their own stance as editorialized is pretty liberal. Maybe they don't want to be accused of publicizing MoveOn activity. Although they seem to have no compunction about Tea Party crowds of a much smaller number. I wasn't here in 2003, so I can't say how they handled the protests then. Yikes, I don't need to be apologizing for them.

[indimuse]

69. KNR! n/t

[idrahaje]

71. Actually it has that St Paul MN feeling too

and that was totally shut out. the violence from the police on the protesters and the pre offense arrests..

(minority report??) except this has lasted alot longer than st paul...

[Uncle Joe]

72. The conflict of interest laden corporate media will almost always promote

the corporate supremacist point of view.

Mega corporations are the corporate media's clients, the American People are just customers or mindless consumers; to be sold a product, candidate or down the river, most anything that furthers the interests of the former over that of that latter will be promoted as a good thing by the corporate media.

If they can't promote corporate supremacist interests due to fear of popular backlash, they will just ignore, distort or obfuscate the story.

The corporate media almost never mentions tax cuts for the wealthy as being a major contributing cause of and possible answer to these budget deficits and the hurting economy.

The bottom line is, the corporate media does not represent the best interests of the American People, they represent the best interests of corporations and weakening any union whether in the private sector or that of the public strengthens corporate dominance over the people and by extension "We the People's" government.

Thanks for the thread, Fozzeldick.

[wial]

73. not just New York

Madison WI had thousands that day, and if I recall correctly, the global total was around ten million.

[Joe Fields]

74. It's a fucking trifecta, and the sooner everyone realizes it ....

the sooner WE THE PEOPLE can rectify this problem/cancer....

We have the federal government, totally co-opted by big business, we have the media, co-opted by the same big business, and completely subservient to those interests, and the mindless droids in this country spouting the talking points that these interests want them to spout.

[reformist2]

76. The story was getting too hot, and was spreading like wildfire. So they threw cold water on it.

Very paternalistic.

[harun]

92. +1

[Major Hogwash]

78. By gawd Paul, you're right. And that's why we have this series of tubes called the internet.

And I'm so damned glad that Al Gore invented it.
Well, it must be true, because all of the Republicans were saying that back in 2000.

LoL

Gawd, I luv Al.

[defendandprotect]

80. THIS is why elites/right wing have to own and control ALL media -- truth is a huge threat -- !!

Believe me, they're not doing it just to enrage those who want justice --

they're doing it because they have to do it!!

Every bit of truth is like a pebble hitting a mirror -- it shatters the mirror --

and their myths along with it!

Keep tossin' those pebbles!!


:evilgrin:


And it's also why we have computer voting -- !!

[senseandsensibility]

90. k and r

We need to keep this kicked.