Let’s see a combat reporter actually embedded with that very unit who has spent the last decade actually at the front lines of the war vs a magazine that specializes in Bieber Fever.
The online edition of the Rolling Stone story contains a section with a video called “Motorcycle Kill,” which includes our Soldiers gunning down Taliban who were speeding on a motorcycle toward our guys. These Soldiers were also with 5/2 SBCT, far away from the “Kill Team” later accused of the murders. Rolling Stone commits a literary “crime” by deceptively entwining this normal combat video with the Kill Team story. The Taliban on the motorcycle were killed during an intense operation in the Arghandab near Kandahar City. People who have been to the Arghandab realize the extreme danger there. The Soviets got beaten horribly in the Arghandab, despite throwing everything including the Soviet kitchen sink into the battle that lasted over a month. Others fared little better. To my knowledge, 5/2 and supporting units were the first ever to take Arghandab, and these two dead Taliban were part of that process.
Yon also points out that the Soldiers who were actually doing wrong “would have fit into a mini-van” while the brigade is thousands of soldiers strong but Rolling Stone tries to make hay of what the Army and had already discovered and acted on.
He suggests a boycott, I suggest that MSNBC who is still trying to make hay of this stuff tries having Michael Yon on. I don’t think I’ll hold my breath waiting for it, their quest for finding the right story to bring the Afghanistan war down is just too important to them.
I couple of days ago I saw this post from a Chinese site concerning Charlie Sheen. It from a Chinese view concerning Sheen actions in terms of parental fealty (that is respect for one’s parents and family name) Sicilians are very big into this so the article interested me. The author talked about how media influences behavior:
How many young people have been led astray by Sheen’s boasts about his substance abuse and freewheeling sex life? And that was when he was in character on national television, as a randy bachelor in Two and a Half Men.
The author then talked about the difference between how such a situation would be handled in a Chinese culture rather than an American one.
Take Edison Chen, who humbly apologized and slipped away to Canada. Or Li Gang’s father, who wept as he sought forgiveness on his son’s behalf.
The fact that Sheen continues to embarrass himself unabated, becoming even a hero to many, points to the vast differences in cultures.
Now there is a lot of talk about how TV really doesn’t have an influence and it doesn’t really matter. It is to those people that I direct the next line:
He ignored his own father’s advice to keep quiet, who was once the president of the US. emphasis mine Sheen is a disgrace, unfilial to his father and his fatherland.
You are likely laughing right now. Look at this guy who doesn’t know the difference between West Wing and reality, what a maroon. Consider how many years West Wing was on, how many people who don’t pay attention to this kind of thing, or lived overseas with no other point of reference actually believed what they saw?
Which brings us to NPR.
One of the things that makes institutional bias the “media template” so insidious is the effect of a false background message on people who do not pay attention to what is going on. True or false it becomes what “everybody knows”.
When a person or a group has an acknowledged bias (For example I am unapologetic conservative Catholic) those biases are out there and people can make an informed decision on what to believe or not. When you have a large company supported by tax dollars feeding biases such as shown in the NPR videos you are simply providing propaganda to a particular side, and to those who are either not paying attention regularly or to those listening overseas it becomes what “everybody knows”.
I don’t think this is a bug, I think NPR considers this a feature. How many people have a false impression of the Tea Party, a position that would be moot if they attended a meeting or two?
And that is why government funding doesn’t belong, if people or groups want to give their money to support a point of view that’s one thing, its a free country. To use public funds, particularly when we have a deficit, to do so that’s another.
Update: Fealty was misspelled in the Chinese article and I copied that misspelling, corrected.
Update 2:The damage control keeps up first Ron Schiller, then Vivian Schiller now Ron again
Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says in an e-mail: “Ron Schiller has informed us that, in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements, he does not feel that it’s in the best interests of the Aspen Institute for him to come work here.”
The NPR executive caught on video bashing the Tea Party and saying that NPR didn’t need federal funding will not be heading to the Aspen Institute. Ron Schiller had been scheduled to start his new position as director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program and Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence April 1, according to a glowing press release distributed last week.
But now Aspen Institute communications director Jim Spiegelman says that Schiller will not be working there.
Rush is now reporting that Ron Schiller is claiming his statements do not reflect the views of NPR or his own. Say WHAT?
Watch the whole exchange, this particular quote is spot on:
There is no comparison between the rhetoric of the tea party and the rhetoric of these protesters. This is 100 times worse, I mean you have to look around to find anything amongst the tea parties maybe you know maybe there’s some guy with a sign that’s over the top but basically its all over the place here.
