JACK ENGELHARD: If a Tree Falls on the NY Times, Does it Make a Sound?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14962#.U2ylYleCUtV The wonder of it is how come we have so much but know so little. I have just discovered that my TV has 800 different channels. I remember when there were only three. I also remember when those three networks gave no more than five minutes of news. Five minutes and we called it a day. Then someone suggested, “Let’s try fifteen,” and even the wisest honchos thought that to be too much. Television was only expected to provide a taste of what’s happening. For depth there was the daily newspaper. When 15 minutes of TV news worked out, someone else suggested going for a half hour (minus commercials) and the experts thought he was nuts. But it made sense when along around this time the JFK assassination provoked a demand for more comprehensive broadcast coverage. Then this! In a move thought to be corporate suicide, KYW in Philadelphia switched from music to ALL news ALL the time in 1965 to become one of the first radio stations in the nation to take such a risk. It took a while but it caught on, big, and after a long stint as columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, before switching to novels, I came along as KYW editor in the 1980s, so I saw it all close-up. But could round-the-clock news succeed for television? Impossible. But Ted Turner, on cue from KYW, took the chance and created CNN, and the rest, as they say, is Cable News. What made it click was the O.J. Simpson “Trial of the Century.” People just couldn’t get enough. So now we have all that, plus the Internet, and we know less than ever before. That’s because the news has never been as biased as ever before. They tell us what they want us to know and the rest they leave out, which means that The New York Times gives us half the news fit to print, and when I say The New York Times I mean it as a catch all phrase covering the rest of the news media. They all dance at the same weddings (excluding conservative stepchild Fox News). Today’s journalists are motivated by an urge to “make the world a better place.” This means that they are right and you are wrong and it is their duty to bring you over to their side, however left of center that may be. So they make every effort to shape the news to conform to their point of view. I am a novelist. I know how information can be shaped. Don Hewitt, the creator of CBS’s 60 Minutes, measured each program upon a simple article of faith: “Tell me a story.” So The New York Times tells you a story – and a story can be twisted any which way except for the truth. See here, courtesy of CAMERA, how the Times chose the eve of Israel’s Memorial Day to whitewash and even celebrate Islamic Jihad, Israel’s murderers. In covering this year’s Boston Marathon, the Times reminded its readers that last year “explosions” went off at the finish line. Who did this? Muslim extremists? The Times would rather not say. Bombs went off by themselves, apparently. That’s how half the news is done. Here is how it becomes total fiction: A while back, the Times ran a huge front page photo of young men and women dashing for a table full of food. The headline told a million readers that these were Palestinian Arabs who had been STARVED by Israel, but after international pressure Israel relented and the kids were finally allowed to eat. I noticed that these kids were laughing and so did some other observers, until the Times finally admitted (on page 36) that Israel had nothing to do with this. Muslims had been fasting for some holy day (Ramadan?) and were finally allowed to feast. But the damage was done. That’s how bias works and how ignorance spreads. Jay Leno used to do his man-on-the-street and often took his cameras on campus to prove how ignorant people were. He was seldom disappointed. Most knew Obama as their savior but did not know that what’s-his-name was vice president. Remember the expression, “I only know what I read in the newspaper?” No you don’t. Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. New from the bestselling novelist, the anti-BDS thriller Compulsive. Website: www.jackengelhard.comComments are closed.
