Now This

This blog is now read by more machines than humans: RSS robots, spam-laying insectopoids, echoes of blog-gathering .edu projects. This essentially is the state of affairs that all human activities w

Cleaning Up the Nation

Austin Bay:

If Air America were a conservative radio network its corrupt funding trail and cynical abuse of a poverty program would be front page news at the NY Times and full-time mega-scandal at

Rank Materialism

Freedom. I am now the proud new owner of a Gateway 6020GZ laptop, perfect for students and others with limited means. I can now go into a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble and look like I'm doing some

Fallujah Fonda

Uh-oh. From the Telegraph comes this exciting news:

Jane Fonda is returning to anti-war activism and embarking on a cross-country tour to call for an end to US military operations in Iraq.

Acros

John Pilger: Partner in Terrorism

In an outrageous piece of terrorist propaganda appearing on the cover of today's New Statesman, John Pilger puts the blame for the 7/7 London attacks not on the terrorists, but rather on Tony Blair:

Surgery for Mubarek

According to this BBC item, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek is to travel to Germany to have surgery to fix a slipped disc.

This is after rumours of his death circulated wildly on the internet the other day for a few hours. But all the BBC says is that there were rumours that he was in poor health or admitted to a hospital.

It's like there are aspects of reality that the BBC and outlets like them simply refuse to acknowledge exist. It wouldn't even be all that controversial to say that there were rumours floating around that he had died. Why this... "diplomatic" refusal to state bare facts?

All I can think, as a media outsider, is that they fix on some version of the truth and refuse to consider anything outside of that. Often their version coincides with political partisanship, but this story indicates that politics isn't a necessary factor. There's a delusional refusal to face reality here. Or, maybe, in what would be less damning to the media, but not by much, they have a tendency to report in coded terms that those in the know can read, but that most people who haven't been following a story won't get.

It's similar to the overuse of jargon in many professional circles. Plain talk and statement of facts would allow everyone to know what they needed to know about a story. If they keep facts hidden or obscure reality somehow, this accomplishes what? It keep them in a superior position, informationally. I'm not entirely sure why they would do this. It's not in keeping with their stated mission to inform the public, that's for sure.

Yet I can't think of a good reason for the BBC to whitewash the truth this way.

Update: AFP, via Yahoo!, also mentions rumours of "declining health", but nothing about rumours of Mubarek's death. It's "wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know-what-I-mean, know-what-I-mean" reporting.

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