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War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda

Is the MSM (main stream media) unbiased, reliable and trustworthy?


  • Total voters
    28
  • Poll closed .

DaveFagan

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40389.htm
War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda
By John Pilger
"Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power? These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003. The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies."..snip "In 2003, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the distinguished American investigative journalist. We discussed the invasion of Iraq a few months earlier. I asked him, "What if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and investigated their claims, instead of channeling what turned out to be crude propaganda?" He replied that if we journalists had done our job "there is a very, very good chance we would have not gone to war in Iraq." That's a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question. Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, gave me the same answer. David Rose of the Observer and senior journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous, gave me the same answer. In other words, had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children might be alive today; and millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia might not have ignited, and the infamous Islamic State might not now exist. Even now, despite the millions who took to the streets in protest, most of the public in western countries have little idea of the sheer scale of the crime committed by our governments in Iraq. Even fewer are aware that, in the 12 years before the invasion, the US and British governments set in motion a holocaust by denying the civilian population of Iraq a means to live."...
snip"
Rupert Murdoch is said to be the godfather of the media mob, and no one should doubt the augmented power of his newspapers - all 127 of them, with a combined circulation of 40 million, and his Fox network. But the influence of Murdoch's empire is no greater than its reflection of the wider media. The most effective propaganda is found not in the Sun or on Fox News - but beneath a liberal halo. When the New York Times published claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn't Fox News; it was the New York Times. The same is true of the Washington Post and the Guardian, both of which have played a critical role in conditioning their readers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All three liberal newspapers have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in Ukraine was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato. This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40389.htm

Does this ring true?

Is our Main Stream Media distorted?

Is our MSM bought and sold?

Is our MSM infiltrated by intelligence agencies?

Do independent reports investigate or do they accept gov't media handouts?

Does MSM seem "agenda oriented?"

Poll Question
Is the MSM (main stream media) unbiased, reliable and trustworthy?
 
Last edited:
   War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda   :  Information Clearing House - ICH
War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda
By John Pilger
"Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power? These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003. The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies."..snip "In 2003, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the distinguished American investigative journalist. We discussed the invasion of Iraq a few months earlier. I asked him, "What if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and investigated their claims, instead of channeling what turned out to be crude propaganda?" He replied that if we journalists had done our job "there is a very, very good chance we would have not gone to war in Iraq." That's a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question. Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, gave me the same answer. David Rose of the Observer and senior journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous, gave me the same answer. In other words, had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children might be alive today; and millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia might not have ignited, and the infamous Islamic State might not now exist. Even now, despite the millions who took to the streets in protest, most of the public in western countries have little idea of the sheer scale of the crime committed by our governments in Iraq. Even fewer are aware that, in the 12 years before the invasion, the US and British governments set in motion a holocaust by denying the civilian population of Iraq a means to live."...
snip"
Rupert Murdoch is said to be the godfather of the media mob, and no one should doubt the augmented power of his newspapers - all 127 of them, with a combined circulation of 40 million, and his Fox network. But the influence of Murdoch's empire is no greater than its reflection of the wider media. The most effective propaganda is found not in the Sun or on Fox News - but beneath a liberal halo. When the New York Times published claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn't Fox News; it was the New York Times. The same is true of the Washington Post and the Guardian, both of which have played a critical role in conditioning their readers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All three liberal newspapers have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in Ukraine was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato. This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war."
   War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda   :  Information Clearing House - ICH

Does this ring true?

Is our Main Stream Media distorted?

Is our MSM bought and sold?

Is our MSM infiltrated by intelligence agencies?

Do independent reports investigate or do they accept gov't media handouts?

Does MSM seem "agenda oriented?"

Poll Question
Is the MSM (main stream media) unbiased, reliable and trustworthy?

No offense, but any time I see such a loaded question for a title, I'm inclined to always roll my eyes and just pick other. Is our media perfect? No, but neither is anyone else's. However, if you shop around, which most do anyways, you are able to get a more complete picture. Do news outlet's today have some biases, sure, but part of that is necessary. There's a lot of news that happens, especially in today's digital age. And one station isn't going to be able to cover them all.
 
