The U.S. media jumped on the American hostage in Iraq report recently but went quiet. Here's why: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4229347.stm The insurgent groups and media outlets in the Mideast know how quickly the U.S. media will jump on a story and do whatever they can to cause an embarassment.
I thought it was kind of funny. It's those new UFO videos, right? lol It proves that you can't believe everything you see Peace & Love
It would have been even funnier if they had used the GW Bush doll. Well, the TV version of CNN and others went quiet. Their internet sites are a little more informative. Sort of like burying a story on page 99 of the newspaper.
Even ABC got duped. I remember watching the OJ chase live. Someone called into ABC and claimed they could see everything that was going on in OJ's house. It took ABC a while to figure out the caller was a hoax. Then, another person called in and gave what sounded at first like a valid description. He then started popping off the Howard Stern 1-800 number and ABC disconnected him. You'd think they'd check their sources first. And of course, there was the great CBS typewriter incident.
what are they supposed to do? If it turned out to be true and they didnt rush to put it up, we'd have people in an uproar about how our media is corrupt..trying to hide the truth from the people..etc fucked if you do, fucked if you dont.
So CBS was ok with giving showing their documents about Bush without checking their validity. That was another embarassment. Some computer geeks on the internet figured it out.
i never saw anything that claimed it was true. I know when i read about it on cnn they said that a picture was put up on an islamic website reportedly of a US soldier captured. They also had a retired general who said he doubted the authenticity because 1) the guy had camo on and 2) his body armor didnt look like the kind used in iraq. i think you're trying to find skeletons where they dont exist with this one.
Then there's not much sense in even reporting it and giving the insurgents more PR. The military wasn't duped on this one. They said they had no people missing. The media loves to jump on these stories, no question. It creates an atmosphere where groups in the Mideast try to capitalize off of it. It's a PR game. The GI Joe hoax was 30 seconds of something different than all of the Michael Jackson coverage. In that respect, it wasn't so bad.
