You're against torturing people? That means you're pro- Osama.

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/02/cheney-says-enhanced-interrogation-probably-led-ubl-death
In this article that appears on the front page FOXnews.com, entitled "Cheney says Enhanced Interrogation Probably Led to UBL Death," the author employs the classic media bias tactic of issue framing. "I would assume that the enhanced interrogation program that we put in place produced some of the results that led to bin Laden's ultimate capture," the author quotes former vice president Cheney. The article then argues exactly this, that water-boarding and other tactics used led us to Osama and eventually enabled the US to kill him. 
 Right now, with Osama having just been killed, every major news outlet in America is running stories about the families of 9/11 victims that are relieved and how great a day it is for America. The author of this article is using these emotions and linking them to a different issue, the controversial interrogations that occur at Gitmo.  By doing so, anybody that comes out and says that the interrogations are wrong can be now be shot down with, "Oh, so you'd rather Osama still be alive?"
This is similar to when in early 2003, the Bush administration mentioned 9/11 every time they spoke about going into Iraq. This incited emotions of the atrocities to get people in the the gung-ho pro war mindset, and also attempted to make anybody that came out against the war as being pro 9/11.

Unconventional Sources of News = News

When comedian John Stewart is confronted about the fact that The Daily Show has political clout, he often shrugs the allegations off, pointing out that his show is on Comedy Central. His argument is that because his show comes after "puppets making crank phone calls," he can't be held accountable for what goes on during his segment. In this way he's able to evade criticism about what he says on his show.
Personally, however, I don't think that this is an excuse. It's true that John Stewart is not an official news source, and it's true that the show is touted by its producers as a comedy show. However, this doesn't change the fact that when it comes down to it, people are still not only getting their cues about what’s important in the world from the daily show, but are also formulating their opinions about these issues from his show. As we saw from the New York Times article that we read for class, John Stewart has political power, and people listen to what he says.
Therefore, I don’t think Stewart should shirk his responsibilities. While it’s true that he certainly is not a conventional news show and thus is not a conventional news source, that doesn’t take away from what viewers are taking away from his show. No matter what absurd show precedes him, John Stewart is an important voice in the political world, in the same way CNN would still be important even if it came after Sesame Street.

I know this is nothing anybody hasn't heard before, but I find the double-standardness (should be a word) that exists in American politics in relation to Israel blatant. Israel is condemned for increasing its attacks against militants who have started targeting civilian school buses containing children. Israel has been bombarded by rockets and terrorist attacks for years, and yet when they strike back against militant targets they are met with condemnation.
It's interesting to note that when the massive American air force launches air strikes directly at the heart of a country on a different continent that hasn't been attacking us or even sponsoring terrorism against us for at least a decade, there is little criticism of the type Israel receives. In other words, there is criticism that maybe America shouldn't be wasting its resources in Libya, or complaints that there are other countries in the region that deserve more attention. You don't, however, hear people complaining that America doesn't have the right to protect itself, and should be thinking about how many civilians its going to kill by bombing the heck out of Qaddafi. The same people who criticize Israel for directly retaliating remain silent when America bombs a country that is not even a threat to its security.
The title about the Israeli air strikes in the New York Times reads as follows:

5 More Palestinians Killed as Israelis Retaliate for School Bus Attack (By FARES AKRAM and ETHAN BRONNER Published: April 8, 2011) 

The article about American air strikes against Libya reads: 

Allies Open Air Assault on Qaddafi’s Forces in Libya (By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, STEVEN ERLANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: March 19, 2011). 

The article about Israel makes the reader feel more for the bombed, whereas the one about the American attacks focuses solely on the attacker. Two countries attacking another country, represented in a different manner to reflect the biases of the author. 

Liberals are retarded

We mentioned in class that because of blogging and increasingly biased media outlets, Americans are becoming more and more polarized in their political ideologies. In other words, people are alienating the other side and are becoming convinced not just that they are a hundred percent right, but that members of the other side are actually fundamentally flawed in some way for not agreeing with their own particular point of view.

As an example of this, I went on YouTube and typed in “Liberals are” and saw what YouTube suggested I end the statement with. Then I did the same thing for “Conservatives are.” Some of the results I got for both were, “retarded, stupid, destroying America, idiots, morons, anti-American, evil, dumb, racist, annoying, wrong, and ignorant.” In other words, rather than understanding that there are simply different legitimate approaches to running a liberal democracy like the US, many Americans need to convince themselves that the other side is wrong at its core rather than admit that there could be some legitimacy to the other side, because it’s a much simpler, easier way of thinking. It sets up the world in black and white.

