» Archive: mediaanalysis
July 18, 2006
Your media analysis exercise for the day
1. Pick up a copy of today's Globe and Mail
2. Try to find where, in the 11 articles on the situation in Lebanon, it is mentioned how many civilians have been killed (currently estimated at over 200) in the bombings to date.
I can't say that I've read all of the articles closely yet, but the closest thing I've seen so far to a figure is a mention, in the 15th paragraph of a story on page A11, that 10 civilians were killed yesterday while the bridge they were driving over was bombed.
The subject of the article? The evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon.
June 13, 2006
Fisk: Has Racism Invaded Canada?
Robert Robert Fisk, reporting from Canada: "This has been a good week to be in Canada--or an awful week, depending on your point of view--to understand just how irretrievably biased and potentially racist the Canadian press has become. For, after the arrest of 17 Canadian Muslims on "terrorism" charges, the Toronto Globe and Mail and, to a slightly lesser extent, the National Post, have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing that must reduce the chances of any fair trial and, at the same time, sow fear in the hearts of the country's more than 700,000 Muslims. In fact, if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I'd already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town. Or is that the purpose of this press campaign?"
May 30, 2006
Allied Media Conference
If I was a fair bit closer to Ohio, I'd be making my way to the Allied Media Conference this summer.
January 16, 2006
CBC's true colours?
Andrew Coyne traces the colours of the CBC logo over the years and finds a striking correlation with the party currently in power. I mean, it's undeniable that the CBC is pro government, often moreso than other media. But this is just weird.
This Election
Blog This: "And the winner is... already determined, if you look at any of Canada's major newspapers and TV newscasts more than a week before election day. The story of Conservative momentum and Liberal downfall is dominating the headlines, to the point where features about might-as-well-be-prime-minister Stephen Harper seem like preparation for the populace. "Hey, we already know the outcome of the race, so get used to your new government," the nation's editors and producers seem to be saying."
January 01, 2006
Bil'in
There are many reasons why suicide bombings happen in the Middle East. One of those -- one could speculate -- might be that peaceful protests don't get covered by the international press, no matter how peaceful, well-supported or brave.
Ha'aretz: "Settlers aren't the only ones building outposts in the West Bank: Palestinians from the village of Bil'in, near Ramallah, on Wednesday set up a caravan on land isolated from the village by the separation fence. Israel Defense Forces troops are gearing up to evacuate the caravan, military sources say."
December 29, 2005
Media Analysis Stateside
Media analysis in the US is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. Except that the barrel is so large and so fish-saturated that one has to wade in order to get a shot off. And there are a lot more fish than there are bullets. To extend the metaphor.
So good on the folks who occasionally get a well-aimed shot into the mix. It's easy enough to give up, and many have.
December 23, 2005
Svend him packing?
Anyone else find that Macleans' cover story hitpiece on Svend Robinson is a little incoherent?
Is it too much to ask that a Canadian legislator revere and uphold the law in all circumstances, not picking and choosing when to play by the rules? Yes, principled dissent is fine. Civil disobedience, too, has its place. But that's not what Robinson is about. He's a self-aggrandizing lout with a disdain for parliamentary and judicial institutions.You can either say that civil disobedience "has its place," or you can say that MPs are obligated to "revere and uphold the law in all circumstances". But you can't say both at the same time, much less in the same paragraph--at least not without changing the subject.
According to the first definition I found, civil disobedience is:
Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means.Admittedly, it doesn't sound as good if you just come out and say that you don't like his politics.
