That Damned Liberal Media Part 3,325

From the Crikey email - Stephen Feneley, former Nine reporter writes:

I was working as Nine's correspondent in the US when Packer took the Nine Network back from Bond in 1990. While I didn't witness Kerry's return up close, I still felt the full force of it, all the way across the Pacific. The change of owernship occured not long after Iraq invaded Kuwait. In the first couple of weeks after the invasion I was pretty much able to report the Bush administration's response to the crisis as I saw it, filing reports that took a critical look at the history of the US/Iraq relationship.

My freedom to report the situation as I saw it came to an abrupt end once the US started amassing its troops in the Gulf which also coincinded with the resumption of the Packer reign and Willoughby. I was working out of CBS in Washington and had just filed a gently critical report on the US quest to get the Germans and Japanese to bankroll its Gulf adventure.

I got a phone call from a Nine news executive who issued me with what amount to the first ever editorial directive of a political flavour that I'd ever received in my time at the network. I remember it word for word. "You should not be seen to be saying anything critical of the US presence in the Gulf," the executive said.

From then on I was directed to focus less on the politics and more on the military build-up. My superiors were particularly interested in glowing profiles of apache helicopters, the M1 Abrams tank, and the Patriot missile batteries. They were not interested in anthing that questioned the effectiveness of any of this hardware. It was a very unhappy time. I'd gone from working for a great news service to the broadcasting equivalent of Boys' Own Annual, all in a matter of weeks.

Baddy but an Oldie

Auld Lang Impeachment -- Song Parody (Sing to Auld Lang Syne)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Bush/Cheney's wrongs won't be forgot.
Each one we'll keep in mind.
These evil men must be locked up
For all their many crimes.

They spied on U.S. citizens.
They lied us into war.
And now it's time for righteous folk
To shove them out the door.

They both abused our Bill of Rights.
Took money from the poor.
Said up was down and black was white.
They are evil to the core.

They plundered our great nation's wealth.
They've terrorized our land.
Impeach George Bush and Cheney too.
It is time to take a stand.

Killer bloggers

US military finds soldiers' blogs too close for comfort;

Leonard Clark, a National Guardsman, was demoted to private after he had written entries describing the company's commander as a "glory seeker" and the battalion sergeant major an "inhuman monster". His last entry detailed how his fellow soldiers were becoming opposed to the US operation in Iraq.

I'm sure the military have been using blogs and the internet, generally, as a tool for facilitating the spreading of their own messages.

As if they're not. But, as usual, what's good for the goose, isn't good for the US hating truth tellers.

Love the intenets, all white noise, all the time.

Stating the obvious

Rally cry: 'We are all Australians';

Mr Chiu also called on Prime Minister John Howard to admit the existence of racism in Australia.

Unfortunately, Howard is no leader, he'll follow the mob in an effort to consolidate support. His Prime Ministership has been nothing but a hokes.

Rude, crude and honest

Admiration for a Comedian Who Knew No Limits ;

"The truth was an incredibly hot commodity in 1974-75," said Mr. Michaels, who watched as Mr. Pryor did two long monologues that night, exactly 30 years ago today. "The distrust of authority was at its absolute peak, with Watergate and the war, and he caught the wave."
I only just heard. I think the first time I saw Richard Pryor was in Stir Crazy, one of the funniest odd couple films ever made.

The truth, always a hot commodity and thankfully, we have the stealth technology of comedy to sneak under the radar of the thought police.

Dark skinned targets

Shot passenger 'was mentally ill';

One of the 144 passengers on the plane, which had arrived earlier from the Colombian city of Medellin, said she saw the man running "crazily" down the aisle before the shots were fired.

Mary Gardner, a passenger on the flight, said the man ran screaming down the aisle and a woman followed him, yelling "my husband, my husband," WTVJ television reported.

He didn't know he was a terrorist, either.

Mass bait and switch debate

alicublog;

Why do Leftists fart in elevators and then say I did it? Why do Lefists make me look bad by wearing certain fabrics, like gabardine and flannel, with a flair I cannot achieve? Your evasions do nothing for your case. Again, I keep agreeing with you that Bush erred in not biting open the throats of the illegal detainees and marching into the World Court, hauling their corpses in with one hand and giving the judges the finger with the other! We are not so very different, you and I.

Have a proper gander at this...

Billmon;

To be sure, Lincoln Group appears to have a few other projects going, like producing "public service" TV ads to remind Iraqi viewers that road bombs directed at U.S. soldiers often kill innocent civilians. (I'm guessing the ads don't make the same point about errant 500-pound bombs dropped from U.S. war planes.) But this would still seem to leave an awful lot of Uncle Sam's money unaccounted for.

Advertising a product which will soon sell itself. Its THAT good.