I don't automatically believe any of them, as virtually all of them appear to have bias.
 
I don't automatically believe any of them, as virtually all of them appear to have bias.

Skepticism is always a healthy approach when it comes to news, especially in today's age. Hell, look at all the trouble Rolling Stones magazine is in when the supposed rape story blew up in their face, especially when they found out that pledges don't even happened in the fall.
 
Does this ring true?

Yes, but with a serious fault. There has never been a time where media was completely independent of political lean, it's ownership having political lean, or otherwise.

Is our Main Stream Media distorted?

Of course it is, always has been.

Is our MSM bought and sold?

Yes, and it has to be that way else you get government ran media. Which is far worse in both the propaganda and control departments. Shuffle on over to North Korea if you are not buying what I am saying.

Is our MSM infiltrated by intelligence agencies?

Doubt it. They do not need to.

Do independent reports investigate or do they accept gov't media handouts?

Depends on who is doing the investigating. I.E. what the lean of the "independent" reports was vs. the lean of the reporter questioning the results. At the end of the day there is no such thing as independent reporting, we all have leans to deal with. It may be mild, but it is there in some respect. Just a fact of life, no one can be completely robotic in reporting what they see.

Does MSM seem "agenda oriented?"

Of course, again... always has been and always will be.

Is the MSM (main stream media) unbiased, reliable and trustworthy?

Voted "Other."

It comes down to a basic understanding of the media. Since they are all biased in some regard the smart money suggests reading as many sources as you can obtain (agree with and not agree with) on a matter then making an informed opinion based on it all. Where we go wrong is only listening to / watching / reading what we agree with and dismissing all others as monumentally wrong because of their lean. The former is a product of wanting as much information as possible and leads to reasoned discussion, the latter is intellectual laziness regurgitating what one was told by someone else.
 
It comes down to a basic understanding of the media. Since they are all biased in some regard the smart money suggests reading as many sources as you can obtain (agree with and not agree with) on a matter then making an informed opinion based on it all. Where we go wrong is only listening to / watching / reading what we agree with and dismissing all others as monumentally wrong because of their lean. The former is a product of wanting as much information as possible and leads to reasoned discussion, the latter is intellectual laziness regurgitating what one was told by someone else.

In general, I don't believe news outlets lie so much, as they don't tell the whole story most of the time.
 
In general, I don't believe news outlets lie so much, as they don't tell the whole story most of the time.

That is a very fine line there when considering major events we see the media report on, I may even go so far as to say in some cases on major news stories omission is lying.
 
That is a very fine line there when considering major events we see the media report on, I may even go so far as to say in some cases on major news stories omission is lying.

Their not lying, just not providing the proper context. There certainly doing a disservice to their viewers, but they're still not lying. It's very similar to how politicians speak. Like when Obama talks about how far deficits have dropped during his administration, like "largest deficit reduction since the second world war" is something that floats around. What he neglects to point out is how it has skyrocketed under his administrations to levels never before seen.

Context matters.
 
Yes, but with a serious fault. There has never been a time where media was completely independent of political lean, it's ownership having political lean, or otherwise.



Of course it is, always has been.



Yes, and it has to be that way else you get government ran media. Which is far worse in both the propaganda and control departments. Shuffle on over to North Korea if you are not buying what I am saying.



Doubt it. They do not need to.



Depends on who is doing the investigating. I.E. what the lean of the "independent" reports was vs. the lean of the reporter questioning the results. At the end of the day there is no such thing as independent reporting, we all have leans to deal with. It may be mild, but it is there in some respect. Just a fact of life, no one can be completely robotic in reporting what they see.



Of course, again... always has been and always will be.



Voted "Other."

It comes down to a basic understanding of the media. Since they are all biased in some regard the smart money suggests reading as many sources as you can obtain (agree with and not agree with) on a matter then making an informed opinion based on it all. Where we go wrong is only listening to / watching / reading what we agree with and dismissing all others as monumentally wrong because of their lean. The former is a product of wanting as much information as possible and leads to reasoned discussion, the latter is intellectual laziness regurgitating what one was told by someone else.


refers to link made red by me
The Church Committee found 400 CIA assets/agents in US media in 1977. The CIA has grown remarkedly since then , ergo so has infiltration in MEDIA. 400 agents concentrated in one industry suggests a covert plan to influence that industry.
 
