The Furious Spinner

2:00 a.m. Woke up to news which made me giggle. Saw Bush standing next to some Australian politician looking like an opossum caught in headlights as Australian Senators heckled him. I stopped giggling once I got on the net and started looking for news stories to post here. I found four stories which all essentially said the same thing. Hmmmm. I've been noticing this more and more: news stories using the exact same language. Of course, I see this a lot when they all use the same news source, like AP, for instance. But only one of these protest stories said it was AP, unless I'm just so sleepy I missed it. And all the stories were slanted to make the so-called president look good, I thought. He "shrugged it off" they all wrote. They all used that expression. Thousands of protesters also greeted Bush, although that is only mentioned in passing. This is what I learned when I took journalism in college—and one of the reasons I decided not to pursue a career in journalism—it is so easy to slant a news story just by what you put where. Or where you put what. Many people don't read past the first paragraph. The main point of the Australia protest story, had I been writing it, would have been about the thousands of protesters, not Bush "shrugging it off." Or at least have it be a separate sidebar story. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Alternet.org don't have anything on their sites yet.

I'm crossing my fingers that the protests here in the U.S. on Saturday will be huge. It probably won't change Bush's policies, but it may create some energy on that New Moon day which will fuel antiwar and anti-Bush sentiment. Or pro-peace. However y'all want to look at it.

Trying sleep again. Peace, all. 0 comments

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