(WELCOME VISITORS FROM MUDVILLE GAZETTE, MICHELLE MALKIN, AND OTHER BLOGS I'M SURE I'VE MISSED.
I WROTE THIS POST SATURDAY NIGHT AFTER THE RALLY. MY PREDICTION ABOUT HOW RALEIGH'S NEWS & OBSERVER WOULD REPORT THE RALLY SUNDAY WAS ACCURATE. HOW DID YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER DO? THANKS FOR VISITING. John)
I'm beginning to recognize the power of photo blogging, and the challenge it poses to MSM news organizations.
Maybe you've known for a while about that challenge. But I haven't, so please listen to my story.
Tonight, Saturday, Sept. 24, I went to Michelle Malkin's blog and saw photos of today's anti-war rally in Washington, where assorted Democrats and Leftists demanded America do what the terrorist al-Zaquari's been demanding: Pull our troops out of Iraq.
The rally photos Michelle posted included one of an activist holding a sign about the Vice-president: "Convict and castrate Cheney." Another was of a group marching down an avenue holding a large banner proclaiming: "911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB." Below that was an Internet address: "www.ny911truth.org"
At other blogs I found more rally photos. One showed activists holding a large sign: "THE POLICE ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS." Another in script declared: "From Baghdad to New Orleans Capitalism means Mass Murder. Socialist Revolution is the Only Answer."
At that point (it was about 9 PM Eastern time) I asked myself: How is MSM reporting all of this?
So I read The Associated Press' Internet account of the rally.
And oh, as the AP told it, the rally was all just grand, and no one carried signs and banners such as I'd just seen.
Here's the AP, a news organization every bit as objective as The New York Times and The BBC, reporting to you:
Crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House on Saturday, shouting "Peace now" in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the U.S. invasion.And what about the signs and banners, you may be asking? Didn't the AP tell us about them?
The rally stretched through the day and into the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the National Mall.
<...>
In the crowd: young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.
Well yes, it did, sort of. But it only mentioned two; and neither one of them have we been talking about. But that doesn't surprise you, does it?
Here's everything the AP told us about signs and banners at the rally:
"Bush Lied, Thousands Died," said one sign. "End the Occupation," said another.That's it, folks. There was nothing else.
Now, how do you think an MSM news organization such as Raleigh's News and Observer is going to report the rally?
Do you think you'll read anything in The N&O about castrating Vice-president Cheney or that "THE POLICE ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS?"
I don't.
But when The N&O's devoted readers say tomorrow morning after church or coffee or during a cell call, "Well, I didn't see anything in The N&O about the sort of signs you're talking about," the other person is going to be able to say, "I'd like to show you these Internet sites here and here and here."
And therein lies photo blogging's challenge to MSM news organizations like The N&O still trying to hang on to a "we control information; we know what you need to know" world.
Take a look at tomorrow's N&O.
And then let's talk more about all this Monday.
Here.
6 comments:
No, see, they're just cutting out the noise and helping see the real point.
Kinda like not talking about ANSWER and the rest of the organizations funding and organizing these "protests."
-AC
John:
It's almost a "Matrix" like moment for some, once they can actually see the shameless bias and there's simply no other explanation for it.
That AP story is simply not explainable as anything other than bald-faced pro-left puffery. There is NO other explanation.
The more folks who are exposed to the truth via photo-blogging and first hand reports that directly contradict the MSM narrative, the better as far as I'm concerned. The best part? The MSM apparently either has no idea how its destroying its credibility with it's audience, or it just doesn't care, figuring that ultimately all media will become ideological and they might as well appeal to their base.
John, you hit the nail on the head. Pictures so often say more than words.
All this is exactly why I chose the name I have for my blog
'Committees of Correspondence'
and my first post concluded with
"Today we are in the midst of the Second American Revolution. It is a Revolution of Information, no longer can elite gateways control what we can see, hear and discuss.
To the Committees of Correspondence of the Second American Revolution, the BLOGS this space in the internet is gratefully dedicated."
In college I met two people from midwestern cities, places like Pittsburg PA and Canton, Ohio, who each mentioned the visit of Solzynitsen, the Russian novelist and political prisoner in the Soviet gulag, to their home cities which took place in the late 70's as part of a tour he made of the States when he was released from the gulag and permitted to emigrate. They each said it was one of the biggest rallies in their cities' histories. A great outpouring of a freedom loving person to a man who had suffered greatly in freedom's cause.
The news coverage of the tour had been so minimal I'd barely known it had occurred. Now, finally, the chance to bring down our Pravdas.
how do i figure out the ratio of nutcases to normal people based on these photos?
i don't expect papers to report on nutcases at pro-war rallies either.
Post a Comment