This aspect of human nature isn’t so scary when you look at its effects within America, because in many ways the differences in lifestyle are still minimal, and thus the animosity usually doesn’t lead to extreme violence. This human tendency to polarize around an ideology and then demonize the other side plays a much more important role on the global scale. In order for a Muslim radical terrorist to perform a violent act of terrorism on innocent civilians who are not involved in politics, the terrorist needs to be fully convinced that the people he is killing are not only flawed in their ideologies, but are evil. If Pakistani terrorists would say, “We believe that the province of Kashmir should belong to Pakistan, but we understand that the Indian govt. feels that it is their territory as well,” the horrific Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 would likely not have occurred. When you admit the other side has some legitimacy, you are admitting that you might be wrong in some respects, and this is difficult for people to acknowledge.

The biggest danger is simply that people find it easier to believe that they are 100% right and everyone else is 100% wrong. American news outlets need to start combining liberal and conservative doctrines, just to show citizens that there can be two legitimate sides to the same coin. If we can’t even accept fellow Americans with slightly different ideologies, how can we expect our enemies to ever accept our existence and for the world to ever live in peace?   

Legitimate Cause to Attack Libya?

I find it interesting that with current air strikes on Libyan soil, there has been no tagline or reasoning in terms of US interests for why we are attacking Libya given by the White House. In other words, by Afghanistan the rallying point was September 11^th and by Iraq it was the fear that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. With the current attacks on Libya, there seems to be no one within the government even claiming that there are US interests at stake that are causing us to launch attacks.

                The question then becomes why are we launching military attacks against Libya? President Obama stated his reasoning for why the US finds itself engaged with Libya militarily:

The "core principle that has to be upheld here is that when the entire international community also unanimously says that there is a potential humanitarian crisis about to take place, that a leader who has lost his legitimacy, decides to turn his military on his own people, that we simply can't stand by with empty words, that we have to take some action (http://abcnews.go.com/International/libya-coalition-attacks-intensify/story?id=13182261 ) .”

The problem with this reasoning is that there are other countries in the world, even on the continent, that are undergoing a “potential humanitarian crisis” and have leaders who have lost their legitimacy. If other countries are undergoing the same issues as Libya, why is Obama able to get away with circumventing congress and launching an attack against a country that posses almost zero threat to the US? Why hasn’t the media completely attacked this decision, like both times the US invaded Iraq?

                The reason that Obama has been able to get away with military action without having to come up with an official tagline or reason to satisfy the American people is, I believe, simply because the US is acting multilaterally. For the first time in a while, the US is going along with rest of the world; the US is not acting on its own accord in a military engagement. Because a UN resolution has been passed, many people feel that there must be legitimate cause for invasion in Libya, even when we have not been presented with a concrete reason of why we need to launch air strikes against Libya and not a whole bunch of other unstable countries.

A Rare Absence of Media Bias

“Frantic Effort at Plant as Japan Raises Warning Level”- New York Times

“Nuclear plant’s emergency level up”- Washington Post

“Devastation in Japan:A frantic effort to stem spread” – The Boston Globe

I think it’s interesting to note that with all the media bias in America, there have been no significant differences in the way the media and press has been reporting the tragic events in Japan. In other words, as opposed to the murder in Itamar, no one has been raving about the unfair way that the media is covering the story there, because as can be seen from the titles of the story from three major newspapers, they’re all basically reporting the story the same way. The York Times and the Boston Globe even used the same adjective, “frantic,” to describe the efforts of the Japanese.

            This has to do with the fact that a lot of media bias isn’t necessarily intentional, but just a consequence of the fact that usually the journalist has some interest in the story. When a journalist is writing for the New York Times about something that occurred in Israel, chances are they have feelings on the matter one way or another. This feeling that they have then comes out in the way they cover the story, as we discussed in class.

            Japanese nuclear power is not a hot topic in the US, and thus the top stories that are being published about it don’t differ significantly in the way the story is being framed. Presumably, the journalists all the believe that the Japanese citizens had the right to live where they were and agree that this is a tragedy, and thus they have no reason to add their own biases to the way the story is presented.

Basic agreement if you live in the US: You don't try to mess us over, and we'll let you decide when to wear clothes.

“Obama Defends Detention Conditions for Soldier Accused in WikiLeaks Case

By SCOTT SHANE

The president said he had been assured that measures such as forcing Pfc. Bradley Manning to sleep without clothing were justified and for his safety.” (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/index.html)

            Whether or not you like Mr. Obama, I think the President deserves some props for this.

            Here’s why: Private First Class Bradley Manning decided for himself, over the better judgment of all his superiors and also of the United States Government, that certain information deserved to be seen by the world at large, and thus he took it into his own hands and leaked private information illegally. This information was not his to leak, it wasn’t about him, and it didn’t affect him. It was about, and affected, other people.