And if the case to keep Svend Robinson out of the House of Commons is so strong, why does the case against him rely so heavily on half truths (in addition to self-contradicting principles) like the following:
Yet however much he behaves as a law unto himself, Robinson has been quick to appeal to the justice system when it suits his purposes. After being tear-gassed and having his pants ripped in Quebec City, he encouraged anyone who had been "illegally attacked" to sue the RCMP. This year he received $10,000 for "general damages, pain and suffering" from the Mounties as a result. He also sued a newspaper that ridiculed his performance at the Quebec summit. He is currently suing a Vancouver radio station for comments made on-air.The opening implication here is that one cannot oppose specific laws without opposing the justice system as a whole. That one is, as it were, either with the whole of Canadian legislation and jurisprudence, or against it. This position is at best untenable.
The characterization of Quebec City and the subsequent coverage also relies on misreporting. Macleans says that Robinson's "pants were ripped". In fact, he was hit in the leg with a rubber bullet fired by the RCMP, which is a little different. Macleans says that he sued a newspaper that "ridiculed his performance". That newspaper was the National Post, and Robinson sued them for quoting him as saying things that he never said. The reporter whose name appeared on the byline later noted that the editors had rewritten large portions of the original article, inserting purported facts that were, in fact, lies.
The legal term, in case Macleans isn't aware of it, is libel.
If one looks at the actual coherent and factual bits, Macleans' case against Robinson boils down to two things: that his stealing of a ring was unforgivable, and he must be punished; and that Robinson is a "self-aggrandizing lout".
Basically, they don't like him, or the political causes he advocates on behalf of. This is fine, by why pretend that it is some kind of principled argument?
December 15, 2005
"I am the anti-Proust"
Tom Tomorrow documents the NYTimes' affliction of gratuitous Proust references.
Bizarre. Funny. Grim.
December 14, 2005
Rumsfeld the media analyst
Donal Rumsfeld: "We've arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press, and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact."
December 02, 2005
I'd like to see more ledes like this one...
CTV: "Paul Martin has resurrected his 'promise made, promise kept' mantra for the election campaign, but when it comes to one of his biggest promises -- eliminating the so-called democratic deficit -- the chant rings a tad hollow."
If it's obvious, why not call politicians on their bullshit?
November 28, 2005
Gaza Border: Don't Believe the Hype?
Ramzy Baroud explains why "the Great Gaza Border Deal" that all the papers were talking about this weekend is extremely likely to be a lot of hype.
"Freeing" the Palestinians in Gaza was the needed confirmation of Israel's good intentions. Although we are yet to observe the Gaza border agreement in practice, there is little historic precedent to conclude that Israel will respect the arrangement. Since the Israeli army has the "green light" to strike Gaza at any time of its choosing (as it has repeatedly since the disengagement) and to freely assassinate any Palestinian "terror suspect", it is difficult to convince ordinary Palestinians that they are truly free, even if the man checking their worthless travel documents at the Rafah border looks and sounds Palestinian.In the last 12 years, numerous arrangements regarding Rafah border control were painstakingly reached and quickly violated. So much Palestinian blood, including that of Palestinian border security officers, was spilled at Rafah and thousands of Palestinians went hungry as they were denied exit while camping on the Egyptian side of the crossing for weeks. Knowing all this, and understanding Israel's overall designs in the occupied territories, it becomes clear that the historic deal in Rafah is, at best, short-lived hype.
November 22, 2005
Agonizing over Prose over Bolivia
Check out the painstaking way in which this paragraph from an NYTimes article on Bolivia's upcoming elections avoids placing any responsibility for Bolivia's problems on the US.
Many Bolivians, and certainly almost all MAS supporters, are more than prepared to blame the Americans for much of what went wrong during what Roberto Fernandez Téran, the economist from the University of San Símon, described to me as "the lost decade of the 1980's and the disappointments of the 1990's." A joke you hear often in Bolivia these days sarcastically describes the country's political system as a coalition between the government, the international financial institutions, multinational corporations and la embajada - the U.S. Embassy. But while it would be unwise to underestimate the force of knee-jerk anti-Americanism in Latin America, the ubiquitousness of leftist sentiments in Bolivia today has more to do, as Joseph Stiglitz points out, with the complete failure of neoliberalism to improve people's lives in any practical sense. It is almost a syllogism: many Bolivians believe (and the economic statistics bear them out) that the demands by international lending institutions that governments cut budgets to the bone and privatize state-owned assets made people's lives worse, not better; the Bolivians believe, also not wrongly, that the U.S. wields extraordinary influence on international financial institutions; and from these conclusions, the appeal of an anti-American, anti-globalization politics becomes almost irresistible to large numbers of people.
