Everyday of our lives the newsmedia picks out certain stories to cover and certain stories to ignore.
This process is called playing the "Gatekeeper".
Here are four stories I believe all Americans should know about if they do not already:
1.
There is a running claim from the Bush Admistration that a large amount of yellowcake (chemical-based WMD) was found in Iraq. They have come forward that the intelligence provided in 2002 to Congress and the American people was in fact not as credible as they once believed it to be. Newsmedia groups have failed to find voice the source of this information and present the case to the American public thereby removing the running claim from fringe discussions in the rightwing media.
2.
Easter ‘08, yet more tragedy struck the Iraqi people as they came to the end of fasting under religious observance and were killed in large numbers while crowding to the supermarkets. In so far as a discussion of current Iraqi / American affairs, these bombings counter the strongly held contention of some that Arabic Extremism stems primarily from the Muslim faith. This story took only passing notice in newsmedia and is completely under-referenced in discussions of Middle-Eastern affairs.
3.
Two people were killed in a Knoxville, Tennessee church supposedly for their liberal beliefs in the past year. Is it pure the conjecture of liberals that this man was listening to right wing radio or sites to influence his actions or is there any evidence of this? The story has gone all but unnoticed and becomes increasingly ‘old news’ and less relevant each day in the ever faster and faster news-cycles. This again appears at face-value to be a strong case for the fact that the fear of political defacement or civil liability among newsmedia giants prevents certain ’taboo’ stories from reaching the proper level of amplification.
4.
An unknown individual leaked a false-credibility internet article claiming the credentials of Maureen Dowd during the 2008 presidential election. According to Snopes.com, this began in a chain e-mail and was picked up by certain low-credibility websites thereafter. Has any government agency investigated this matter or made any concerted effort to find this person who sought to interject false and illegal campaign coverage on contributions into the electoral process? Has not one newsmedia agency in America the will to run this story as a perfect example of the importance of credible information sources in an election year?
Eric Lightborn
http://americapress.wordpress.com
December 21st 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment