Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Monday, September 25, 2006
Follow Up Double Standards
As a follow-up, or addition to, Lynne's post below about Newsweek, I ran across this:
On October 25, 2005 the American Civil Liberties (ACLU) posted to their website 44 autopsy reports, acquired from American military sources, covering the deaths of civilians who died while in US military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002-2004. A press release by ACLU announcing the deaths resulted from torture was immediately picked up by Associated Press (AP) wire service, making the story available to US corporate media nationwide. A thorough check of Nexus-Lexus and Proquest electronic data bases, using the keywords ACLU and autopsy, showed that at least 95 percent of the daily papers in the US did not to pick up the story nor did AP ever conduct follow up coverage on the issue.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg discussion. Are Americans inured to the news or are they deprived of it? Do media outlets not cover these stories because they don't generate ratings, or do they avoid them because of government influence?

I don't know the answers. I do know that if you had told me five years ago that the U.S. would routinely torture people, that it would be revealed, that Americans would respond with a large collective yawn, and that Congress would be moving toward virtual institutionalization of torture procedures, I would have told you that you were nuts.
Written at 9:26 AM by Greyhair.
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