Just finished reading this article on the Hungrybeast site. Well worth the read imo.

 

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2702/4503596273_2b800ab21d.jpg

 

On Tuesday morning, a now notorious video showing the US army opening fire on a group of men - some of whom turn out to be unarmed civilians, including two Reuters employees - in Baghdad in 2007 was released online by WikiLeaks. Mainstream media outlets were sluggish in picking the story up - it had only a few hundred views on YouTube at the start of the day and in this office, we scrambled to get a story up on our homepage.

As soon as it was published, we tweeted a link to our story, headlined “Leaked video shows US Army killing civilians”. That tweet was duly re-tweeted by our various followers with additional comments like “shocking”, “murderous US military, speaks for itself”, “and having fun doing it too apparently” and “blood-hungry american pricks”.

There are a few things which have occurred to me in the hours that have since passed.

The first is this: would Hungry Beast have covered the story if it had been the other way around? Would we have run a homepage headline that said “Video Shows Al Qaeda Insurgents Killing Civilians” or “Video Shows Taliban Beheading Journalist”? I’m not sure that we would have. At least, not with the same sense of urgency that we applied to getting a story about coalition forces engaged in what appears to be questionable conduct.

 

 

The second question then, is why not? Obviously the story of the video’s release was newsworthy. Reuters had been trying unsuccessfully to obtain the footage for three years under Freedom of Information laws and some argue that what it shows contradicts the official line on the incident. More than anything, it raises questions about the US Rules of Engagement. But Hungry Beast is a magazine show - we’re not obliged to report on things just because they’re newsworthy - we can pick and choose which bits of “news” we want to cover based on what interests us.

 

http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/context-everything

Just a FYI to all commenters, the video is like fight club on bigD - don't talk about the footage itself (inb4 lock).

Just a FYI to all commenters, the video is like fight club on bigD - don't talk about the footage itself (inb4 lock).

Agree, I posted this as its more about peoples reactions to what we are shown on the news.Very very VERY rarely are we actually told the context of what happened.

 

Another case in point (not just the above story) is this story that was run on Ch7 & Ch10. Mediawatch was given an unedited copy of the camera tape.

 

[edit - WARNING - f bomb]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUryKmSZwuQ]YouTube- Channel 9 cameraman calls Aussie Muslim an "F***ing Terrorist"[/ame]

 

You watch that and you would rightly act the way the bloke did if you were treated like that because of your race/religion, but watch what they show on the news and because its out of context you'd be labelled something different.

Edited April 16, 201015 yr by Heat-seeker

Not everything about war is pleasing to read or see.. If anything..

Great post and story. I think about stuff like this all the time.

 

It always amazes me that people have all these self beliefs about life/war/money/the environment without really knowing anything about them. And most of those opinions are formed through media influence and not personal experiences.

 

I've had many a heated argument over a dinner table with very well educated people that have completely illogical opinions on subjects. Religion being a doozy. Once a friend (aetheist) argued with me (also aetheist) that religion had started more wars than any other factor in history. And he argued that point with utmost conviction even though he couldn't name more than four wars started by religion and one of those was WW2! Thanks American media - I'm glad you entered the war to liberate the jews (which you didn't know about at the time) and not because the Japs bombed you in the pacific. Saving Private Ryan Ryan FTW!

 

Another big one is the newspaper. Here in WA about a month ago there was a big front page picture with an old Aboriginal bloke on the front in a pretty run down - government provided - kitchen that had a caption which made him seem totally ungratefull about his position. The wording on it gave it away as being totally out of context but the letters page for the next week was full of letters from outraged readers about how he shouldn't be complaining about his free house. Now I don't doubt that he or people he knows trashed the place but I'd put money on him complaing about the town and it's lack of support he lives in and not his actual house.

 

Why are people so interested in what the TV and newspapers have to say? If anything they make the world a darker place than a brighter. It's a sad world we live in when statiscally crime isn't any worse than what it was years ago but you'd never know it by asking people because everything they see and read is a negative comment on society. But who can say they don't like pointing a finger or two or that a story of someone beating up a seventy year old grandmother doesn't have more of an impact (and thus sells more) than a feel good story.

 

We're all just puppets to the media and it's so good at it's game that it can manipulate most of the population (even the sceptics) without us even realising.

 

As a wise man once told me - There are alot of truths in this world but most of them are opinion and very few of them are facts.

Edited April 16, 201015 yr by Rikidozan

+1 bisho "Believe nothing, question everything."

well said, they say that the news isn't biased and they only report "whats in the public interest" . . . my foot! they report what sells copy and what rates, no more no less! The closest to unbiased reporting imo is ABC and SBS and even they aren't infalible.

Media Watch FTW I give props to anyone who will bite the hand that feeds it and will take the piss out of themselves for being wrong about someone being wrong about something that was wrong in the first place.

ditto, i applaud them for not only going after the commercial media, but also the ABC. truely unbiased!

I obtained the book mentioned "On Killing".

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41N0MEzHRXL.jpg

An interesting topic in the context of Defence and war.

 

I think Hungry Beast does a great job.

 

On the topic of self-criticism and the ABC - Mediawatch is never scared to put

the boot into dodgy ABC activities or reporting.

Edited April 16, 201015 yr by mandatory05

just a question, have all of you (who say the yanks where wrong in what they did) watched the full 35 min video of the scenario? just wondering really, dont really want to get into much about it on here (cus we all know by now having a mature conversation about the conflict in the middle east (plus the politics involved) is near impossible around here...) but yer, if anyone has id like to hear your thoughts on the matter, i wont say what i think here (cus its sure to spark something) but if your interested in having a conversation about it PM me. looking for other peoples opinions here.

That was a very good article. And As much as I cant stand some of the hosts on that tv show, I wouldn't mind it coming back for a 2nd season.

I love Media Watch, really should try and watch it more often. :wub:

Some of the things I enjoy on Hungry Beast are the flash (?) animations where they expose various things - for instance:

 

the history of official recognition and concealment

of child abuse within the Catholic Church

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpFi3jrsr3Y]YouTube- Hungry Beast ep 20 - The Beast File on the Vatican't response to abuse allegations[/ame]

 

the stranglehold Coles and Woolies have on this country

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1et_HBmLYw]YouTube- The Beast File: Woolies and Coles (HUNGRY BEAST)[/ame]

 

and so on...

 

p.s. I highly commend all forum members who decide to take potentially controversial discussion into PM.

I try and watch hungry beast, but just get turned off by all the young socialists. They sure do have a crack at lots of things ....and i think thats a good thing. But its not to hard to see the agenda they are pushing, and thats fine if you agree with said agenda, but it aint no good if you dont.

 

I do like the graphics and design though.

Yeah they must have an excellent art design team at their studio

+1 bisho "Believe nothing, question everything."

 

exactly!!! however this is not the line the government wishes you to follow, they would prefer if everyone just listened/watched the media, thats the story nothing else to see, move along to the next story!!!

 

 

 

A radio announcer in the usa called David VonKleist has a web site called thepowerhour.com , he has always stated that only the 1st hour of a news report on a major incident is the only hour when the truth still exists, after that its manipulated.

 

on sept 11 when the 1st plane hit he told his listeners to get their video cameras out, 3 years later he made the dvd 911 in plane sight which shows video of things that the main stream news never showed or was manipulted to tow the government line.

 

oaklahoma bombings- the police told the media 20 minutes after the bombing that they had police bomb techs working on diffusing 2 other bombs that were located at the rear of the building!!!!

 

so the moral is keep your eyes open,"Believe nothing, question everything."