So CNN is centrist, eh?

[Darth Wong]

I'm watching "God Warriors" on CNN. They covered Muslim fundamentalists, who they referred to as "the world's nightmare", and who they covered mostly by interviewing people who were opposed to the movement. They cited the fact that many western Muslims approve of the tactic of suicide bombing as proof that homegrown Islamic extremism is a dangerous threat to all western nations.

An hour later, they are covering Christian fundamentalists. It's interesting the change in reporting methods: they now interview exclusively people who belong to the movement; I haven't seen a single interview of anyone outside the evangelical movement yet. At best, they interview other evangelicals who disagree about specific policies. Forget about interviewing an atheist, as they did in the Islam piece. And they certainly don't use language like "the world's nightmare", nor do they cite any of the polls showing how many Christian right-wingers approve of torture.

And this is what Americans think of as the "centrist", or even "left-leaning" news network? I almost forgot why I never watch CNN. If this is your "left", and FOX is the "right", I can understand why your country is in so much trouble.

[ray245]

Agreed...sadly, even foreigners like singaporeans in some instance, cannot identify the fact that CNN can be bias...

[Guardsman Bass]

You still see some right-wingers accuse CNN of being leftist, but MSNBC has more or less stolen that position from them, at least in terms of commentators.

[Sea Skimmer]

Who ever said it was centrist? Liberal I’ve heard forever, and long ago I believed it, but centrist? Thankfully some time ago I realized CNN and most the rest of the media is simply fearmongering idiocy, the bent of which serves to gain viewers and nothing else. If they had a mostly Muslim audience they’d pander to them and whatever fears they might have the same way.

[Darth Wong]

Who ever said it was centrist? Liberal I’ve heard forever, and long ago I believed it, but centrist?

I've seen that comment numerous times on this forum, made by Americans who presumably watched CNN a lot more often than I did. At least that's better than a lot of other places I've seen, where everyone agrees that CNN is leftist.

[ray245]

Speaking of a centrist media...can the media in canda be considered less bias when they are reporting world news?

[Darth Wong]

Speaking of a centrist media...can the media in canda be considered less bias when they are reporting world news?

Well, since we are a bit player in most major world events, we don't have as much national pride invested in any given position, so yeah, we'd obviously be less biased, particularly about stories involving American actions. Of course, that would not apply to news stories about Canada's own actions on the international stage, as relatively meagre as they generally are.

That's not how Americans see it, though: they see all foreign media as being inherently biased against America, because they're dirty foreigners.

PS. Their coverage of the Battlecry movement is particularly disturbing; they spend all of their time interviewing members of the movement, and even when they covered a protest of Battlecry, they didn't interview a single member of that protest. Did they receive some directive to be totally one-sided about this?

[SirNitram]

Battlecry in general freaks me the fuck out. Admittably, almost everything I've gathered is from questionable sources(Personal accounts), but it's that way mostly because, as Mike says, it's always presented in it's favor by news.

[ray245]

Speaking of a centrist media...can the media in canda be considered less bias when they are reporting world news?

Well, since we are a bit player in most major world events, we don't have as much national pride invested in any given position, so yeah, we'd obviously be less biased, particularly about stories involving American actions. Of course, that would not apply to news stories about Canada's own actions on the international stage, as relatively meagre as they generally are.

That's not how Americans see it, though: they see all foreign media as being inherently biased against America, because they're dirty foreigners.

PS. Their coverage of the Battlecry movement is particularly disturbing; they spend all of their time interviewing members of the movement, and even when they covered a protest of Battlecry, they didn't interview a single member of that protest. Did they receive some directive to be totally one-sided about this?

What about controversial issues like the current war between georgia and russia? Or the tibetian issues?

Tons of channel only choose to report about one side of the conflict, while ignoring the other side.

Is there any candian media that will actually report both sides of the conflict in this scenario?

[Alan Bolte]

Battlecry in general freaks me the fuck out. Admittably, almost everything I've gathered is from questionable sources(Personal accounts), but it's that way mostly because, as Mike says, it's always presented in it's favor by news.

*skims Wikipedia* Should I have heard of these guys before? I mean, a militant evangelical movement is kinda scary in a general sense, I guess, but is there something special about these guys? Is it a particularly large movement? Sorry if I'm hijacking, here.

