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Posted on 04/14/2003 5:23:39 AM PDT by EllaMinnow
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:05:29 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
As Baghdad fell last week, CNN announced that it too had been liberated. On the New York Times' op-ed page on Friday, Eason Jordan, the network's news chief, admitted that his organization had learned some "awful things" about the Baathist regime--murders, tortures, assassination plots--that it simply could not broadcast earlier. Reporting these stories, Mr. Jordan wrote, "would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
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The entire Eason Jordan/CNN issue was not mentioned once on this week's show.
Would that this were an outbreak of honesty, however belated. But it isn't. If it were, Mr. Jordan wouldn't be portraying CNN as Saddam's victim. He'd be apologizing (or out of a job!) for its cooperation with Iraq's erstwhile information ministry--and admitting that CNN policy hinders truthful coverage of dictatorships. For CNN, the highest prize is "access," to score live camera feeds from a story's epicenter. Dictatorships understand this hunger, and also that it provides blackmail opportunities. In exchange for CNN bureaus, dictatorships require adherence to their own rules of reportage. They create conditions where CNN--and other U.S. media--can do little more than toe the regime's line.
CNN apparently cannot (or will not) try to understand the difference between news & propaganda.
CNN's lack of embarrasment (as evidenced by no one losing their job over this) speaks volumes!
test
There are the minnows who choose to swim with the school and do everything the rest of the school does. (If you've ever watched underwater video of this, you have seen that they they imitate each other's every move and the mass of individuals moves as one).
On the other hand there are a few that dare to see things for themselves instead of adopting a "group opinion". They are like the billfish (marlin, etc.) that tend to be loners, but ready and willing to deal with anything that comes their way.
Many of us forget that they are like any other working group...they tend to hang out together after work and this is where the "Lemming Effect" comes into play. You are only a popular person, in this setting, if you echo the liberal mantra that gets you "in" with the rest of the gang. Unless you are willing to join the lock-step march of the lemmings, you're persona non grata. (I have been there).
Now for the good part of the lemming comparison. We all know where it takes them! I wonder how long Daschle can tread water?
"They live in a bubble. The bubble is basically Manhattan and Georgetown and Washington. They go to cocktail parties and dinner parties with their smart sophisticated liberal friends in these places.
This is perhaps the ultimate example of group-think in mainstream America. Traditionally, when one thinks about group-think they think of the common people or general public being manipulated by the media academia or some other external authority.
People in general, to varying degrees, have a vested interest in their particular group-think collective group. However, the less the vested interest the easier it is for the individual to educate themselves out of the group-think mentality. For them, they are not trapped.
Now think of the liberal media -- or any cult like group -- that have members that are not allowed to stray from the group's doctrine lest they be labeled a traitor. With cult-like belief they have trapped themselves by entrenched vested interest in the group -- only recognizing self in relation to their standing within the group.
Bernard Goldberg is a rare individual that realized that his own authority was much more powerful than that of the group he had once been a member of.
The liberal media is in fact and effect far more trapped by group-think mentality than the general public. They have set themselves up for eventual and certain collapse. All cult-like groups do it to themselves due to creating illusions of power and prestige wherein they soon after come to believe the illusions they created are real.
This type of authority group-think mentality is prevalent in congress, the judicial branch and executive/alphabet agencies. They too have set themselves up to believe the illusions they've created are real.
That begs the question: Which other organizations did? AP? Reuters? CBS? NBC? MSNBC?
Fox News?
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