Sunday, January 13, 2008

Some Reform

I caught yesterday's piece on ATC by Anne Garrells talking about the legislation passed in Iraq supposedly allowing former Baathists back into jobs and into their pensions. Garrells piece does a pretty good job of talking to some Iraqis affected by the law (they are skeptical), but the general drift of the article is that the new law is a positive reform, and that it is just one that the US is pushing...

I happened to read Juan Cole's far more detailed and telling analysis of this new Iraqi law. His work (again) illustrates how limited (and favorable to the administration) NPR's coverage can be.
Posted by Mytwords at 11:01 AM
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2 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

I think we might be hearing a bit more of this 'appeasement reporting' from NPR; that is, a softer line on some of the Neocon points of view to appease the more critical (and accurately so) elements of their audience. NPR certainly doesn't want controversy. If they get too many Garrels/ersatz torture info stories, heads would truly roll.

I suppose that if I ran the NPR circus, I'd want to be trying more crafty techniques in growing the NPR audience. Like, attracting listeners with honey rather than napalm. I'm sure Garrels was ordered to 'simmer down' during her furlough. If the on-air people get a little too cocky, I imagine they get a mild talking-to, and sneakier methods are employed to keep the audience hooked. After all, they've fluffed up the entire operation, to give more a ho-ho-ho! news approach. They don't want to muck up the gains that have been made, and the big boys above wouldn't allow it anyway. This stuff just isn't very hard to figure out.

I am wary, oh so wary. I agree with Masbrow - NPR isn't suddenly going to be wonderful, in this or any other millennium. That's why it should be junked and reincarnated as a bare-bones, no-gimmicks news service. Failing that, it should be quickly privatized, so it can emerge as just another agenda-driven media outlet, without 'public' pretensions, but where the corporate ruthlessness, which once fawned over it, would probably then sell it off, and it would be dismantled in obscurity, due to its absurdly high cost overruns, which right now, WE ARE PAYING FOR. I dream on...

1/13/08, 1:42 PM
Life As I Know It Now said...

NPR=McNews for the masses:
Juan Cole is another kettle of fish.

1/14/08, 6:38 PM

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