Posted on 01/10/2011 8:41:37 AM PST by llevrok
After one Saturday, in one car park in one Arizona city, everything in American politics has changed. Except the media.
In fact, the media's coverage of the shootings in Tucson, Arizona and the attempted killing of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is fuelling exactly the sort of partisan political vitriol which may have contributed to the shootings in the first place.
Politicians, for once, are not responsible. In fact, the unity of their condemnation has been notable. President Obama has repeatedly denounced the shooting, announcing a moment of silence for the victims on Monday morning. Speaker of the House John Boehner acted incredibly quickly to calm a shocked citizenry, reaching across the aisle to condemn the actions of the gunman.
But the media's coverage of the tragic events has been far from calm and responsible.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
The news media is reflecting their philosophical prejudices. Of course, when a violent event like this happens, they will assume that it’s a right-wing person who did it, or that people on the right drove him to it. It’s their natural reaction.
Why should we expect anything different from the Amerikan Media?
You know it’s bad when the Guardian is the voice of reason.
...but hey that's politics. The information war has to be won, and the right wing / conservatives all over the civilized world could and should pay more attention to it.
For one thing we need more conservatives in Academia.
As is par for the course, the British news media have it right and our lamestream media have it wrong...
Did you actually read the article?
An old saying of newspaper men: “If it bleeds, it leads”
Initial reports stated that Loughner was shouting something as he approached the Congresswoman. I’ve not heard a thing reported about it since - has anyone else?
I lurk on the Guardian talkboards (in the U.K.) and just went there to see how the discussions are going.
It’s had a lot of input from American conservatives who’re providing balance to the discussion.
Got to say, even with that influence, I’m surprised it’s as balanced as it is given what you said.
Usually with the Guardian talkboards there’s one thread which focuses on the news story itself and you then get a proliferation of threads discussing particular aspects of it.
In this case, someone made the point at #7 in the original thread: “I’m no fan of Palin or the Tea Party, but let’s hold off on pointing fingers until we at least know *something* about the shooter other than male, late teens or early 20s.”
Barring the left wing and right wing trolls baiting each other as they do day in and day out, most of the contributors seemed to just be following the news as it came out, and stuck to that suggestion.
For the past day or so, the conversations have been focusing on discussing mental health issues, gun controls, reefer madness (following someone suggesting the shooter was a pot-head), comments made by the Sheriff indicating previous threats to Ms Giffords had been made, and an article from the Daily Kos from two days before the shooting.
It does appear that about 6 posters did point the finger at Sarah Palin and seem pretty insistent that the right wing is to blame, but I wouldn’t say they are reflecting the majority view.
No it hasn't. Everything is exactly as it was.
My first thought, too.
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