Now they tell us

Iraqis were made to looked lie terrorist, extremists. All muslims and islamics were radicals, that they hated the US and its freedom. The attacks we made were seen as heroic acts, there was pre war intelligence and knew that the similarities from between Iraq and Al Qaeda on 9/11 were inaccurate. Theres are soldiers who are going through the same thing Iraqi civilians but the media only showed progress and happiness compared the horror they live everyday. The media becomes disrupted and manipulates whats told. If the war was looked down upon it was unpatriotic, reporters were censored and forced to not talk about certain topics. The media refuses to show sympathy and understanding of the war.

Media and Culture 11, 12, 13

It talks about the internet, how it's the next great massive personal medium. Huge for advertisers like omnicom, wpp, interpublic, publicies. 99% of googles $16.6 billion revenue in 2007 came from advertising. Boring, but effective. "Product Placement" is a huge thing and "15 min"commercials for primetime. Since 3000 B.C.E people have advertised by carving in stone or people announcing store openings. In 1990's women read 70 to 80% of newspapers and magazines. While 99% of ad agencies were Men based in Chicago and NY. The used stereotypical appeals, simple ad's with emotion and irrational content worked. Criticizing the Media grew as an industry appeared to be dictating values as well as driving the economy. PSA's became more popular. VAL's divided consumers into types. News VNR's were put to mimic news reports even though they are not. News Corp. Rubert Murdoch is the 3rd largest media empire after time warner and disney. He owns San Antonio Express News and the NY post.

The News about the News

I enjoyed the knowledge gained from the book, but also it's frustrating that information that should be free to the public is very censored. The first chapter tells a lot about Chalabi's involvement into why the US went to war with Iraq, but also why wasn't the news doing its job on informing the public correctly about what was true and unbiased. In the next chapters they talk about Cheney's speech when he declared Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Four years had passed since the US declared that Iraq had no weapons or bombs, so why is it such a serious issue now? Bombs were never used during 9/11 therefor why did we become so fearful of them but many experts reported that Baghdad had weapons and intentions to make them. Also that Saddam was trying to attain aluminum tubes. I liked it a lot because it talks a lot about how the News is there to keep the government in check, but once the government controls the news, whose telling the truth?

It's also very sad that newspapers are no longer being used as much. I think people no longer appreciate getting the news on hand, you don't need a TV or computer to read paper. I think that if something doesn't change our news will be filled with stupid stories that are pointless and news that isn't worth being told. The whole book is very interesting.