[SirNitram]

Battlecry in general freaks me the fuck out. Admittably, almost everything I've gathered is from questionable sources(Personal accounts), but it's that way mostly because, as Mike says, it's always presented in it's favor by news.

*skims Wikipedia* Should I have heard of these guys before? I mean, a militant evangelical movement is kinda scary in a general sense, I guess, but is there something special about these guys? Is it a particularly large movement? Sorry if I'm hijacking, here.

Somewhere between the 'Tamed savage of the Amazon!' productions they put on, the lamenting that the bits of the bible which, if I recall the books cited, are the ones glorifying enslavement and abuse of women who aren't doing as their masters want, and finally taking the Christian Warrior thing literally with declarations that 'Blood must be shed', I think I'm right to be creeped the fuck out.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Agreed...sadly, even foreigners like singaporeans in some instance, cannot identify the fact that CNN can be bias...

A good portion can't even recognise propaganda from real news. Would you even expect them to recognise something else even more foreign?

[Rye]

Who ever said it was centrist? Liberal I’ve heard forever, and long ago I believed it, but centrist?

I've seen that comment numerous times on this forum, made by Americans who presumably watched CNN a lot more often than I did. At least that's better than a lot of other places I've seen, where everyone agrees that CNN is leftist.

It probably is centrist for American politics, where it seems to boil down to how much of a tax break you want to give the super-wealthy and how much you want to kiss Jesus' ass. The closest America gets to any sort of Left are the environmentalists, and they're seen as a lunatic fringe (sometimes justifiably). Hell, even Al Gore was part of the crusade against Heavy Metal in the 80s.

[Saxtonite]

An hour later, they are covering Christian fundamentalists. It's interesting the change in reporting methods: they now interview exclusively people who belong to the movement; I haven't seen a single interview of anyone outside the evangelical movement yet. At best, they interview other evangelicals who disagree about specific policies. Forget about interviewing an atheist, as they did in the Islam piece. And they certainly don't use language like "the world's nightmare", nor do they cite any of the polls showing how many Christian right-wingers approve of torture.

Didn't they also cite people who weren't supportive of the rise of Christian fundamentalism, and hated it like Jimmy Carter? Or am I wrong.

What about controversial issues like the current war between georgia and russia?

the US Media seems to be siding with Georgia as it is a US Ally

Or the tibetian issues?

decisively against china. Speaking of CNN, they released an update: Buddha's Warriors that focus on the acts of the buddhist monks against the Burma government and Chinese imperialism in Tibet.

Given the other info like Buddhists wanting a theocracy in Thailand (arguably), and how Tibet was before the Chinese invaded wasn't mentioned lst I heard-then again isn't that info obscure?

[Saxtonite]

I also forgot, what would many of you say about their portrayal of the Jewish fundamentalists and hardcore Zionists.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

CNN's always come off as at least a corporatist-biased (read: don't give a FUCK about anyone who isn't Rich E. Rich off their a$$ or Bad Things happening to their Enemy Du Jour) news source. The fact that it's whipping up these truly nasty religious animosities is very disturbing simply due to the unabashed racism and 'RAR ISLAM BAD! CHRISTIANITY GOOD!' bigotry (even the wacko fundie group here who's showing all indications of mutating toward Terrorism; there, I said the T Word!) The other inconvenient fact that it's displayed to potentially tens of millions of people just barely not smart enough to guess that maybe this 'newscast' is pure unadulterated Bad Juju™ they're getting their heads filled with should fill any sane and intelligent individual with terror.

Cow the sheep with sensationalist media, and they'll not notice new ways the People are getting fleeced by the Media's backers and the government, like the War on Terror and Wall Street Shenanigans, and they'll still ignore the old ways they've been fleecing us for decades, like the War on Drugs.

[Darth Wong]

Didn't they also cite people who weren't supportive of the rise of Christian fundamentalism, and hated it like Jimmy Carter? Or am I wrong.

Yes they did, but Carter himself is also an evangelist. That's what I said earlier; they interviewed non-Muslims and outright atheists during the Islam piece, but during the Christianity piece they wouldn't go farther than other evangelical Christians who thought some of their brethren had gone too far. And they certainly made no attempt to tie politico-military attitudes to a "global nightmare" scenario, even though the AmeriChristian Right's attitudes toward military interventionism, the environment, and even things like torture are at least as disturbing as any of those surveys about Muslims who approve of suicide bombing.

