4 ms·

With the media, "believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see" is prudent. After having been dragged along by the nose in the case of Iraq's (non

by aedron 10y ago

With the media, "believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see" is prudent. After having been dragged along by the nose in the case of Iraq's (non-existent) WMDs, the world should know better than to eat any old narrative presented, including this one about chemical weapons attacks. What remains surprising to me is that this is still considered an extreme and/or paranoid attitude by many otherwise educated people. Is it really so difficult to believe that entities like Associated Press or the Washington Post, privately held entities, serve specific interests? Or that the power elite, a small group that holds 95%+ of the world's wealth, would put those resources to use in shaping public opinion to their ends? Yet even suggesting the possibility, that you can't necessarily believe what you read in the biggest newspaper (or, shocker, the press bureaus), will yield uncomfortable looks shot back and forth, like you might be strapped with a suicide bomb. I suppose it is a modern day taboo that we can't trust the central institutions in our society.

simonh 10y ago
Of course we can't trust them. That's why we have a free press and free speech - so that there is no central authority controlling the media. Anyone who wants to set up an independent media, or carry out any form of independent investigation or reporting can do so. It's strength in diversity. Anyone who has reason to doubt these reports can do exactly what these reporters did, and in fact there are plenty of cases of incorrect reports being exposed. That's the system working as it is supposed to.
- delegate 10y ago
  >Anyone who wants to set up an independent media, or carry out any form of independent investigation or reporting can do so. I can't - I don't have the resources or expertise to set up a global media conglomerate. Can you ? I could try a start up, but I would need to take venture money and that comes with giving up some control... Pretty soon we are going to reach the conclusion that there are maybe a couple of people in the world who could, in theory, create a media outlet able to compete with the established ones. So not 'anyone'.
  - dagw 10y ago
    I don't have the resources or expertise to set up a global media conglomerate. Start small. Grab a camera, buy a plane ticket, set up a twitter account and a web page. Congratulations you are now a journalist. If your work is good you will find an audience a grow from there. There are also lots of people already doing this, and you can follow their work if you wish
  - simonh 10y ago
    All you need is a camera and a plane ticket. Seriously, journalism is a tough business but it's about guts, not rocket science.
  - DougN7 10y ago
    The interesting thing to me is that this same argument could be made about anything. Did the Big Bang happen, or are there a bunch of anti-religion folks? I can't independently prove the 'proof' about the Big Bang. How about global warming? Maybe there's a secret society of ludites that want us to return to a pre-industrial era. I find all three scenarios equally likely, which is not zero, but not too much higher than zero.
- ASalazarMX 10y ago
  Are you a time traveler from 50 years ago?
kppisgpp 10y ago
I find absurd that people think the illuminati is a joke! THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT US TO THINK
k-mcgrady 10y ago
There quite different scenarios though. We never saw WMD's or saw them used. Iraq had show no agression to the western world especially compared to some other countries - and yet we believed the lies. In this case we know for a fact Syria had chemical weapons because they agreed to decommission them. We've seen evidence of several chemical attacks on Syrian people. There's been a civil war going on for 7 years. The only question remaining is who launched the chemical attacks? Given the horrors that have been happening over there and the reluctance of any western nation to get involved I think that, although the public should remain vigilant when it comes to evidence for going to war, this situation is very very different to Iraq.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  They've expelled UN inspectors and paraded their troops in NBC gear, started moving trucks in and out of their old sites to look like there was something there. You forget that slightly over 10 years before 9/11 Saddam gased the Kurds and killed 1000s of people.
  - dagenleg 10y ago
    You also forgot who gave him those chemical weapons and with whose tacit approval the Kurds were gassed in the first place.

by aedron 10y ago

simonh 10y ago

Of course we can't trust them. That's why we have a free press and free speech - so that there is no central authority controlling the media. Anyone who wants to set up an independent media, or carry out any form of independent investigation or reporting can do so. It's strength in diversity. Anyone who has reason to doubt these reports can do exactly what these reporters did, and in fact there are plenty of cases of incorrect reports being exposed. That's the system working as it is supposed to.

delegate 10y ago
>Anyone who wants to set up an independent media, or carry out any form of independent investigation or reporting can do so. I can't - I don't have the resources or expertise to set up a global media conglomerate. Can you ? I could try a start up, but I would need to take venture money and that comes with giving up some control... Pretty soon we are going to reach the conclusion that there are maybe a couple of people in the world who could, in theory, create a media outlet able to compete with the established ones. So not 'anyone'.
- dagw 10y ago
  I don't have the resources or expertise to set up a global media conglomerate. Start small. Grab a camera, buy a plane ticket, set up a twitter account and a web page. Congratulations you are now a journalist. If your work is good you will find an audience a grow from there. There are also lots of people already doing this, and you can follow their work if you wish
- simonh 10y ago
  All you need is a camera and a plane ticket. Seriously, journalism is a tough business but it's about guts, not rocket science.
- DougN7 10y ago
  The interesting thing to me is that this same argument could be made about anything. Did the Big Bang happen, or are there a bunch of anti-religion folks? I can't independently prove the 'proof' about the Big Bang. How about global warming? Maybe there's a secret society of ludites that want us to return to a pre-industrial era. I find all three scenarios equally likely, which is not zero, but not too much higher than zero.
ASalazarMX 10y ago
Are you a time traveler from 50 years ago?

kppisgpp 10y ago

I find absurd that people think the illuminati is a joke! THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT US TO THINK

k-mcgrady 10y ago

There quite different scenarios though. We never saw WMD's or saw them used. Iraq had show no agression to the western world especially compared to some other countries - and yet we believed the lies. In this case we know for a fact Syria had chemical weapons because they agreed to decommission them. We've seen evidence of several chemical attacks on Syrian people. There's been a civil war going on for 7 years. The only question remaining is who launched the chemical attacks? Given the horrors that have been happening over there and the reluctance of any western nation to get involved I think that, although the public should remain vigilant when it comes to evidence for going to war, this situation is very very different to Iraq.

dogma1138 10y ago
They've expelled UN inspectors and paraded their troops in NBC gear, started moving trucks in and out of their old sites to look like there was something there. You forget that slightly over 10 years before 9/11 Saddam gased the Kurds and killed 1000s of people.
- dagenleg 10y ago
  You also forgot who gave him those chemical weapons and with whose tacit approval the Kurds were gassed in the first place.