The clip highlights the importance of the DailyKOS story
Last week I wrote a DailyKOS article titled “Disproportionate coverage of terror attacks is killing us in more ways than one” that also got good penetration at my site. The gist of the article was that the media coverage of attacks or issue in western countries is given much more coverage and relevance than elsewhere. That inherently puts a disproportionate fear into the psyche of Americans and other westerners not proportional with the real threat.
RT’s Redacted Tonight’s John F. O’Donnell quoted my article in a piece they did a few days ago. He pointed out that on November 24th ISIS conducted three terrorist attacks. One in Baghdad, one in Beirut, and one in Paris. 392 articles were written online for the attack in Baghdad. 1292 were written about the attack in Beirut, and 21,672 were written about Paris. Get the picture?
“I am not saying that Paris didn’t deserve 21,672 articles,” John F. O’Donnell said. “This guy is.” He then read the following snippet from my article.
Americans get a disparate view of ISIS-inspired terrorism. The excessive coverage would have one believe that ISIS is an existential problem for Europe and by inference, the United States of America. That impression could not be further from the truth.
His statement that follows is funny but sad. “I very well may agree with him,” John F. O’Donnell said. “But I am not going to say that shit. I ain’t trying to get shunned.”
And that is the issue. Many know the truth. Many see the distortions in news. Many see the biases. Most stay quiet out of fear of the corporate masters who own the media. For this reason, it is important to have independent publicly funded media. Not faux public media like NPR, who have sold their souls to the corporatocracy, but media like Pacifica Network’s KPFT.org, DailyKOS.com, Common Dreams, Truthout.org, and other real independent media.
Watch the entire Redacted Tonight show here.