It’s been mention in the Latin American Media that the US media is not allowed to transmit certain information. Is this being acknowledged in the US? Here in Mexico we are getting lots bloody clips of American casualties, POW’s, downed Apaches and busted troop carriers. Is all this absent from CNN, ABC, FOX and the like?
U.S. media shies away from graphic images. But these events are all spoken about. So no, it's not censorship by the government.
Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? What do you think would happen if graphic images like EvilRick described started popping up on US television sets?
Re: Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? Americans would get thinner because they'd lose their appetite.
Re: Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? We're about to find out. CNN is now showing the POW footage, which means everybody else will follow.
I don't know if it's specific gov't censorship as much as it's a desire to keep people watching TV. Disturbing images from the war will make people turn off their TVs, thus decreasing overall viewership and hence ad revenue. News outlets have a financial responsibility to keep the news light, snappy, and shallow.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? No Sh!t! At night they have shown images of dead soldiers on both sides and they really show you that war is never a "nintendo" like afair.
they didnt show the pictures of the american POW's so that the army could notify family members prior to them seeing pictures of loved ones in iraqi custody for the first time on television, i think it is a good move by the networks. after the families were notified the pictures were shown...the same thing is being done with the pictures of the apache pilots. they have shown pictures of the apache, convoy that was ambushed, and other american soldiers that are injured and dead...but do not show their faces for obvious reasons. i dont think i would like to find out my family member died <or captured> by seeing their face on television...
The families have been notified and so far, only CNN has showed the footage. This is about more than that.
Then this was in response to CNN taking the first step. The networks haven't been showing any of the graphic images that foreign outlets are.
my question is how much information the media (and us) are limited because the govt isn't releasing any of it... how uninformed are they keeping us
It's always been this way. I remember several years ago I was in Barcelona and the front page of a major Spanish newspaper showed graphic footage of a dismemebered corpse, the result of a suicide bombing. I was shocked to see such an image (in color) presented as front page news. It's something you just don't see over here.
Sometimes you do. I saw some pretty graphic still shots of a post-explosion suicide bomber in Newsweek once. Like, human torso sans extremities graphic, and human head in gutter graphic. It's extremely rare, but it does happen.
It's a good question, but the answer is that usually we don't know this until some time later. Eventually, after all, the truth does out. Check out John MacArthur's book "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War" to see some of the stories that came to light after that one. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520083989/104-2429583-3648737?vi=glance Actually, better yet, you can just read this speech he gave in '93 promoting the book in which he revealed all the juicy parts: http://www.independent.org/tii/content/events/f_macarth.html [Posted for the 3rd time on these boards, btw. Sorry about that, but it IS a great read] Excerpt from a review: "Wonderfully readable. . . . In Second Front, Mr. MacArthur insists that from the White House on down the idea was to beat the Vietnam syndrome with a winning war, blame the messenger as unpatriotic for any bad news, and keep the American press under control and the public in the dark." -NY Times
Re: Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? Distort what's really happening in the war and try to rile up more protesters who are taking police away from their jobs. 10 POWS to 3,000(not counting the ones they let go).
Re: Re: Re: Censorship in the US media? Pictures of killed troops shouldnt be shown out of respect for the families involved.. It is called ethics. so far, I am glad that our news stations have for the most part refrained from this.. The clip of the killed POW's, you couldnt identify them by face.
Media consolidation: most radio/tv stations, cable networks, publishers, etc. are owned by a few billionaires and corporations who are obsessed with the bottom line. That's why mainstream media marginalizes many talented artists (sell out or starve), doesn't show international news (as in the planet earth not places relevant to U.S. "interests") and obviously doesn't show stories about media consolidation.
Mexican news casts by CNI and Televisa 4 have been taken off the air by American Cable and dish networks in the U.S. for showing images of dead Iraqi civilians (children with severed limbs) as results of the latest bombings in Baghdad. This news casts also allow all sides to express their opinion and they are also critical of the US pissing on UN laws and regulations
I wonder if all foreign news sources will be removed for the thoughtcrime of actually covering the war in an unbiased fashion. Oh well, at least we still have BBC and the internet. For now.