In the distant past, images were captured by cameras on film. The film was then developed into a negative, in which the information was encoded by its opposite, only finally revealed when the image was then transferred to photographic paper. (These little known facts are presented as a historical summary for those who only know of images as pixels on a screen.) Our MSM has now taken this model and apparently adapted it for use in their information dissemination. However, they truncate the process and only print the negatives, a novel approach to "news." Here are a few examples of news items you may have missed while reading the "news."
During and after the Israeli incursion into Gaza, the MSM was filled, on a daily basis, with stories of Palestinian civilian casualties. The MSM would eagerly print numbers supplied by Palestinians (who, of course, would never have any reason to slant the numbers and had layers of ethical and religious injunctions against such behavior) showing that the vast majority of Palestinian casualties were civilians. Elder of Ziyon and others have done the painstaking work of parsing the Palestinian's own casualty lists to discern the reality behind the negative "news" and the results have been striking, even more so because of the refusal of MSM organs to actually report on the results:
Casualties of Truth
For three weeks in December 2008-January 2009, Israel and Hamas fought a war in the Gaza Strip after Hamas announced it was abandoning the ceasefire and began escalated rocket and mortar attacks on Israel.
There is one fact about that war which people around the world think they know: there were about 1400 Palestinians killed in the war and most or almost all of them were civilians, mainly women an children.
This claim, however, is false and demonstrably so on the basis of careful research using publicly available and reliable materials. Indeed, a group of bloggers, including the author, have shown already that more than 30 percent of the claimed "civilian" casualties were in fact, to use the polite word, armed militants or members of Hamas-led security forces. And the number of such combatants we are discovering is rising every day.
While Hamas and other Palestinian political groups were using alleged civilian casualties to bolster their case with international public opinion, they demonstrably knew otherwise. In fact, they publicly bragged about the military activities of those they labeled innocent civilian bystanders. [Emphasis added-SW]
The basis for many claims about the distribution of casualties was in a March report <http://pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/list.pdf> by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). Widely covered‹and credulously accepted‹in the Western media, the report was a seemingly comprehensive, detailed list of every death. The bottom line: : the name, gender, age, location, and job of each person is detailed. Most importantly, the PCHR claimed 1180 of the alleged 1414 victims were civilians.
Our team cross-checked the names listed by PCHR with lists of "resisters" compiled by the Al- Mezan Center for Human Rights http://www.mezan.org/en/index.php> , lists of "martyrs" published by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and other militant groups in Gaza, as well as from the Ma'an News Agency, and other Palestinian sources.
This is the kind of investigative reporting that the MSM claimed only they, with their layers of fact checkers and editors, could do successfully. Please go to the Elder's site and read the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Barry Rubin has helpfully prepared a short primer of Political Proverbs for an Age of Unreason, which may be useful for a young administration just finding its way in a difficult part of the world. As a bonus, via MEMRI, he illuminates Arab thinking in their own words; an example:
Don’t Just Take My Word for It: Arab Moderates Warn About Mistaken Western Policies
What do moderate Arabs think about what Westerners think about the Middle East? Usually, such matters are raised only in private conversation with those of long acquaintance in whom the speaker has personal trust. But now we have several statements by respected Arabs who are relatively liberal but also part of the intellectual establishment.
Thanks to MEMRI for gathering and translating these remarks. They could be just about the most important things you read about the Middle East this year.
As you go along, imagine the reaction of the conventional wisdom types if another American or European had said these things.
First up is Tareq al-Homayed, chief editor of al-Sharq al-Awsat, which might just be the best Arab newspaper in the world today. It combines the unusual characteristics of being both Saudi-owned yet relatively liberal.
Homayed explained that if the West is too lenient to extremists this is a grave mistake. Once you start talking to Hizballah you might as well negotiate with al-Qaida. "Openness for the sake of openness,” he concluded, “makes the situation more complicated and sends the wrong message."
There more; read it all.
In another arena, consider the uncritical MSM coverage of the so-far ill defined Universal Health Care debate in which we are promised there will be universal care, which will raise the quality of care for all while simultaneously lowering costs. This is nonsense and must be apparent to the architects of the plan but nonetheless they are trying to sell their snake oil to the public and the MSM is doing what they can to assist. Unfortunately for the plan's success, on occasion someone slips and reveals the truth; int his case Hugh Hewitt noticed and has been on the issue:
On yesterday's program I played a clip of Professor Stuart Altman's testimony before a Senate committee meeting devoted to the radical restructuring of health care. Professor Altman got perilously close to candor:
People are using technologies that really don't work at all or keep people alive for very limited or very high costs, hospice is one option, but we do need to take account of the costs, ya know, I hate to say it, the cost benefits of some of the things we do.
As I told the audience yesterday, this is a message to older Americans that they are the target of health care "reform," and that they are going to find themselves the first to run into rationing. Mortuaries should be gearing up for the transition to ObamaCare because the life expectancy of the elderly is going to take a sudden turn for the worse under any cost-benefit analysis of treatment of older Americans.
His post includes a discussion of California's upcoming vote on funding their government's out of control spending. It is a fascinating look at what may be a harbinger of "Tea parties" morphing into votes that could shake the Washington elites.
In almost every arena, beyond the most easily constructed man bites dog narratives, the MSM is not supplying anything close to actual news but instead spending their time supporting a narrative fiction of the world that they have adopted uncritically. They are so wedded to their world view that they continue to add fictitious cards to bolster their house of cards; when the whole thing crashes (their business model is unsustainable, even with their new and soon to be extended tax advantages given by grateful governments) they will blame the ignorant masses who refused to continue funding their house of cards (or mirrors) long after any resemblance to reality had faded away.
We need a free and vigorous press; it is a pillar of democracy and when it fails to do its job we all suffer. Unfortunately we are in a dangerous period where the replacement for the MSM is not yet mature enough to function without the tradition MSM. Lots of damage can still be done by those who fancy themselves to be the gatekeepers of our information.
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