nhaler

myflagisblackandred:

Xfinity news completely changes their coverage of the Marine who killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

[First picture: Facebook status link. Explanation reads: “Original title was “Marine to Serve No Jail Time for Iraqi Killings.” Yet another war criminal walks free. The problem isn’t a “few bad apples” its systemic. “Our troops” are overseas torturing, raping and murdering “enemy” soldiers and civilians alike. Theyre taking trophies (photos, body parts, etc.) And desecrating corpses. And no one is being held accountable. This is the ugly reality of war.”

Same user comments: “ Click the link. The headline now reads “Convicted Marine Apologizes to Iraqi Civilians.”“

Headline circled in red reads: “Marine to serve no jail time in Iraqi killings.”

First preview paragraph, circled in yellow, reads: “The lone Marine to face sentencing for the killing of two dozen unarmed Iraqis in one of the Iraq War’s defining moments walked away with no jail time Tuesday after defending his squad’s storming of […]”

Second Picture: News article from link.

Headline circled in red reads: “Convicted Marine apologizes to Iraqi civilians”

First three paragraphs, circled in yellow, read: “CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — When Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich finally spoke in court, he did not address the judge but instead directed his words at the Iraqi family members who survived his squad’s attacks in 2005 that left 24 unarmed civilians dead.

The 31-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine apologized for the loss of their loved ones and said he never intended to harm them or their families. He went on to tell the court that his guilty plea in no way suggests that his squad behaved badly or dishonorably.

“But even with the best intentions, sometimes combat actions can cause tragic results,” Wuterich said in an unsworn statement.”

First, the “Marine” committed “killings.” Then, they were “his squads attacks that left 24 unarmed civilians dead” but only as an ending clause explaining why the Marine is apologizing to families.

First, the article was about the Marine receiving no jail time for murdering 24 unarmed people. Then, it was about him apologizing for “negligent dereliction,” with special emphasis on how he “never intended to harm them or their families.”

I wish I could get away with murdering 24 people and saying that I was just being negligent and never meant to harm them.

“ I can tell you that journalists don’t think in terms of evading issues, but in terms of trying to tell both sides of a story. They’re not always perfect, but that’s why I’m generally skeptical of discussions of conspiracy or systemic evasion of something when it comes to the media: Generally, the conclusion is much simpler than it seems, and it tends to be unintentional — they’re trying to balance signal and noise, one side and the other, and it’s difficult to balance both. Which is not to say it’s not an excuse for them to try harder, but to emphasize that newsrooms aren’t generally trying to pull the wool over your eyes.”

I’ve posted this quote here because the irony is obvious. Whatever the inclinations of the person who actually said this, it’s obviously at odds with the facts above. What the media consistently demonstrates to the public is a kind of subservient statism that exists independently of the those who themselves articulate the interests of the State, that is [y]our leaders, which nevertheless is mistaken as a brand of contrarianism, or more benignly, “objective” reporting. 

As evinced by the bolded quote above, taken directly from a personal exchange I had with a journalist from one of the Big 6, there is a schizophrenia that is both internal, and external. The external one has been described. 

What must constitute the internal form of schizophrenia, however, is a mix, in varying degrees, of either of two possible conditions: they are, by and large, actually under the impression that their jobs are serving the interests of the public—however at odds whatever the institution’s position is at with public opinion—in which case the schizophrenia is a kind of Dissociative Identity Disorder whereby the journalists are completely unaware of the interests they’re serving, or the discursive manipulation they are a part of.

The second one, more simply, is the precise opposite of this. That is, they are entirely aware, and actively deceive, revise, construe, and serve interests to either stifle debate or direct the flow of conversation. In this case, an appalling and active form of double-think is required to sustain such a pretense. Neither of these scenarios are likely to occur totally in one form or throughout the entire industry absolutely.

But what’s obvious is that, at a certain level, the latter form is pervasive. The former may be present, but the wide availability of materials and discussions which refute the practical reality of that situation is overwhelming, well-known, and heavily avoided; this, too, would imply a steep awareness of the situation on the part of just about all parties. 

It’s frustrating having to spell it out, but rarely is it done so. When pressed, however, as in the bolded quote above, they simply retreat to the traditional position. Any example will suffice—Joe Paterno, for example. Marissa points out, quite correctly, that the media was grossly sympathetic to his passing, despite the man’s practically-pathological disposition towards encouraging rape and lying. The terms “scandal” and “unfortunate” all forgive, by use of language which implies doubt, and regret, with regard to the atrocities of his behaviour. A similar thing happened in the early days of 2011, when most media outlets were branding Gaddhafi as a “madman” and “insane”, who “rambled incoherently” and whose comments about American intervention in the Middle East were therefore invalid. One illuminating, and highly typical example which may be cited, is Gaddhafi’s actual diplomatic talks and his agreement to cease confrontations with protesters, which was never reported, or commented-on, by the media at all in America. 

Even the word “controversy” is only a secondary descriptor of the act: it describes the reaction to, and coverage-of, news—not the news itself. These are habitual failings of the press. So common is the language used as such that we don’t even recognize it as “bias”; it practically takes someone who specialises in both statistics and linguistics to recognize it so. 

The media’s mandate is to always act in the interest of the public. 

There are historical origins in the pretentious “objectivity” fetishism which continues to be branded about by media outlets. It is because, it was known for a time, the media occasionally was not very objective. It was perfectly happy to push schlock, both in news and advertising, to the public for the increased dollar that responded to it. The backlash was sufficient enough for outlets to recognize if not the need for objectivity, at least the demand for it. And so they sold whatever approximation of “objectivity” they could, and can, get away with. 

While we continue to whine about the mis-steps of journalists—that is, single men who are generally agents that respond only to their personal interests in the absence of coercion—who all-too-readily report quickly and sloppily on a story, as in the case of Joe Paterno’s death, we get up in fits and have spastic reactions to something we know will be corrected within minutes anyway.

Institutions mobilize their forces to condemn the offender, and it is by doing so that we are shown the media “cares” for “responsible reporting”, without ever addressing the fact they’ve morally excused every transgression that actually outraged the public in the first place. 

It may be countered, indeed it frequently is, that the media, either by convention does not weigh in on moral issues, or by mandate, should not weigh in on moral issues. Baloney. This is nonsense, and we all know it: you see it wherever commentary on states that are enemies to the US exists, or where a sufficiently-disliked group is reported on. To steal the metric of moral casuistry of Lincoln via Hitchens, if denunciation of one’s transgression is an active instance of moral condemnation, then silent tolerance is a passive instance of moral approval. 

But hey, if they say something about the outrageous, then it’s not objective, is it—or maybe it’s the process of “separating signal and noise”?