"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
Gary Drescher wrote:
The news media craves dramatic imagery. Every available photograph of
people stranded on the roofs of nearly submerged houses is dramatic
enough to get wide circulation. Do you really suppose the media is
suppressing the photos of white people on rooftops?

It wouldn't surprise me at all. How many stories or photos have you seen
from Iraq that show anything postive there? Virtually none. Do you
believe that the only things happening in Iraq are car bombs? You would
if you watched only the national media in the USA. I see no reason to
suspect anything different vis-a-vis the coverage of the Katrina disaster.

In other words, you asserted as fact that the news media have selectively
ignored photo opportunities involving white victims on rooftops, when in
reality you have no evidence that any such practice occurred.

Rather, you made that imaginary factual assertion simply because such
behavior by the media would fit your extremely biased model of news media
bias; therefore, you assume that it must have actually occurred.

(And that assumption, in turn, reinforces your presumption of media bias,
which in turn will lead you to allege other such practices without actual
evidence. You're stuck in a feedback loop caused by your willingness to
believe and assert things without specific evidence, just because the
assertions fit your worldview. Your methodology guarantees that you will see
what you *expect* to see, whether it's there or not.)

In reality, passing up the opportunity to show sensational photos would be
contrary to all known practices of the corporate news media, and also
contrary to their actual practices now with regard to the hurricane victims
*not* on rooftops. (Also, the percentage of blacks shown in the handful of
rooftop photos is about the same as the percentage of blacks shown in the
handful of TV-looting photos. Would you care to explain how the latter could
be motivated by "liberal bias"?)

As for national coverage of Iraq, I don't know what newspapers you read, but
all the mainstream national publications *I'm* aware of prominently cover
every alleged achievement trumpeted by the US government (from "Mission
Accomplished" onward), while systematically underplaying the horrific
devastation that our counterinsurgency campaign has inflicted on Iraqis.
This pro-US-government bias contrasts sharply with the more balanced
coverage seen in much of the foreign press. If you watched only the national
media in the USA, you'd think most Iraqi civilian casualties were inflicted
by the anti-occupation forces.

For detailed documentation of the 25,000 Iraqi civilians whose killings
have been specifically reported so far--as with any ongoing disaster, likely
just a fraction of the actual total--see
http://reports.iraqbodycount.org/a_d..._2003-2005.pdf
and the associated online database. Then tell me if you've come across this
information on Fox News.

--Gary