Something got lost in this thread, amid the 3 or 4 actual reports of protest attendance (and one trip to the barber thru the protests
) and Joe typing Kumbyah and all of the flaming, jacking, spamming, and irrelevant things...
We lost a chance to come to an understanding about the differences between the two camps. I'm back to heal that grievous mistake...
Originally posted by vonork
From the NYtimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/opinion/18KRUG.html
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Behind the Great Divide
By PAUL KRUGMAN
There has been much speculation why Europe and the U.S. are suddenly at such odds. Is it about culture? About history? But I haven't seen much discussion of an obvious point: We have different views partly because we see different news.
Vive la difference, no?
Let's back up. Many Americans now blame France for the chill in U.S.-European relations. There is even talk of boycotting French products.
But France's attitude isn't exceptional. Last Saturday's huge demonstrations confirmed polls that show deep distrust of the Bush administration and skepticism about an Iraq war in all major European nations, whatever position their governments may take. In fact, the biggest demonstrations were in countries whose governments are supporting the Bush administration.
Still no spin there...
There were big demonstrations in America too. But distrust of the U.S. overseas has reached such a level, even among our British allies, that a recent British poll ranked the U.S. as the world's most dangerous nation ahead of North Korea and Iraq.
This is something I desperately want to see turned around.
So why don't other countries see the world the way we do? News coverage is a large part of the answer. Eric Alterman's new book, "What Liberal Media?" doesn't stress international comparisons, but the difference between the news reports Americans and Europeans see is a stark demonstration of his point. At least compared with their foreign counterparts, the "liberal" U.S. media are strikingly conservative and in this case hawkish.
I made this point in a thread last fall that Greadius enjoyed trying to debunk. There is no liberal media at the moment- though there are plans to create a liberal radio network underfoot.
I'm not mainly talking about the print media. There are differences, but the major national newspapers in the U.S. and the U.K. at least seem to be describing the same reality.
And that makes sense. Newspapers make their money reporting the facts concisely, to save room for ad space. Television networks must compete for viewers with "Fear Factor" and "Jerry Springer", and thus the news becomes something else...
Most people, though, get their news from TV and there the difference is immense. The coverage of Saturday's antiwar rallies was a reminder of the extent to which U.S. cable news, in particular, seems to be reporting about a different planet than the one covered by foreign media.
This has to be true for obvious reasons. Other than C-Span, which lets the cameras roll, every other network gives the news the MTV treatment...
What would someone watching cable news have seen? On Saturday, news anchors on Fox described the demonstrators in New York as "the usual protesters" or "serial protesters."
And despite growing awareness of the fact, many Faux viewers are not yet aware of the intense conservative spin of their treasured network.
CNN wasn't quite so dismissive, but on Sunday morning the headline on the network's Web site read "Antiwar rallies delight Iraq," and the accompanying picture showed marchers in Baghdad, not London or New York.
This is because CNN grabs viewers with a war. They came into existence during the Iran hostage crisis, they flowered during the Gulf War. But to be fair, venues from 60 minutes to Oprah Winfrey also stress the "How Horrible Iraq really is" angle over the "How devastating a war would be" angle.
This wasn't at all the way the rest of the world's media reported Saturday's events, but it wasn't out of character. For months both major U.S. cable news networks have acted as if the decision to invade Iraq has already been made, and have in effect seen it as their job to prepare the American public for the coming war.
Which I am fairly certain they do really see as their job. CNN runs "Showdown in Iraq" every day, complete with a nifty "Guns and Ammo" section highlighting our awesome wermachten (german for "war machines").
So it's not surprising that the target audience is a bit blurry about the distinction between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda. Surveys show that a majority of Americans think that some or all of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi, while many believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11, a claim even the Bush administration has never made.
This is the most disturbing part of this article, and sadly I believe it is true. Especially the geriatric set but also our harried workers with little time to digest info, continue to lump Iraq and the Taliban and Al Qaeda and probably Iran as well as "the bad guys from 9-11", or as my Grandma calls them, "Them". Some of it is probably baseline geographic ignorance/anti-Muslim racism, but a lot of the confusion doubtless comes from the fact that 9-11 still stings us and Bush never talks about anything but Iraq.
And since many Americans think that the need for a war against Saddam is obvious, they think that Europeans who won't go along are cowards.
Europeans, who don't see the same things on TV, are far more inclined to wonder why Iraq rather than North Korea, or for that matter Al Qaeda has become the focus of U.S. policy. That's why so many of them question American motives, suspecting that it's all about oil or that the administration is simply picking on a convenient enemy it knows it can defeat. They don't see opposition to an Iraq war as cowardice; they see it as courage, a matter of standing up to the bullying Bush administration.
This is the fundamental difference of perception, which no amount of repeating "Saddam is evil" is going to clear up. Subtler thought and smarter language is needed if we are interested in bridging the perception gap.
There are two possible explanations for the great trans-Atlantic media divide. One is that European media have a pervasive anti-American bias that leads them to distort the news, even in countries like the U.K. where the leaders of both major parties are pro-Bush and support an attack on Iraq. The other is that some U.S. media outlets operating in an environment in which anyone who questions the administration's foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic have taken it as their assignment to sell the war, not to present a mix of information that might call the justification for war into question.
So which is it? I've reported, you decide.
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I have to imagine the answer is a bit of both. I can't vouch for a "distorting anti-American bias" in European news (though I think some posters from over there have said it exists) but I can vouch for the "environment in which anyone who questions the administration' foreign policy is accused of being unpatriotic"- see my earlier flameup with NYHoya where I am told that I am "against America and everything we built" because I, like many of my countrymen and many people around the world including the leaders of so many nations, believe that inspections are working and will work and war is a last resort, a "sanctioning of failure", which must be put off while there is any other alternative.
EDIT: Thank you Vonork for your thoughtful contribution to this thread and bringing this article to light. I still hold hope that I can - not change minds - but erase misperceptions that dog these forums.
authority"
