So much for editorial freedom

Much of the major media in the US is privately owned, by individuals, families, or corporations. These media love to insist that they have complete editorial freedom and that the owners do not exert any pressure on them as to what to write about and how. That is of course rubbish. In cases like Fox News, the owner’s wishes are explicit and manifestly followed. But in less overtly propagandistic outlets, editorial control by the owners is exercised more subtly. The editors are selected because their views conform to those of the owners, and that process filters all the way down the line.

But on some occasions, if the issue is important enough to the owner, even that thin mask of editorial independence is ripped away and the owner gives direct orders as to what the editorial line should be. We see that with billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s entry into the presidential race. He is the owner of Bloomberg News and he has made it very clear that his outlet should not criticize him. In an effort to retain a shred of credibility as a news organization, the editor says that they will also refrain from investigating other Democratic presidential candidates.

I feel sorry for the reporters at Bloomberg News. It is easy for outsiders to say that they should quit. I am sure that many are looking for other jobs where the control is less overt but the job market in media is tight.

Why I distrust US media coverage of foreign countries

(I came across this old blog post of mine from 2005 before I moved to FtB and thought I would repost it because it may explain why I am so skeptical of the way that the US media covers events in other countries. I have edited it slightly because I cannot help editing.)

In July 1983, I lived through a major upheaval in Sri Lanka where rampaging mobs raged through the streets looking for the homes and businesses and members of the minority Tamil community, killing and destroying everything in their path, with the government and the police just standing by doing little or nothing. There was strong speculation that the government had actually instigated and guided the events to serve their own political agenda, but since the government itself was doing the subsequent investigation, one should not be surprised that nothing came of it.
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Isn’t regular football brutal enough?

American football is a brutal game and so it should not be surprising that it occasionally erupts into outright violence. This feature was on display recently when Myles Garrett, a player for the Cleveland Browns, yanked off the helmet of an opposing player and repeatedly beat him on the head with it until he was restrained by other players. As is often the case there were events that led up to this assault but it was still egregious by any standards. In fact, yanking out a player’s helmet can be very dangerous because the neck is violently jerked. He has been suspended indefinitely but it made me wonder at what point this kind of on-field violence moves into a territory where the perpetrator is subject to legal prosecution.
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Using anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party

The UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has leveled charges against the Labour party that it has a serious problem of anti-Semitism within its ranks and that its leader Jeremy Corbyn and the top leadership have not done enough to combat it. Under the surface is the implication that Corbyn himself is an anti-Semite. Corbyn has responded.

Speaking the following morning, Corbyn said a future Labour government would be “the most anti-racist government you’ve ever seen”. He said: “Because that is what I’ve spent my whole life doing, fighting against racism, and I will die fighting against racism.”

He said he had made it clear that antisemitism is wrong. “Our party did make it clear when I was elected leader, and after that, that antisemitism is unacceptable in any form in our party or our society and did indeed offer its sympathies and apologies to those who had suffered,” he said.

Corbyn, just like Bernie Sanders in the US, has been a lifelong campaigner against racism and for human rights. But both have recognized the injustices suffered by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government and called for giving them the rights they deserve and it is this stance that has alarmed the Israel lobby in the UK and the US.
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More support for the crazification factor

Back in 2011, I posted about a 2005 blog post by John Rogers on the site Kung Fu Monkey who, based on the number of people who voted for Alan Keyes in the Illinois senate race against Barack Obama in 2004, decided that there is a 27% ‘crazification’ factor in the US electorate that represented the percentage of people who would vote for a totally unfit and even wildly nutty candidate purely out of tribal loyalty. (Whatever happened to Keyes? He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1996, 2000, and 2008 but has been quiet recently.) The post was written facetiously but the idea caught on like wildfire and others started seeing evidence from other cases that provided support for that number.
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The dangerous game that ‘moderate’ (i.e., center-right) Democrats are playing

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs, warns that right-wing Democrats (who are labeled as ‘moderates’ and ‘centrists’ by the right-wing mainstream media) should realize that the critiques of their progressive rivals are feeding into right-wing talking points.

As the Democratic caucuses and primaries heat up, the candidates are starting to go after each other with greater ferocity. Sensing a potential victory in Iowa, Mayor Pete Buttigieg launched an ad that goes after proposals from Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to make tuition free at public colleges and universities.
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