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The Fog of Cable

By clock on July 22, 2006.

Link found on Ed Cone's blog: The Fog of Cable:

As someone who lives and breathes Middle East politics and media, I have had the bizarre -- and frustrating -- experience of watching the current conflict play out on U.S. cable television, and I am reminded once again why many Americans have such a limited -- and distorted -- view of the world.
---------snip-------------
There is plenty of room on cable television for politicized talk shows of all stripes. But in allowing -- or, rather, ordering -- its respected news correspondents to appear on such shows, the networks are trading credibility for ratings and cementing their transition from purveyors of news to citadels of infotainment.

Lost in the fog of hype and self-aggrandizement on the cable segments I saw was much of the subtle complexity of the conflict. Instead, it was too often reduced to the black-hat/white-hat characterization that has guided U.S. policy toward the region.

I guess I am glad I do not watch TV. What I pick up on blogs is probably much better than CNN and makes me less frothing-at-the-mouth mad at the state of the media in this country today. Read the whole thing for some egreggious details of our "journalists'" incompetence in reporting from the Middle East.

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I guess I am glad I do not watch TV. What I pick up on blogs is probably much better than CNN

That's my approach as well. I have chosen the political blogs and news outlets I read (see my blogroll) very carefully. I will back them for facts, and especially for analysis, against any mainstream media outlet.