The media

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by sun-star

Your loss...

You aren't going to tell me?

[sun-star]

He's an actor. Some people find him... attractive.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by sun-star

He's an actor. Some people find him... attractive.

Is that all? How boring. I thought he was going to be a funny man...

[sun-star]

Afraid so, sorry. However, I'm very excited about this:

Originally Posted by Butterbeer

Hit renews toy deal for Thomas
Hit Entertainment has struck a new three year deal with Tomy as master toy licensee for the classic pre-school property Thomas & Friends in the UK and Europe.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

couldnt work out which thread to put this in...so i plumped wih this one, as it shows how popularly held biases are shown:

i picked up a copy of the star today (which my dad bought, not me!) and noticed on the front cover:
Plane Terror Alert - Is It Time To Search All Muslims?, and on the inside was the following sub-headline: Why are we searching white mothers with 3 kids, rugby team pals, mid-age businessmen and gays when we know terrorists are Muslims?

dunno about anyone else, but this makes me sick

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

couldnt work out which thread to put this in...so i plumped wih this one, as it shows how popularly held biases are shown:

i picked up a copy of the star today (which my dad bought, not me!) and noticed on the front cover:
Plane Terror Alert - Is It Time To Search All Muslims?, and on the inside was the following sub-headline: Why are we searching white mothers with 3 kids, rugby team pals, mid-age businessmen and gays when we know terrorists are Muslims?

dunno about anyone else, but this makes me sick

*laughs* don't worry Chrys, you're not the only one. Mindblowing.

Of course, we can say that all terrorists are Muslims, if we choose to define 'terrorist' like that. Can't these people think?

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Spock

http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

It was a very interesting video clip, showing some very nasty parts of journalism. I haven't studied journalism, still I've learnt that news/stories/pictures are most effective if there is something "personal", something about an individual, a victim, about them. Putting teddybears in pictures is one way, but a very unhonest way of doing this. It's very unfortunate that this happens.

Still I have to be a bit critical to that clip, since it's from quite a biased site (www.aish.com with the theme your life, your judaism). I'm sure these kinds of things aren't as one-sided as this clip suggests. Which, of course, doesn't make the actions of these photographers/photomanipulators any better.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

i picked up a copy of the star today (which my dad bought, not me!) and noticed on the front cover:
Plane Terror Alert - Is It Time To Search All Muslims?, and on the inside was the following sub-headline: Why are we searching white mothers with 3 kids, rugby team pals, mid-age businessmen and gays when we know terrorists are Muslims?

dunno about anyone else, but this makes me sick

Yep. You get angry when you read headlines like that. It's appalling when some journalists spread xenophobia and narrow-mindedness to the readers.

[Nerdanel]

Sorry about this flood of messages.. Just haven't been that active around here lately. o.O

What about censorship? We might not have much of that in the west, but it's quite widespread over the world. Direct censorship is used to prevent people from recieving "unwanted" information, like criticism of the government, or many sides of events (attacks, wars etc). The control of information is often, but not always, exercised by goverments.
There is also something called self-censorship, a sort of indirect censorship. For instance in countries like Algeria and Egypt (those examples because I'm reading about those countries right now.. This is not a phenomenon that is limited to a few countries, though) there are laws that allow prison sentences for insulting the leaders, army or the like, which often leads to journalists censoring themselves.

What do you people think? What could be done about this? And why is it so important that the press is free? Is there a distinct, clear dividing line between censorship and propaganda?

[The Gaffer]

I don't see a clear distinction between censorship and propaganda, since they both aim to bias our thinking towards a particular belief or set of beliefs. What sets them apart are the methods, extent and intent.

The first thing to say is that censorship is on a continuum. i.e. we'd all agree that it would be important to censor certain things in the media, e.g. a person's medical history.

One might also add that all censors have, to their minds, reasonable cause for censoring things.

The other thing you could do is talk about different kinds of censorship: self-censorship, as you say, is probably halfway to three-quarters along the continuum, with Winston Smith in the Ministry of Truth directly editing what goes out placed at the far end.

Nearer to the liberal end you have censorship by omission, where the real story is simply not reported. Somewhere around there you also have censorship by crowding, where the real story is reported but is buried under an avalanche of worthlessness. A final type would be censorship by agenda, where our line of thought is manipulated through the way information is prioritised and framed.

The latter three are characteristic of western media, while self-censorship we associate more with the Egypts and Algerias of this world (often with western approval, interestingly, since the net result is to keep a lid on Islamic fundamentalist groups in those countries).

