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eporters and photographers out of their embed
assignments, especially if the war takes more
than a few weeks, but stressed that the rule still
stands. “When our forces are engaged in ground
combat, it is no time to bring in a new journalist
to the environment,” he said this week. “Having
a journalist there complicates the situation
already. Having a new person does it more so.”
Follow the money
SOME new information about political donations
by US media companies has come out. Where?
In England, not in the US. You haven’t seen this
on Fox or CNN. The Guardian reports: “Political
donations by U.S. television and radio stations
have almost doubled in the last year, research
has shown.
“And the Bush family’s association with many
media organizations runs deep and is reflected
by the hefty handouts from the likes of NBC network
owner General Electric and Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corporation, both trenchant supporters
of the war.
“The amount of money ploughed into party
coffers by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV, NBC, and
radio giant Clear Channel (among others) has
gone up to £7.56m in 2001/2002, compared with
just £4.6m in 2000, the latest figures reveal.”
Press reunion
THEY have been talking about the press up at
Yale as the Yale Daily News celebrates its 75th
anniversary. Former Media Channel Managing
Editor Larry Bensky, an alumnus of that venerable
organization, is on hand. The newspaper
reports that “panelists discussed the changes
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necessitated by the 24-hour news cycle, where
cable news can provide up-to-the-minute access
and print journalists scramble to compete.
Washington Post White House correspondent
Dana Milbank said the Bush administration has
been especially clever in using this demand for
immediate news by sending out small bits of
information.
“There’s no time to question it, or Fox or
MSNBC are going to have it,” Milbank said. “By
the time we catch up and say, ‘Maybe that’s not
true,’ we’re already on to something else.”
Can you trust the polls?
CNN trotted out new polls showing 80 percent of
the people see President Bush as a strong leader
(what other leader are they seeing?) 65 percent
of the people think that he “cares about people
like them.” The LA times reports “Some 95 percent
of Americans say they are following news
coverage closely and 61 percent approve of the
coverage,” says a Los Angeles Times poll. In his
book, ‘The New Crusade,’ Rahul Mahajan says
most polling is deceptive. He writes: “Polls are
notoriously volatile – they vary greatly on the
background information given, on the way questions
are phrased, and on the alternatives given.
Responses also have no requirement of logical
consistency. So to draw on very specific conclusions
from these numbers would be a mistake.”
There is no doubt that public opinion is affected
by what people see – and don’t see – on television.”
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