The burden of proof for establishing US responsibility for anything substantially bad is so amazingly high that if it was applied equally everywhere else, we would indeed live in a world without facts.
I'd love to see the exchanges between the editors and the author about those last dozen paragraphs. I simply can't believe that anyone writes with such a keen eye to avoiding the obvious conclusion that is backed up by all of the available facts. It's almost as if it's a rhetorical ploy to show how obvious it actually is.
That said, it would be more obvious if the article discussed the massive profits that multinational corporations and the Bolivian elite have made through the privatization of natural resources (including, for a time, rainwater). It didn't.
November 17, 2005
Bush Imagines
Please do listen to the brilliant mashup of Bush rapping John Lennon's "Imagine".
(Click on 'download mp3' next to 'Imagine This')
November 15, 2005
Guardian Attacks Chomsky
Diana Johnstone, Alexander Cockburn and Chomsky himself have responses to the Guardian's recent hitpiece interview with Chomsky, who was voted the "most important public intellectual in the world today" in a poll run by Prospect and Foreign Policy.
That last link goes to an interview where Chomsky talks a bit about who he thinks are the most important intellectuals. One of his suggestions was about Turkish intellectuals:
They're exposing themselves to severe danger ... They're constantly doing things like that. They've been to jail; being in a Turkish jail is not much fun. These are extremely rare activities for intellectuals. But [there it] is rather mainstream.
Update: The Guardian has issued a categorical retraction of its interview.
With hindsight it is acknowledged that the juxtaposition has exacerbated Prof Chomsky's complaint and that is regretted. The Guardian has now withdrawn the interview from the website.
August 15, 2005
We 'Atta' know better by now
Mohammed Atta, the alleged “lead hijacker” of the 9/11 attacks, has resurfaced on the media radar providing a flurry of questions and responses regarding the ABLE DANGER program, a military intelligence unit. According to Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), “ABLE DANGER was a Department of Defense planning effort, tasked…by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The task …was to identify and target Al-Qaeda on a global basis and…present options for leaders (national command authority) to manipulate, degrade or destroy the global Al-Qaeda infrastructure.”
May 18, 2005
The "Principle" Principle
The media is pretty selective about who they call out on the whole principle-vs.-power grab deal.
Does anyone remember that Peter "poor Peter" MacKay not only made a cynical, unprincipled deal with David Orchard for the sole purpose of gaining power, but also doubled-crossed Orchard on the deal that he signed in public!
Flak from the press? Nothing.
May 16, 2005
Conference: Day 2
I'm going to have to refer to the Be The Media blog for accounts of Day 2, as I'm working on something a little more formal in response to the conference.
For a broad cross-section of NCMR blogging, check out this technorati search.
May 03, 2005
In media news...
Joe Scarborough wrote a rather atypical response to FAIR after they sicced their mailing list on him with an action alert.
Ironically, the point of the segment was to focus on how inflammatory talk radio has become and what is required to get good ratings. Having the Liddy comments on air was a great opportunity that we lost.
Thanks for your work to hold reporters and journalists accountable. Such a service is invaluable for those of us who want to be fair.
Meanwhile, a ZNet article chronicles how the "progressive" magazine "Conscious Choice" caved to pressure from Whole Foods and cancelled an ad run by Whole Foods employees who were trying to unionize. But the best was yet to come: after censoring coverage of Whole Foods and subsequently kowtowing to its management with free ad space, the editors agonized publicly about whether they should take ads for cigarettes made with "organic tobacco" or not, soliciting reader feedback and publishing two editorials about it. But when it came to the Whole Foods union drive, there was apparently little agonizing, public or otherwise.