Skepticism is always a healthy approach when it comes to news, especially in today's age. Hell, look at all the trouble Rolling Stones magazine is in when the supposed rape story blew up in their face, especially when they found out that pledges don't even happened in the fall.

And I actually used to like Rolling Stone mag. They ran a short series of articles about the financial crisis, back around the time that it became so apparent, and I thought they did a pretty good job, but this most recent scandal has pretty much destroyed any respect I had for them. When you start trying to create the news, as you wish it to be, rather than reporting stories in their reality, you've lost all credibility with me.
 
Their not lying, just not providing the proper context. There certainly doing a disservice to their viewers, but they're still not lying. It's very similar to how politicians speak. Like when Obama talks about how far deficits have dropped during his administration, like "largest deficit reduction since the second world war" is something that floats around. What he neglects to point out is how it has skyrocketed under his administrations to levels never before seen.

Context matters.
To me, lying by omission is still lying. Especially if it's done consciously. What you choose to not say has a definite impact on how others perceive a piece of information.

In a general sense I believe that our media has devolved to this level over the past several decades. They're not necessarily outright lying, but they are often lying by omission, which has the same end result.
 
To me, lying by omission is still lying. Especially if it's done consciously. What you choose to not say has a definite impact on how others perceive a piece of information.

In a general sense I believe that our media has devolved to this level over the past several decades. They're not necessarily outright lying, but they are often lying by omission, which has the same end result.

Part of the problem is that the media isn't just trying to tell you the news, but also provide context with it. And when you do that, you are inevitably going to leave things out. I mean, say a segment about ISIS is ten minutes long. There's no way you can go into the complete history of the organization in that amount of time, but you still have to find a way. And this is where a lot of cutting down to fit comes into place. You see, not always are they leaving some out to deceive, sometimes they just don't have enough time. Especially with Cable news, where they have and audience that expects a certain slant. Or if not a slant, then at least to hear about things they want to hear about. I mean, it's no different than if you go on Youtube or a website, you're looking for news or information that interest you.
 
Part of the problem is that the media isn't just trying to tell you the news, but also provide context with it. And when you do that, you are inevitably going to leave things out. I mean, say a segment about ISIS is ten minutes long. There's no way you can go into the complete history of the organization in that amount of time, but you still have to find a way. And this is where a lot of cutting down to fit comes into place. You see, not always are they leaving some out to deceive, sometimes they just don't have enough time. Especially with Cable news, where they have and audience that expects a certain slant. Or if not a slant, then at least to hear about things they want to hear about. I mean, it's no different than if you go on Youtube or a website, you're looking for news or information that interest you.
Granted, but some omissions are more glaring than others.
 
Part of the problem is that the media isn't just trying to tell you the news, but also provide context with it. And when you do that, you are inevitably going to leave things out. I mean, say a segment about ISIS is ten minutes long. There's no way you can go into the complete history of the organization in that amount of time, but you still have to find a way. And this is where a lot of cutting down to fit comes into place. You see, not always are they leaving some out to deceive, sometimes they just don't have enough time. Especially with Cable news, where they have and audience that expects a certain slant. Or if not a slant, then at least to hear about things they want to hear about. I mean, it's no different than if you go on Youtube or a website, you're looking for news or information that interest you.

ISIS is an excellent example. How much time does any western MSM spend stating that the CIA has been arming many Islamic Fundamentalists that then fight on the side of ISIS. It's probably a coincidence that fear of ISIS, Islamic Fundamentalists, and Muslims generate much larger Military Defense/Offense budgets, or it's creative marketing. We de-stabilized Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, etc., but most USA think we are the victims in those Nations. Again, creative marketing and the MIC profits handsomely and that is Vulture Capitalism at its' finest, eh? The MSM can lead us in to or out of this morass of creative marketing, but they are bought and sold to the highest bidder and again it appears to be the beneficiaries of permanent war that buy the commercial airtime. That's why the question asks "unbiased," "reliable," and "trustworthy." There is more to be considered than meets the naked eye, don't ya' know? ISIS, Syria, ME, Energy, and pipelines are what the ME instability is about and how much detail does the MSM analyze of that?
 
