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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (12546)	2/17/2006 6:52:25 PM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541326

I wonder what new govt initiative this presages? Rumsfeld Says Extremists Winning Media War By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States through deft use of the Internet and other modern communications methods that the American government has failed to master, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld sounded a theme he frequently raises as a key to eventually winning the global war on terrorism: countering anti-Western messages from Islamic extremists. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we — our country, our government — has not adapted," he said. He quoted Ayman al-Zawahri, the chief lieutenant of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, as saying that their terrorist network is in a media battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims. Rumsfeld agreed, saying that the battle for public opinion is at least as important as the battles on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extremist groups are able to act quickly on the information front, with relatively few people, while the U.S. government bureaucracy has yet to keep up in an age of e-mail, blogs and instant messaging, he said. "We in the government have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld has often described the U.S. government as being disadvantaged by its ponderous approach to dealing with the media, and he has pushed for the U.S. military in particular to try innovative approaches to getting out its message to the Islamic world. He has also complained that the U.S. media tends to focus too much on the negative aspects of U.S. involvement in Iraq. In his speech, Rumsfeld said the military needs to focus more on adapting to the changes in global media. "In some cases, military public affairs officials have had little communications training and little, if any, grounding in the importance of timing and rapid response, and the realities of digital and broadcast media," he said. The government's public affairs system is antiquated, he said, working mostly on an eight-hour, five-days-a-week schedule that cannot keep up with the rest of the world. "This is an unacceptable, dangerous deficiency," he said.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (12546)	2/17/2006 6:57:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541326

Fox and CNN are "tabloidy" and biased. I view them as being similar in that way despite their different political leanings. I do sometimes listen to or watch BBC. I don't think I have ever seen CNBC Europe. I try to get my news from a number of different sources. I think its good to get different perspectives. Sometimes I deliberately expose myself to viewpoints I know I will disagree with. I listened to some liberal talk radio on Sirius for awhile but more and more it just became endless Bush bashing. One of the radio hosts seemed fairly reasonable and interesting until anything remotely related to Bush came up, than it was just attack, attack, attack. Now I don't listen to as much political talk radio, left or right, as I used to. It is often largely about partisanship and preaching to the choir. I do listen to NPR a lot. Overall they seem to be more from the left, but they do talk to or interview conservatives and even libertarians. The main reason I listen to them more is that your less likely to get simple partisanship than from most other radio commentary. In addition to listening to more NPR I also listen to more sports and music than when I was experimenting with new political talk radio programs. Tim

To: Dale Baker who wrote (12546)	2/18/2006 9:15:31 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 541326

Naiveté has always sunk my ship.. Maybe it was my rearing in a small Pennsylvania town where there were few Jews,fewer Blacks and I was considered a Wasp. However, one of the first eye openers to me in my first job was when the Jewish father of one of my student told me he owned radio stations in the South. They were all religious stations. He was pandering to and making money from providing the kind of religious sermons that make up a lot of the southern radio stations... that I knew from having driven from New York to Florida for vacations.( Couldn't get anything else on the radio while passing through some states) From that reality I started to look at who is behind ANYTHING with money. Murdoch represents all right wing politics and policies.. Richard Mellon Scarif the same.. They fund TV stations, publish magazines and therefore my conclusion is that what I read or watch will be slanted. One always has to dig deeper to really know from whence the tabloid content comes...