I guess not too many regimes can afford to practice full-on, 1984 type media control. Cuba would be one example I suppose.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Yep. You get angry when you read headlines like that. It's appalling when some journalists spread xenophobia and narrow-mindedness to the readers.

But you know what? They were Muslim. Some of them were women, WITH CHILDREN, whom they planned to take with them. THATS what makes me sick. Nevermind people's "sensitivities" when lives are in dange.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

But you know what? They were Muslim. Some of them were women, WITH CHILDREN, whom they planned to take with them. THATS what makes me sick. Nevermind people's "sensitivities" when lives are in dange.

The issue is thinking the problem is "muslims". The problem is evil people, and they come in all denominations. Until we can see past the labels, we won't succeed in stopping anything.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The issue is thinking the problem is "muslims". The problem is evil people, and they come in all denominations. Until we can see past the labels, we won't succeed in stopping anything.

I agree completely. We need to realize that it is not All Muslims. But I think it's the "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terorrists are Muslims" situation. Not every German is/was a Nazi, but nearly all Nazis were German...you get the point.

But as to the Airport checking: people shouldn't get offended when they fit a certain description enough to be checked out; it is after all a security measure to protect citizens.

I don't think Muslims or anyone else should freak out if they start backgrounding Muslim men at airports, I mean Muslims get through security pretty easy right now, I wouldn't be afraid of "ethnic profiling".

[Insidious Rex]

Dont be a fool. You are walking into yet the next trap when you assume only them dark arab looking folk are the danger. Because Al Quaeda is actively seeking blonde haired blue eyed converts to plant in the states. They probably already have them on board. And it only takes a few as you know. So when you are busy beating up the muslim couple at the airport because they look middle eastern, a guy with skin and eyes like yours slips easily onto an airplane because we arent checking those folks and proceeds to blow it up.

[brownjenkins]

What IR said. Profiling is pointless because terrorists will react to it. Better to treat everyone as a potential terrorist.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Dont be a fool. You are walking into yet the next trap when you assume only them dark arab looking folk are the danger. Because Al Quaeda is actively seeking blonde haired blue eyed converts to plant in the states. They probably already have them on board. And it only takes a few as you know. So when you are busy beating up the muslim couple at the airport because they look middle eastern, a guy with skin and eyes like yours slips easily onto an airplane because we arent checking those folks and proceeds to blow it up.

Meanwhile, don't profile anybody because it hurts their feelings, and thus wait and find out who is who in the bloody mess of ten hijacked planes with nearly 3000 dead? Right now we really aren't checkng ANYONE, we're just tossing their water bottles in the trash for minimal offending. You say "while we're beating up a couple who looks middle-eastern" but what about the old lady with the purse? A problem is that the airport checkers are cowards and pick on people who look harmless.

Al Qaeda already did get some formerly non-muslims, as you may know a few of the foiled terrorists were british converts to Islam. They weren't blond-haired blue-eyed...

I'll tell you the real freaking problem: and it's not ethnic profiling. The problem is we're all too scared to aknowledge who our enemy is. There MAY be blond haired terrorists ready to strike, but so far the cases I've heard of have involved....Muslim terrorists. Seattle shooting: Muslim extremist kills One Jewish woman (pregnant, btw) and wounds 6 others (all Jewish, presumably).
Recent Airplane plot foiled: All Muslims, some converts to Islam.

Of course we should be on our guard for all kinds of terrorists, but what are we supposed to do when nearly every terrorist in memory (yes, I know: McVeigh etc) is Muslim?

Good Muslims need to speak up and condemn terrorist activities, that for one thing might make people a tad more comfortable.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

What IR said. Profiling is pointless because terrorists will react to it. Better to treat everyone as a potential terrorist.

Terrorist also apperantly respond to the media and left-wing opposition to the war[s]...they're exploiting CNN every time they show the damage done by Israel in Lebanon.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Good Muslims need to speak up and condemn terrorist activities, that for one thing might make people a tad more comfortable.

It wouldn't matter at all, because I can tell from what I read here that you've already made your decision on muslims.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It wouldn't matter at all, because I can tell from what I read here that you've already made your decision on muslims.

I sure have BJenkins. I suscribe to "not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslim". I've made up my mind about Terrorists, namely that they are exploiting their own race's innocence and religion in the name of maniacal idiocy.

[Spock]

I like the new term cropping up; "Islamic Facsist".