ISIS is an excellent example. How much time does any western MSM spend stating that the CIA has been arming many Islamic Fundamentalists that then fight on the side of ISIS. It's probably a coincidence that fear of ISIS, Islamic Fundamentalists, and Muslims generate much larger Military Defense/Offense budgets, or it's creative marketing. We de-stabilized Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, etc., but most USA think we are the victims in those Nations. Again, creative marketing and the MIC profits handsomely and that is Vulture Capitalism at its' finest, eh? The MSM can lead us in to or out of this morass of creative marketing, but they are bought and sold to the highest bidder and again it appears to be the beneficiaries of permanent war that buy the commercial airtime. That's why the question asks "unbiased," "reliable," and "trustworthy." There is more to be considered than meets the naked eye, don't ya' know? ISIS, Syria, ME, Energy, and pipelines are what the ME instability is about and how much detail does the MSM analyze of that?

Point of order: Did we cause the Arab Spring? No? Then you can't say destabilized any of the middle eastern countries involved. And bringing up Ukraine is ridiculous, the people or Ukraine, (at the very least those in the west).
 
No to "are the main stream media" unbiased. That is such a subjective question that it is very difficult to honesty determine. But I believe as a whole most main stream media are biased up to a point.

But largely "yes" to both the reliable and trustworthy when it comes to most subjects of news. Sadly there are examples of news media failing to be trustworthy and reliable. Foxnews is mostly reliable when it comes to news stories but looses a lot if talking heads get involved in the reporting of that news, that too happens with MSNBC and CNN.
 
Point of order: Did we cause the Arab Spring? No? Then you can't say destabilized any of the middle eastern countries involved. And bringing up Ukraine is ridiculous, the people or Ukraine, (at the very least those in the west).

CIA orchestrates "Color Revolutions" and their fingerprints are all over the "Arab Spring." If Nations won't play the energy game our US/CORPORATE/Big energy way, then we de-stabilize them and try to install a flunkie/stooge that will cooperate with our agenda. IF you haven't noticed, we have a Corporate Government and the SCOTUS says they are citizens. He who has the gold makes the rules, and that is not the lowly taxpaying donkey, like you or I. The CIA was chartered to help USA CORPORATIONS overseas and has expanded its' role domestically and within the US Military. I think their mission creep includes world domination by economic manipulation of Central Banks and Bankers.
 
CIA orchestrates "Color Revolutions" and their fingerprints are all over the "Arab Spring." If Nations won't play the energy game our US/CORPORATE/Big energy way, then we de-stabilize them and try to install a flunkie/stooge that will cooperate with our agenda. IF you haven't noticed, we have a Corporate Government and the SCOTUS says they are citizens. He who has the gold makes the rules, and that is not the lowly taxpaying donkey, like you or I. The CIA was chartered to help USA CORPORATIONS overseas and has expanded its' role domestically and within the US Military. I think their mission creep includes world domination by economic manipulation of Central Banks and Bankers.

All of that is completely debunked with the first two countries in the Arab Spring; Tunisia and Egypt. With Tunisia (a very unreported, but also only success of the Arab Spring) that started with Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, who set himself on fire on in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides. So are you proposing that Bouazizi was secretly a CIA Agent? Or maybe it was in Egypt that we got involved, where the Arab Spring ousted long time US Ally Hosni Mubarak and was replaced by a militant Islamic organization?

The Arab Spring had nothing to do with the CIA or the "Corporate Government", and everything to do with the piss poor quality of life for the average Arab, and a collection of leaders in the Middle East that are pretty much ****. I don't see how anyone could ever see anything else, except for a deep seeded hatred of the US. (Not mistrust mind you, it's fine to but cautious, but when you hate someone, you find a way to blame them from whatever. Like Republicans do with Obama, or Democrats with Bush, everything is there fault and it can never be something else.)
 