[Viridian]

As far as commentator selection goes, maybe it's an issue of credibility to their audience.

Who do you think the average CNN viewer would believe more? Jimmy Carter talking about radical fundamentalists or an atheist who disagrees with the whole religion? I think getting a former president to speak about them was a good move - even if he might not phrase things as directly.

While I personally might have found a moderate mullah talking about radical Islam to be more interesting, Joe Six-Pack would probably trust a secular commentator more.

"Never ascribe malignancy when stupidity will suffice" - and in this case catering to the lowest common denominator.

[General Zod]

As far as commentator selection goes, maybe it's an issue of credibility to their audience.

Who do you think the average CNN viewer would believe more? Jimmy Carter talking about radical fundamentalists or an atheist who disagrees with the whole religion? I think getting a former president to speak about them was a good move - even if he might not phrase things as directly.

Have you ever read any of the CNN blogs? The majority of comments by the "average" CNN viewer are almost nothing more than sound bytes and popular talking points.

[Saxtonite]

Yes they did, but Carter himself is also an evangelist. That's what I said earlier; they interviewed non-Muslims and outright atheists during the Islam piece, but during the Christianity piece they wouldn't go farther than other evangelical Christians who thought some of their brethren had gone too far.

Oh, okay. Thank you. But about Islam, didn't I remember them also interviewing moderates? I don't remember all of it, just wondering.

And they certainly made no attempt to tie politico-military attitudes to a "global nightmare" scenario, even though the AmeriChristian Right's attitudes toward military interventionism, the environment, and even things like torture are at least as disturbing as any of those surveys about Muslims who approve of suicide bombing.

Didn't they talk about the Millennials in their documentary, I remember part of it talking about their beliefs in "The End Times" and Israel. Oddly enough many Christian fundamentalists are becoming more "green", with the thought that "since god gave it to them, they are supposed to protect god's gift" or similar.

[Darth Wong]

Oh, okay. Thank you. But about Islam, didn't I remember them also interviewing moderates? I don't remember all of it, just wondering.

Of course they interviewed moderates. What they did not do was interview any of the people making these inflammatory statements they were so concerned about: the exact opposite of their behaviour during the Christianity segment, where Amanpour at one point spent something like fifteen minutes following around the leader of the BattleCry movement and basically giving him the microphone.

Didn't they talk about the Millennials in their documentary, I remember part of it talking about their beliefs in "The End Times" and Israel. Oddly enough many Christian fundamentalists are becoming more "green", with the thought that "since god gave it to them, they are supposed to protect god's gift" or similar.

Yes, they talked about the Doomsday Christians ... by interviewing them and letting them speak for themselves. Again, no interviews with anyone who would flat-out reject this worldview, just with other evangelicals who considered themselves more moderate.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I only tuned in for a bit, they were replaying it at around 1 am. When I tuned in there was a preacher raving about the Dangers of Leftism (how it would destroy America) to an audience of sagely nodding grey-hairs. It looked frankly loony, and it seemed to me that that was CNN's strategy, give a guy enough rope...

[Saxtonite]

Of course they interviewed moderates. What they did not do was interview any of the people making these inflammatory statements they were so concerned about:

didn't they show some of the "radicals" making their statements about how the UK turned against them, etc?

the exact opposite of their behaviour during the Christianity segment, where Amanpour at one point spent something like fifteen minutes following around the leader of the BattleCry movement and basically giving him the microphone.

okay, yeah that is odd; and possibly a subtle bias towards the christians.

The quote is the devil you know is less scary than the unknown devil (or something similar), same applies to here; Christian Fundamentalists vs Islamic Fundamentalists.

Yes, they talked about the Doomsday Christians ... by interviewing them and letting them speak for themselves. Again, no interviews with anyone who would flat-out reject this worldview, just with other evangelicals who considered themselves more moderate.

okay, yes. Normally you the bias is more noticeable in CNN when you see it (Lou Dobbs being a prime example) but thank you, that is subliminal.

[Saxtonite]

It looked frankly loony, and it seemed to me that that was CNN's strategy, give a guy enough rope...

I was thinking it was that, too. Also, in hindsight it is odd they don't mention Black Churches in there.

and I meant "normally, the bias" not "Normally you the bias".