            Presumably, Private First Class Bradley wants to sleep in his clothes. Even if he didn’t, he would still want the right to decide for himself whether or not to sleep in them. Maybe he would want to start with them off and then put them back on when it gets cold. Using Private Manning’s own logic in illegally leaking information to Wikileaks, President Obama decided to take away Private Manning’s clothes at night.

            Is this a suitable punishment for leaking possibly vital government information to a foreign source? Of course not. It is, however, a clever way for Obama to stick it to a traitor. There are few things Obama can do to him before he is convicted under US law. Taking away his clothes at night is one of the few things he can do at this stage, and it’s fitting for someone who tried to mess over a lot of people to not get any mercy from the President. It’s always scary when someone outside yourself makes important decisions for you; but because Manning doesn’t seem to feel this way, it’s perfectly appropriate for Obama to decide the Private shouldn’t get to sleep with his clothes on, claiming it’s for Manning’s own safety.

            I also think this lends itself to a bigger debate about what’s more important, your supposed rights or the safety of other people. Private Manning decided that people have the “right” to see what is going on inside the American Govt. and thus he risked doing a lot of damage by leaking private information. The New York Times had the “right” to publish the information about the money-tracking system that was in use by banks to catch terrorists. However, in my opinion, the editors should’ve said to themselves that it’s more important for our government to keep on tracking these dangerous groups than it is for a random American citizen to know how they are tracked. There are things that are more important than the right of the citizens to know about information that don’t affect them.

           

Bill vs. Mr. President

One of President Clinton's main arguments why the American people should forgive him for his "inappropriate" relationship with Mrs. Lewinsky was that a president is entitled to a private life, and thus what he does with his interns is none of the concern of the general American public. Now, although I happen to agree with him, I just thought I would validate the other side for a moment.

What makes it wrong has nothing to do with the fact that he’s being two faced or whatever, because not cheating on your wife is not one of the platforms that presidents run for. In other words, I don’t think it’s hypocritical to be an amazing leader and then go home and cheat on your wife, because that doesn’t interfere with your leadership abilities. Plenty of people that I’ve never met cheat on their wives, and that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. So it doesn’t bother me if Bill Clinton cheats on his wife either.

A stronger claim that can be made against cheating on your wife while in office is the fact that being the president is a full time job. If there’s an emergency at three o’clock in the morning, we expect the President to get his tuchus out of bed and deal with it. In other words, our tax dollars are paying him to be on duty 24 hours a day every day for the duration of his term. So now, if you look at it that way, the President was engaging in an activity that he himself called inappropriate while we, the American people, were paying him with our tax dollars that we worked hard to make.

So from that perspective, I can understand why someone would care that the president cheated on his wife while in office- because essentially, we were paying him to commit a morally reprehensible act. We don’t care what the Bill Clinton does with whoever he wants to do it with; we do, however, care what President Clinton does while we are the ones paying him to do it.

The right to know everything?

Chapter 19 in The Press discusses the right of reporters to go into the field of battle with troops. The claim is that it’s unconstitutional to stop the media to see what’s going on in our country’s wars. Thus, they demand protection from the soldiers in battle.
I think in this case the media is acting entitled to something it’s not entitled to. While I agree that there could be constitutional issues with censoring material that comes back from wars, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the US army saying, “You can come, but we don’t have to protect you.” Having reporters embedded with soldiers in the field, I would imagine as clearly I’m not an expert on this, would be a big annoyance to soldiers fighting. You have to waste space on transports to take them to and from the front, waste uniforms on them, waste food on them. You have to worry about them getting in the way.
Now, if they were defending a constitutional right, then I would agree that it’s an annoyance that the army needs to learn how to cope with. However, when the framers of the constitution framed the constitution, they didn’t add any stipulations about the people’s right to know exactly what happens on the field of battle that America’s armed forces fight in. So I don’t think America should be allowed to stop reporters from finding their own way to get to the field of battle and risking their lives to get some footage. I just don’t think the army should have to have any obligation to go out of their way to keep them alive. 

Cops don’t have to be bothered by reporters following them around while they're on duty and having to worry about protecting them on sting operations; I don’t our armed forces should have to either.