Is anyone in the news media up for calling out the same government that could have you tortured in an unknown location?

See how that works?
 
All of that is completely debunked with the first two countries in the Arab Spring; Tunisia and Egypt. With Tunisia (a very unreported, but also only success of the Arab Spring) that started with Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, who set himself on fire on in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides. So are you proposing that Bouazizi was secretly a CIA Agent? Or maybe it was in Egypt that we got involved, where the Arab Spring ousted long time US Ally Hosni Mubarak and was replaced by a militant Islamic organization?

The Arab Spring had nothing to do with the CIA or the "Corporate Government", and everything to do with the piss poor quality of life for the average Arab, and a collection of leaders in the Middle East that are pretty much ****. I don't see how anyone could ever see anything else, except for a deep seeded hatred of the US. (Not mistrust mind you, it's fine to but cautious, but when you hate someone, you find a way to blame them from whatever. Like Republicans do with Obama, or Democrats with Bush, everything is there fault and it can never be something else.)

The USA is funding Egypt again, now that they have a military dictatorship back in control. The CIA's General Hafter is still working to get his "cred" up in Libya now that we got that no-good scumbag that gave the people free housing, free education through University, free food, and free water in the desert. Those starving schmucks must be happy now that they got equality and they're all free to be poverty stricken. We got rid of that bastard that wasted his time helping the people instead of Western Corporations. And just as soon as we can get a nice malleable dictator running that country, we'll get that OIL working again. But there ain't gonna be any more of them social freebies provided by the Nation's patrimony. That's gonna be our OIL under their dirt, eh?
 
Journalists are about as honest as politicians.
 
I voted Other, and here is my explanation for that view -- the media is beholden to the government and the government is beholden to them and has penetrated their ranks. That is true. What also is true is that some of the organizations are horrifically partisan. Their bias is not logical. But it is their job to be biased, so they enjoy the checks as they're cashin' 'em. Print media suffers from a lot of the same drawbacks that the mainstream TV news does. They get pressed on by the government, are beholden to them for information, have been penetrated by the Security Services and rely on sensationalist headlines to draw people to read their paper, be it an actual paper or their digitized content, because they are also beholden to investors and an owner and etc etc because they're a business. They have to be to broadcast the news of the day.

There are more flaws, but here's why I chose Other -- the media will crucify the government from time-to-time. If you ever have the inclination, peruse newspaper archives. The media has beaten the government over the head with so many, many different things over the years. It is a natural conflict written into the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers knew that an aware and educated populace would keep the ship running steadily ahead. Obviously, 200+ years later, there's 316,000,000+ of us now inhabiting this land. An aware and educated populace today would put an end to the exploits the government today and all of 'em before have thoroughly enjoyed. The media tries to inform us, but people nowadays are just not interested in knowing what's going on in the world outside of their friends and family. They'd rather watch the NFL and drink a cold beer any day of the week instead of scrolling through Google News. Such is life.
 
I'll just focus on their written formats, the televisions formats can be far more problematic as they work with a 24/7 model that pushes them to just fill in time with second-rate journalism on some horrible thing that happened.

Mainstream Media is bias when it wants to be, reliable when it wants to be, and trustworthy until they have a reason not to be. Most of the stuff MM sources put out on a daily basis are more less accurate unless it's like the RT or some popular ultra right-wing/left-wing site -- Fox can be pretty bad, but it's not RT bad, that's just a Russian propaganda site. CNN, BBC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, and other such major sources can range from decent to great.

Non-mainstream sites are hardly superior in quality if you're just using popularity of use to divide the two. Al Jazeera is great for a lot of things, but you won't see them paying enough time to that backwards, slave driving petrostate they call home, ya know, Qatar. NPR and PBS are great, no doubt.

I guess the teller in quality is how they handle the more sensitive and high profile of stories and how much attention they past to major affairs outside the sphere of the developed world and developing world power player.

