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From: gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines,trial.talk.politics.peace,talk.politics.mideast,alt.desert-storm,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Missing in Action
Message-ID: <9103222056.5222@mydog.UUCP>
Date: 23 Mar 91 01:56:45 GMT
References: <9103132214.879@mydog.UUCP> <1991Mar15.221730.15632@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca> <9103162147.2178@mydog.UUCP><1991Mar22.125420.11622@cbnewsj.att.com>
Lines: 67

I've given what information I presently have as to sources; those
who are interested can follow up this story if they wish.  If I
find out more, and I can do so, I will post an article.  I would
like to get into the question of the veracity of sources,
however.  Mr. Wheeler seems much exercised that I quoted WBAI and
the Village Voice.

twheeler@cbnewsj.att.com (theodore wheeler) writes:
| ... 
| Taking WBAI as a non-biased, even-handed source of information
| is akin to believing the PLO just wants to be friends with
| Isreal.  Radio Moscow used to take lessons from this bunch.
| I would no more believe what is said on WBAI than anything
| spouted over the Christian Broadcasting Network.  Both have
| very narrow biased agendas and will do anything they can to
| push that agenda.  Further, WBAI is notorious for not checking
| sources.
|                   ...               What makes you think that
| WBAI, an organization with its own political agenda, has all of
| the answers?  What makes you think the Village Voice, a newspaper
| that has a credibility rating of less than zero, has all the 
| answers and everyone else is wrong?  I have problems with the
| main stream news sources too, but I think I am astute enough
| to see through the reporting fog so that I don't have to run
| to a blatently obvious political agenda mouthpiece such as
| WBAI or the Village Voice.

Mr. Wheeler says or implies some things here which just aren't
so.  The primary ones are that, in contrast to WBAI, CBN, and the
Village Voice, the mainstream media do not have a political
agenda or a biased point of view.  The difference between the
marginal and the mainstream media is not that the former have a 
particular point of view and a particular politics, and the
latter don't; it's that the former admit their particularities.
WBAI, CBN, and the Village Voice do not conceal their politics; 
the New York Times and Time Magazine do, because part of their 
act is claiming "objectivity."

People who claim "objectivity" are saying that their texts, and
only their texts, conform to reality.  The idea that one's point
of view is the one true point of view is totalitarianism.  Thus,
the New York Times and Time Magazine are totalitarian; the
Village Voice, CBN, and WBAI are not.[1]

I think the marginal media tend to be better on the facts than
the mainstream media, in spite of having orders of magnitude less
resources to do research with, because they know they're going to
be attacked, just as they were in Mr. Wheeler's words above.  But
let me invite readers of these newsgroups who think otherwise to 
cite examples to the contrary -- if they know of any.

| It really puzzles me that their are those out there in netland 
| that see a government conspiracy behind every news broadcast.
| Just what is this so-called conspiracy out to do[?]

Preserve and extend their power, of course.  You don't get to run
a major corporation or a government without wanting to worse than
everyone else around, and once you get there, there's no reason
to stop, even if you could.
--
[1] I may be wrong about CBN.  Most of the religious stations I
have heard have been openly opinionated, rather than pretending
to "objectivity", and I have not heard anything I recognized as 
a lie; but I am not their most faithful listener.

--
Gordon Fitch  |  gcf@mydog.uucp  | uunet!cmcl2.nyu.edu!panix!mydog!gcf