Dan Rather's take on mainstream media manipulation!

My first real notice of media manipulation came right after the Gulf War was MSNBC was slapped for posing photographs of the caskets of American soliders returning from Iraq in caskets around December of 2001 or 2002. This story indicated that if the press wants to remain embedded with the White House Press Corps they had better play ball with the Bush Administration or they will be frozen out of the White House Press Corps. To this day, you still only see the "glamour" that is the Iraq War and not the hard cold reality that War is Hell. I get my news from other sources such as the BBC, www.google.com.uk, and other English speaking new sites not controlled by the American media. Freedom of the Press in the USA is more controlled than ever. Speak up America and take a stand against this at least by reading other web sites. Another note, the protects at the RNC did not even make the top news in the USA barely a blurb, but in Europe it was all the top stories. This is not happening by accident folks, wake up and know the world around you. Dan Rather is absolutely right and I am not even too keen on him in the first place. WAKE UP AMERICA!!

Dan's wisdom and comments are like a Voice Crying In The Wilderness...he knows that a few wish to control all the sheep....

Honestly, does it matter anymore? I mean, how many people watch the network or cable news programs? Scant few, that's why they act desperate and more entertainy. I get the bulk of my news from the internet - Businessweek, Huffingtonpost, MSNBC, a series of sites and make my own judgments.

If the network news wants to get back in the game, they need to do what Msnbc is doing and air the nightly news on the internet for those who miss NBC news at 6pm. Or like CBS airing on the internet.

I would like to think the American public is smarter than the manipulators like Murdock & Ailes and O'Reilly, et al. You know more people are college-educated than before. We have a smarter mind.

It's funny that Dan Rather is even being complimented. When Bush was running for president, he's the one that came out with a story about Presdient George Bush's service, didn't check his facts and it was found to be totally a negative lie. Dan is not a hero, Dan is not a reporter. He took a story, reported it as fact, and it was a lie!! All he said is that it sounded like it should be true. That is not "reporting" - that is sharing a lie as a rumor to discredit someone by telling lies.

So my question is, what was GW's record of attendance at during his "duty" years? Is that somewhere? I've seen people in the Guard get time off for emergencies once in a blue moon, and I saw only one guy get more time of than the rest because he had farming duties that needed tending. That was during the Vietnam days. And do we fire a news anchor for error in reporting the facts. OK,if that be the case, then shouldn't all the Fox news and others be fired also. From my perspective, you will know them by their deeds, and the News, our free press, has been attacked by these Republican ideologues who won't stand for any opposing views. We all have seen this time and time again. And it continues to happen with the Mathews/Oberman situation. NBC is pretty gutless, guess they don't want the wrath of the "Right" to come down on them. This is not democracy, it's called control, puppetry.

Of course Europe makes protesters a TOP story. They hate American conservatives, just like you do! so you choose to listen to THEIR biased reporting instead, while calling U.S. reporting, "manipulative". please.

I get my news from a variety of Bigname places such as CNN, Fox, Associated press etc.

With that said, I get the NEWS from those places. Ie, the topic of what they are discussing if it interests me. I read thier story, which is usually just a repeat word for word of a AP/Reuters print out on it...

Then most times, I end up having to use google to find real information on the story [and google goes to Blogs which have real info]. As 9 times out of 10, they [CNN, fox, AP etc] ommit the real facts on the news from thier articles.

That alone = biased media reporting. The fact that they ommit key facts from stories they are reporting which often leads to a one sided story is horrible news.

Take for example the Jena 6. I had a passing interest in this story, I would just browse CNN to see what was up there with all the marches going on, and the claim that civil rights are gone etc etc.

Now, going by the CNN/AP stories and the info they give you...One would think that 6 black boys were singled out solely for being black by the justice system. And thats that. Free the Jena 6 you would scream if you based your info solely on CNN.

BUT! Thats not the truth. The 6 Jena boys nearly beat a [white] boy to death. And they did so because HE was white. And THAT is why they are in jail, and THAT is why they have lawsuits against them. And THOSE 6 boys were the raicsts.

So...that alone is proof on our horrible media and is bias. They are deceptive in the fact that they only report what they wish to report in thier news casts and that often leads to a completely wrong presentation of the news.

Where is the free press, indeed? Until we have a press independent of politically biased big business, there will be no such thing. Independent voices can be found now only at pbs or npr. Or, perhaps we need direct US access to BBC programming. It seems to present straight news without the bias dictated by corporate ownership of ideas.