April 24, 2005
More Moussaoui
The Washington Post has run a piece on the Moussaoui plea including an artist sketch of "Zacarias Moussaoui appearing before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema"...
read more...April 03, 2005
On Recent Massacres in Haiti, Media Coverage Thereof
It was ugly and false enough for Iraq, which at least can be said to have had a vicious dictatorship before the invasion. Haiti, before the invasion, had - elections. Elections whose results were annulled by - the invasion. Elections whose winners are being physically liquidated and massacred by - the invasion.
The invasion, whose justification is now - to stop the possible disruption of - elections.
Now would be an appropriate moment for a rhetorical question like: "How stupid do they think we are?"
On a similar note, a US security firm working in Iraq sent out a memo to its employees saying that "actually it is 'fun' to shoot some people."
March 30, 2005
Seven Oaks and Spartacus
Charles Demers' I love(d) you, Spartacus, is one of many good articles in the latest issue of Seven Oaks.
It seems that a small, up-and-coming band of cola-making entrepreneurs called "Pepsi" has related to the classic story of the slave revolt that nearly collapsed the economic foundations of the Roman Empire. As though Michael Jackson's trial for child molestation weren't reminder enough of the inherent dignity of endorsing Pepsi, this past week, my eyes welled with Kirk Douglas-like tears as I saw the company's t.v. spot hijacking one of the most touching scenes in cinematic history (before Hillary Swank tried to bite off her own tongue): Roman centurions, on horseback, demand of a group of chained, captured slave warriors that they give up the leader of their uprising; rather than sell him out, each of his comrades instead stands to claim his identity: "I'm Spartacus!" So touched by their support, the square-jawed gladiator himself begins to cry.This must be a plot by someone inside Pepsi to triggers a revolt against commercial appropriation and saturation of culture. But, no.
The schills at Pepsi read the scene a bit differently: The Romans ask if any of the prisoners has lost a bagged lunch, marked 'Spartacus', that they have found. Since it contains a delicious, refreshing cola, the slaves stand and claim, no longer in unison but in a cacaphony, "I'm Spartacus!", i.e. "That's my lunch, ergo, my Pepsi." I am not making this up. Spartacus's tears are now shed not from the touching swell of solidarity, but for his having lost his lunch. I know the feeling.
March 10, 2005
Two Points for the Toronto Star
So hey, looks like the Toronto Star broke ranks with the rest of the mainstream media yesterday and actually printed something accurate about the situation in Haiti, and Canada's despicable role in it all.
In the words of Ella Fitzgerald, this could be the start of something big.
March 08, 2005
It's only democracy when we fund it
CBC News: Huge pro-Syria rally clogs Beirut square
There are reports that Syria bused people into Lebanon and pressured people to turn out.Interesting that this merits mention when the protesters are pro-Syrian, and not pro-western and Canadian-funded.
Justin Podur: Democracy in Lebanon!
Canada's national newspaper the Globe and Mail's editorial on the topic made a cold war analogy, in which they said that the flowering of democracy in the Middle East (implication being thanks to the American invasion and occupation of and mass murder in Iraq) could be like the 'Arab 1989'. Well there is one sense in which that analogy does apply - the USSR's control of the countries to the west of it was brutal and authoritarian and, like Syria, motivated by the fear of being invaded by powerful neighbours - Western Europe for Russia, Israel for Syria. Of course this kind of geopolitical 'buffer state' thinking does nothing for the people who live in the buffer states other than make them pawns and their lives miserable. But being able to see that a state has a security concern is important.
March 01, 2005
CBC vs. Reuters
Check out the difference in coverage between the CBC and the wire stories that the CBC report was based on. Someone at the CBC was paid to rewrite this story for no other reason than to change the words around to take the edge off of the actions of the Haitian police, which the RCMP is training.
