Fogbuster

I do believe most journos do their best to maintain their credibility (and thus their livelihood in a free press society) by getting the facts straight. But all too often the editors spike stories that don't fit their agenda, and they push stories that do.

The day the scales fell from my eyes regarding the mainline media came on September 19, 1976. Rev. Moon had held a huge rally on the Washington DC mall, in front of Washington Monument the day before, September 18th. I had brought down five bus loads of people from Baltimore, and we joined this enormous crowd that defied estimate. So I went over and asked two DC police officers and one US Park Ranger -- they were all standing at separate locations well out of earshot of each other, the Ranger was on horseback -- and I asked them each for their estimate on the size of the crowd.

One officer said 325,000; the other said 340-350,000; and the Ranger said 350,000.

The next day the New York Times ran a canned story that mentioned absolutely NOTHING of Rev. Moon's Speech (entitled, "America and God's Will"), and instead they showed a severely cropped photo of the crowd with the crowd estimate at "25,000" people. I stared in disbelief.

Then I went over to see the Washington Post story, also on their front page. They ran a similar prefabricated story, talking about rumors and negative opinions about Rev. Moon by malcontents, with about three sentences devoted the content of the speech. They also showed a cropped photo -- almost the same as the NYTimes, with the Monument in the background -- and they printed that there were only "30,000" in attendance. I kept copies of both newspapers, intending to show them to the editors and publishers of those papers some day, but most of them are now dead or gone away somewhere.

It showed me in one minute how the powerful press can make or break somebody's public image in the twinkling of an eye. And, I confess, it hardened my heart toward the "mainstream media" for a long time.

Since then I've had a number of good experiences with members of the press over the years, but that early shock has stayed with me ever since. Trust is something that once it is lost is hard to revive. What's the saying: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."


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Patters

As someone who has participated in many rallies, the fact is they are hardly ever covered by the media (unless something bad happens). Shortly before the 2004 Republican convention in NYC, I attended a major anti-war march in NYC. It attracted several hundred thousand people, but got almost no press, and that's true of almost all large demonstrations.

Harry Boy

The only way we found out that the Killer Muslim Terrorists were training 12 year old kids to be 'suicide bombers' was Drudge/Fox, CBS & The NyTimes are still whailing over the "Dog Leash Lady" & "Underwear Head".

A Madonna Concert is worse than the Abba Dabba Prison *****.

"Mommy"
"Yes dear"
"Whats that man got on his head"
"Thats ladies underwear dear, the dirty Americans are torturing him"
"Oh"

__________________
Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Fogbuster

Martin Luther King's Rally on the same mall at Washington got IMMENSE coverage for days on end. He was *the* darling of the press then and gathered about twice as many as came to Rev. Moon's rally.


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Harry Boy

They're still covering the MLK rally

__________________
Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Patters

Yes, Martin Luther King did get a lot of coverage, but let's face it civil rights was a major national issue at the time, and blacks asserting their rights (and power) was still something of a novelty. I attended a labor rally in DC that attracted close to 1 million people (in about 1980). It got hardly any coverage. In the late '70s, I organized student rallies in Albany, New York that attracted thousands of people, and we were lucky if we got mentioned in the local press at all. Also, as I understand it, crowd estimates used to be based on the police photos taken from the air. They would apply a grid on it, and estimate the crowd size. But, it became so contentious (with supporters saying one number and police another) that most media does not report crowd size anymore, unless they are quoting the organizers of the event.

Real World

You're on a roll today.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Patters

Oh, RW, why do you keep spouting the right-wing line. You should really buy the NYT for a few days, read it, and try thinking for yourself.

Real World

I read the NYT online virtually everyday. The only paper I pay for is the Sunday Globe, and the Boston Herald on Friday and Saturday.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

patsfan13

Maybe you can watch Fox news read the WSJ Editorial (not news) pagecand listen to Limbaugh for a few days, and try thinking for yourself.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."