Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Fallujah War Crimes Caught on Camera

From Reuters/ABC.net.au:
The US military has begun an investigation into possible war crimes after a television pool report by US network NBC showed a Marine shooting dead a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque.

If I may offer a suggestion for Dubya's banner makers: Misson Fucked.*

The Power of the Media
I did a unit this semester called Setting the Agenda: Politics and the Media.** Taking it was half of the inspiration for starting up this blog (the other half came from Rob Corr, who, after the last couple of weeks, is officially my blogging idol). The unit really made me question that grand old idea of the Fourth Estate as 'an independent and impartial watch dog of government and other powerful interests.' When looking at the mainstream media's response to 9/11 and hearing about the antics of the Murdochs and Alan Joneses of the world, most of the time the mass media just comes across as a lap dog (excellent, from now on I will only refer to Murdoch as Tinkerbell**).

When things like this show up, though, it gives you just a little bit of hope. Hope that maybe the megamedia has realised they spent immediate post 9/11 period and the lead up to Iraq 03-?? acting as the US Government Stenography Service and now understand the crucial role they have to play in protecting us from the tyranny of the majority. Another entry on hope/faith later (not).

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* As pointed out by GT, my most appropriate typo ever! :)
** Therefore this entry counts as exam study, woo.
*** Paris Hilton's chihuahua.

1 comment:

Sunili said...

Well Fox is Tinkerbell, but apparently there was a brilliant critique of the media in The Simpsons (and it's great how they pay out on Fox all the time generally) last night (the ep was called 'Fraudcast News'). I was pretending to study so I missed it; damnation.