I've highlighted the differences in terminology.
It's bad enough when the CBC regurgitates the misinformation of the wire services, but on the rare occasion that the AP or Reuters can't avoid reporting an incident like this, the CBC apparently needs to twist the facts further.
Here's the CBC:
At least two people were killed Monday at a police roadblock in a suburb of Port-au-Prince where militant supporters of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide rallied to mark the one-year anniversary since he left power.
Police fired tear gas at the crowd as they charged the roadblock, then followed that with live ammunition.
And Reuters:
Three people were killed on Monday when Haitian police opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators protesting the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide a year ago, witnesses and officials said.
Chanting "Aristide for life," thousands of protesters marched in the Bel-Air slum to demand the return of the exiled president, who fled Haiti on Feb. 29 in the face of a bloody rebellion by street gangs and former soldiers and under pressure from the United States and France.
Police began shooting as the demonstrators rounded a corner at an intersection, scattering the panicked crowd.
And the Associated Press:
Police on Monday fired at peaceful protesters marking the one-year anniversary of the ouster of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and at least two people were killed and nearly a dozen were wounded.
About 2,000 protesters waving Aristide pictures and chugging rum started marching toward the National Palace when they encountered a police vehicle blocking the road in Bel Air neighborhood, an Aristide stronghold.
As crowds passed the vehicle, police fired tear gas, then bullets. With weapons drawn, U.N. peacekeepers surrounded the area.
February 15, 2005
New Maclean's Editor
Maclean's magazine has a new editor. He used to be a reporter at the (need I say right wing?) Alberta Report.
February 13, 2005
Counterweights to Big Media
The Tyee: Creating Counterweights to Big Media (How to open up Canada's news media in an era of corporate concentration.)
January 22, 2005
Stroumboulopoulos
George Stroumboulopoulos is going to host a "current affairs" show on CBC TV. Could be interesting, but it will ultimately depend on what kinds of producers he ends up with. (While we wait and see, say his name three times fast.)
In other media news, Michael Powell of the American FCC is stepping down, maybe related to his dad getting replaced by Condi Rice? The NYTimes sums up his record in the first paragraph: "the tightening of standards on decency and attempts to loosen restrictions on media ownership".
It will be interesting to see if the burgeoning media democracy movement in the US can have an effect on who replaces him.
December 22, 2004
Taking Aim
"Taking Aim" is quite possibly the most important radio show you will find this side of "Democracy Now!". Ralph Shoenman and his wife Mya Shone, have archived dozens of their hour-long shows that comb through hundreds of news sources, de-bunking everything we think know.
Go to their site and click on "Program Audio Archive" to see the full list.
December 17, 2004
Gary Webb, take II
LA Weekly: "First the L.A. Times helped kill off Gary Webb's career. Then, eight years later, after Webb committed suicide this past weekend, the Times decided to give his corpse another kick or two, in a scandalous, self-serving and ultimately shameful obituary. It was the culmination of the long, inglorious saga of a major newspaper dropping the ball journalistically, and then extracting relentless revenge on an out-of-town reporter who embarrassed it."
Ends with this bit of inspiration:
"If we had met five years ago, you wouldn’t have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me . . . I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests...
"And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job . . . The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress."
October 04, 2004
Haiti News Watch I
This news analysis is brought to you by Haiti News
Watch (HNW)
Article:
Associated Press (AP) - Stevenson Jacobs
"Aristide's partisans have begun an urban guerrilla
operation that they call Operation Baghdad," human
rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said Saturday. "The
decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they
are meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in
Haiti."
September 11, 2004
Remarkable.
CBC's The National tonight managed to spend a whole segment discussing the root causes of the recent slew of hurricanes without once mentioning human-driven climate change.
Denying it is one thing. Completely ignoring the possibility of its existence is quite another.