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From: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.admin,comp.misc
Subject: News slanted by censorship?
Summary: It may be slanted, but why?
Message-ID: <118@dcs.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jun 88 02:15:02 GMT
References: <386@blic.BLI.COM> <113@dcs.UUCP> <3939@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <224@optilink.UUCP>
Reply-To: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Organization: DCS, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 56

In article <224@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>In article <3939@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>, max@trinity.uucp (Max Hauser) writes:
>> In article <113@dcs.UUCP> wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
>> | In article <386@blic.BLI.COM> ruthb@blic.BLI.COM (Ruth Bevan) writes:
>> | >While Canada is no Utopia, I assure you they see a lot less of government
>> | >intervention than we do. Their news isn't censored to give an unbelievable
>> | >pro-American slant on all international issues, ...
>> | 
>> | I fail to see any pro-American slant in news reporting in this country ...
>> 
>> 
>> Exactly.
>
>Uh, I'm sure Mr. Hauser thought he was being so clever, but Mr. Paul isn't
>an American.  (I'm not sure *where* he's from, but I know he's not one of
>US.  Therefore, my inclination is to think that perhaps his remarks may
>be meaningful when says he doesn't see a pro-American slant.


I'm from Austria, if that has any significance.

I've received a couple of messages pointing out specific pro-American articles
or, in one case, the fact that the NYT did not give the arrest for drug
smuggling of the Honduran Ambassador to Panama the prominence the writer
thought it should get.

I won't deny that there are conservative papers and magazines, and even 
broadcast networks/outlets; however, in the four years I've been here and even
before that the dominating factor in public debate in this country has been
to always suspect the worst motives behind actions of US officials and to 
give the benefit of the doubt to the Russians, the Cubans, etc.

To clarify further, Ruth Bevan claimed that news reporting in this country
has a pro-American slant BECAUSE OF CENSORSHIP. That is clearly nonsense.
If there were censorship, Iran/Contra would never have leaked. Earlier,
Watergate would never have leaked. Conservative newspapers report things
in a pro-American fashion because their owners/editors follow their
convictions; I assume that "liberal" newspapers report the way *they* do
because they in turn follow their own convictions.

Ms. Bevan makes the mistake extremists both on the right and on the left make
so often: to assume that someone expresses an opinion they don't share because
they are being pressured, or have some evil motive. 

No doubt there are people on both sides who do have ulterior motives, or
who compromise their convictions and integrity for one reason or another, but
Ms. Bevan's blanket statement is rude and slanderous, and not based on fact.

I suspect that Canadian law gives the government much greater opportunity
for censorship than US law; certainly British law does, and the laws of most
West European countries as well.

Wolf Paul
-- 
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