Israelis, Palestinians, and What We Can Learn from Vietnam

 http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/100000000653542/israel-palestinian-reax.html
This video from Newyorktimes.com, which I couldn't figure out how to post, shows an Arab reporter interviewing an Israeli on his opinion of the recent events in Egypt and then interviewing some Palestinian revolutionaries in Ramallah about it. I thought this was another great example of how modern technology allows dialogue to occur between people that have never met. Israelis and Palestinians are able to communicate and exchange ideas through the medium of a New York Times reporter, and then an American chillin in the Heights can see what they both had to say and can comment on it.
The reason I think this is significant has to do with something I learned from the movie “Fog of War,” which is a documentary about Robert McNamara, who was US Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. During one part of the movie, McNamara is talking about an argument he had with a Vietnam General years after the war at a dinner in the White House. During this dinner, they got into an argument about why the war occurred. McNamara, quoting American policy at the time, insisted that the war was a “War of Aggression- Communists against South Vietnam,” whereas the general claimed that it was a civil war. In other words, the two sides didn’t even agree on why they were fighting the war. McNamara claims that this is one of the reasons why never should have gone into Vietnam- because we did not fully understand our adversaries, and why they were fighting against us. ( Here’s a short clip of Robert Mcnamara admitting the war was a mistake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hDjvKF_X78&feature=related).
Had we understood the North Vietnamese, it’s possible we could’ve come to some sort of compromise and the war may never have occurred, and thousands of lives could have been saved on both sides. Modern technology, which provides a medium for people from different sides to communicate and express their concerns, could somehow eventually, if utilized correctly, help start the march toward global peace. The hardest part is no longer getting in contact with your adversaries; now it’s about listening to what they have to say and being willing to engage them in an open conversation.  

Egyptians and Libyans seek US Sympathies Through Media

(Photes courtesy of google images)

The poster on the left is an anti-Mubarak poster; the poster on the right is a famous pro-Obama poster.
Clearly, Egyptian demonstrators are using the imagery of Obama to protest against Mubarak. Professor Daves showed this to our Middle East Politics class; he also showed us another poster in the same style that had Gaddafi on it and read, “Hopeless.”

We pointed out in class that it’s unlikely that these posters were appealing to the average Libyan or Egyptian citizen, because chances are they wouldn’t understand the reference to Obama’s presidential campaign and the ideals it symbolized. Therefore, professor Daves explained, it must be appealing to Western European and Americans, trying to elicit sympathy from them by conjuring a famous image of a man that said he stood for hope and change.  

This is a great example of how important the role of media plays in revolutions nowadays. The people revolting, rather than making signs that will resonate with the people of the country they're revolting in, are making posters with slogans that will catch the attention of people thousands of miles away. The people who make these signs are so sure that there will be foreign media in their country that they decide to appeal to their sympathies rather than their own fellow countrymen. The fact that we in American can see what's going on in Egypt and Libya allows the Egyptians and Libya's to connect with us by comparing their struggles to the struggles we are going through here in the U.S. and in other Western countries.

      

"News" vs. "Here's something you'll want to read"

        Part of the reason why watchdog journalism has declined in recent years has to do with the fact that it's simply not as entertaining as other news that's out there. In other words, many supposedly news sources provide things that are interesting to read, rather than news. So if you're trying to get someone to read your article, you can either do a lot of research and write a really really interesting piece, or you can do not a lot of research and write a really interesting piece. So there's little incentive to do extensive research because the payoff is not much more than soft-news pieces.
       This has to do with what we classify as "News" nowadays.  One of the top stories on Newsweek.com is entitled, "Are Dogs Stealing Our Jobs?" While this is certainly is an interesting story that will surely leave the reader feeling informed (here's the URL if you wanna read it http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/13/are-dogs-stealing-our-jobs.html), I'm not sure you can categorize this as "News." Instead, it might be safer to call it, "Something you didn't know before that will interest you to learn about."
       So, because Americans do want to read these types of soft-news stories that don’t require as much investigation as watchdog journalism requires, it would be more beneficial to watchdog journalism as a practice if we made clearer distinctions between what we call "News" and what we call "Stories." Keep in mind that the dog piece was among the first articles that popped up on a website entitled, "Newsweek." If this in one of their top news pieces, it would be more realistic to call it, "Funthingstoreadaboutweek." If we were clearer about what constitutes news and what doesn't, it might help watchdog journalism make a resurgence, because it will again be the most interesting and eye-catching thing to read about when people go to check the news.

Why Americans would rather be entertained by news than informed by it

In my opinion, Americans would rather watch news that is entertaining and supports their point of view because on a day to day basis, things that happen in other countries don't affect our daily lives. No matter who's in power in Egypt or Tunisia or even Iran or Iraq, none of those countries pose a threat to our borders. We haven't been invaded since the war of 1812. And it's true that it affects prices in the stock market- but the affects that these then have on us on a day to day basis is minimal, if at all. Prices at Grandma's Pizza and even Golan have remained consistent throughout the revolution in Tunisia and the riots in Egypt.
The proof for this idea is that in Europe, the average citizen knows more about politics than does the average citizen in the US- that's a fact that is supported by statistics. That's because in Europe world politics could possible pose a security threat to them since they're so close to each other. Who's President of Canada doesn't matter if you're an American, but who's president of Germany matters if you're Poland.
And even in America, were we to be invaded, who would get the brunt of it? The states on the coasts- and studies show that people on the coasts know more about politics in general than do people in the middle of America, where the danger is less.