Film Forum and Reviews

I have this terrible feeling that the news shown in the USA is far from balanced.

Our "World News" is quite different from that shown in the UK, I believe. We rarely get news about Africa unless there is some sort of Black on Black brutality involved, and we don't hear the concerns of most European countries, or news about South America.

Do you think we get watered down news? Do you think we are purposely left out of world affairs because the information we receive has been....altered?

To be honest I think they show us the bad stuff--- Filtered? Yes-- we don't see the good in Iraq-- we see the bad things... I'm sure it is the same with other news as well.

KrisNY wrote:To be honest I think they show us the bad stuff--- Filtered? Yes-- we don't see the good in Iraq-- we see the bad things... I'm sure it is the same with other news as well.

I agree.Bad news = good ratings.If the world was a better place not to many people would watch.Though it's so horrible lately even on local topics I no longer watch alot of the news because it's so sad.Especially all these parents killing there children.World news is skewed.I think alot is about ratings and not always the truth.

Sadly, the US News has taken the idea of "If it bleeds, it leads" to the next, worse level. So many news programs, whether it's local news affiliates or national networks have turned their shows into a dramatic "episode" of television viewing.

Inn my opinion CNN used to be the most respected, and they're still so much better than Fox, but they've even taken the dramatic turn. It's very frustrating.

DianaR wrote:I have this terrible feeling that the news shown in the USA is far from balanced.

Our "World News" is quite different from that shown in the UK, I believe. We rarely get news about Africa unless there is some sort of Black on Black brutality involved, and we don't hear the concerns of most European countries, or news about South America.

Do you think we get watered down news? Do you think we are purposely left out of world affairs because the information we receive has been....altered?

ack.

I just wrote this huge long message, and totally lost it. You'd think I'd know by now to save my messages.

The answer is a resounding YES.

Do a search on the farah province in Afganistan. Read the latest news reports about it. Read the New Yorker article on military buildup to go into Iran Seymour Hersh (I think), to learn about what we're getting ready to do with Iran.

If we depend on MSNBC, CNN, or FAUX news as the only sources of our news, then we are definitely getting watered down, altered news. We need to read world news sources. But even then, it's hard to trust that the world news sources, aren't military/CIA operations to spread US-positive news.

Look up "Radio Free Europe" and "Project Mockingbird",

World Prout Assembly

The fact remains that you can't very well trust any one news source, and it's important to check out all news sources you possibly can, particularly world news sources - and even more specifically, world news sources that are indigenous to the area that you're reading about specifically.

The bad news does sell, and keeps people in fear or motivates them to give more. The War in Iraq is a good example we never hear of anything good there. Today I learned that there has been over 500 pounds of uranium taken from Iraq and Suddams storage facilities. You know what they use uranium for right? Well this was never reported on the mainstream news. I am not saying dems are worse than rep. but they seem to get most of the media support and since their big ticket is Iraq failures I am sure they don't want people to know things like this or the actually good things that have been accomplished there.

News is only interested in the ratings. Theirfore, they must keep our attention to tune in, yes, are news is not pure.

I spent 4 years living in America and the news shows there made me feel so angry, they were so biased. News should be factual and objective giving you the information to make up your own mind. American news shows seem to try tell you what to think.
So I got most of my news from the BBC website, not perfect, but a lot better than NBC/CBS/Fox etc...