Listen to the different between her and Tim Noah he makes general assertions on the tea party based on a single visit to a single rally. Ann has been to multiple Tea Party Rallies and has covered the Wisconsin protests in-depth. Who’s opinion would you trust more?
One of the advantages that control of the MSM and the major newspapers gives the media is the ability to convince people who do not regularly pay attention to current events beyond Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber of things that simply aren’t true.
Half of this battle is ignoring stories that they don’t want promoted (see “The News Hounds that didn’t bark” or this link at Big Government of yet ANOTHER assault on a tea party member by a union man“. The other half is manipulating the reporting on events that are covered. Today’s example is Move-on’s “50 state rally” attempt to rally non-union types.
By all accounts the rallies didn’t energize much of anyone:
Despite the best efforts of the state-run media and the far left, protesters failed to materialize today at the dozens of rallies in support of government employee unions. Maybe it’s because government employees make twice as much as the private sector?
Let’s face it. These were no tea party numbers despite their best astroturfing efforts.
In Jefferson City, Missouri about 200 and around 300 counter tea party protesters turned out at competing rallies. The tea party protesters, of course, showed more energy. In St. Louis only 40-50 protested. In Utah maybe a couple hundred turned out.
Possibly 300 in Virginia. Around 500 in Washington DC where a bunch of loosely-connected leftist groups took turns complaining about the usual suspects: corporations, the rich, Speaker Boehner, the Tea Party, and men. Los Angeles may have had one to two thousand in attendance – including self-avowed socialists.
Over all, it was a complete failure. But, don’t tell the state-run media.It doesn’t fit their agenda.
So how horrible was the turnout? There were more people at the Recall Wisconsin Senator Wirch rally today that there were at several of the MoveOn rallies.
‘It seems that unless government workers get a paid day off (from us) they’re not too interested in taking their unpaid days off to protest.’”
Meanwhile Professor Jacobson who has some harder numbers notes that the media had already decided that Move-on’s protests were successful:
Outside of Madison, there were no reports of sizable crowds. And if you read the news reports, almost all the protesters were other union members. Despite the efforts, the organizers failed to motivate significant numbers of non-union members to come out for protests.
The 50-state protest was a failure, plain and simple, although the images from Madison may create the false impression of massive nationwide protests.
Update: As predicted, the mainstream media is painting the nationwide protest as a success. The headlines talk about protests around the country, but the stories talk almost entirely about Madison, giving the false impression that there was widespread support around the country:
Why is this important? He explains
Since NYT and AP stories are run at thousands of local newspapers around the country who cannot create their own content, it is likely that most people in this country never will hear about the dismal turnout for these protests. This is your biased MSM in action.
The idea is to go into the fight with a pre-ordained template and to find a way to manipulate the available information to make it fit.
The target of this is not those who are involved but those who are not, who don’t check out the cable news (except for during a huge crisis or maybe just before an election) those who will catch only a glimmer of what is happening and then when in a position to make a decision will have only that glimmer as a reference, something that “everybody knows”. It’s playing on the nature of belief.
In the 3rd episode of the Doctor Who Serial Image of the Fendahl from 1977 there is an exchange between the elderly Mrs. Tyler and her grandson when she tries to give him a charm and he objects:
Jack Tyler: “You know that I don’t believe in all that.”
Mrs. Tyler: “Most around ‘ere do and when most believe that da make it true.”
Jack Tyler: “Most people used to believe that the earth was flat, but it was still round,”
Mrs. Tyler: “Ha ha but they behaved as it were flat!”
The exchange begins at 6:51
And that is, as always, the goal of the MSM. To make people behave “as it were flat!” so that when a person on a show says: “the Union protesters are peaceful or the Tea Party is violent” that it will be accepted as common knowledge.
Thousands of people rallied in cities across the United States on Saturday against a Wisconsin plan to curb the power of public sector unions that has sparked similar government efforts in other states.
The headline Labor protests draw thousands across United States is telling, 50 states and “thousands” how many thousands? one thousands? two thousands? only when you go deep into the story do you see only one rally cited with even 1000 people outside of Madison.
Update: Thanks glenn. Just to give you an idea of how many Hits Instapundit gives. Glenn’s link to me was the 3rd update on a post put up 12 hours ago. that means the vast majority of his readers have already read that post, yet it has generated 100 hits in 2 hours on a Sunday morning.
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