Non-mainstream sources are far more likely to fall towards fringe sentiments and spew unfounded nonsense, so you need to be more careful with that on a normal basis as opposed to mainstream sources bending the facts to support their narrative, or their owner's narrative, that is. Though, they can also be great and call attention to less....followed situations and stories around the country or the world if it's global in scope.

Anyway, all sources are bias by default, that's just how it is. Reliable? For the mainstream, usually, though this can vary when the big stories come around. Trustworthy? It varies, they were pretty atrocious with the Ferguson mess and even worse with the Ebola business (though they never gave false information, they stirred up false fears).

All I can say is get your news from multiple sources, several at the least and not all of the same national origin or general political sway ( if it caters heavily to liberal or conservative views, you need to diversify a bit).

Oh, and yea, pay attention.

I mean it was hilarious how many people were surprised by the NSA revelations by Snowden when articles had been out by all the major news sites in this nation about companies handing over client info to the government and general, unlawful surveillance of the American people a few years before.
 
The USA is funding Egypt again, now that they have a military dictatorship back in control. The CIA's General Hafter is still working to get his "cred" up in Libya now that we got that no-good scumbag that gave the people free housing, free education through University, free food, and free water in the desert. Those starving schmucks must be happy now that they got equality and they're all free to be poverty stricken. We got rid of that bastard that wasted his time helping the people instead of Western Corporations. And just as soon as we can get a nice malleable dictator running that country, we'll get that OIL working again. But there ain't gonna be any more of them social freebies provided by the Nation's patrimony. That's gonna be our OIL under their dirt, eh?

This is hilarious you bring up Libya. You do realize that BP signed a deal with Libya's leader (not going to butcher his name) for "OIL" right? We didn't need to go to war for "OIL". What a joke.

Also, I like how you just gloss over the fact that Egypt for a time wasn't ruled by an ally of the US. So I assume you admit then that Egypt wasn't carried out by CIA moles?
 
   War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda   :  Information Clearing House - ICH
War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda
By John Pilger
"Why are young journalists not taught to understand media agendas and to challenge the high claims and low purpose of fake objectivity? And why are they not taught that the essence of so much of what's called the mainstream media is not information, but power? These are urgent questions. The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war - with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003. The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies."..snip "In 2003, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the distinguished American investigative journalist. We discussed the invasion of Iraq a few months earlier. I asked him, "What if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and investigated their claims, instead of channeling what turned out to be crude propaganda?" He replied that if we journalists had done our job "there is a very, very good chance we would have not gone to war in Iraq." That's a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question. Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, gave me the same answer. David Rose of the Observer and senior journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous, gave me the same answer. In other words, had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children might be alive today; and millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia might not have ignited, and the infamous Islamic State might not now exist. Even now, despite the millions who took to the streets in protest, most of the public in western countries have little idea of the sheer scale of the crime committed by our governments in Iraq. Even fewer are aware that, in the 12 years before the invasion, the US and British governments set in motion a holocaust by denying the civilian population of Iraq a means to live."...
snip"
Rupert Murdoch is said to be the godfather of the media mob, and no one should doubt the augmented power of his newspapers - all 127 of them, with a combined circulation of 40 million, and his Fox network. But the influence of Murdoch's empire is no greater than its reflection of the wider media. The most effective propaganda is found not in the Sun or on Fox News - but beneath a liberal halo. When the New York Times published claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn't Fox News; it was the New York Times. The same is true of the Washington Post and the Guardian, both of which have played a critical role in conditioning their readers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All three liberal newspapers have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in Ukraine was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato. This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war."
   War by Media and the Triumph of Propaganda   :  Information Clearing House - ICH

Does this ring true?

Is our Main Stream Media distorted?

Is our MSM bought and sold?

Is our MSM infiltrated by intelligence agencies?

Do independent reports investigate or do they accept gov't media handouts?

Does MSM seem "agenda oriented?"

Poll Question
Is the MSM (main stream media) unbiased, reliable and trustworthy?

Yes ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC etc have bias, yes they have agendas, same for large print media

this started once ratings/subscribers/copies sold mattered so much and more so than the actual news
 
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