Australian News...

VIDEO: Van drives onto train tracks in US

One of the top video stories on news.com/au, an australian news site, was this van that veered across train tracks and crashed. For some reason the Aussies won't let me embed the video, which is annoying because this guy literally swerves in front of a train. Little different than cutting off a prius. Anyways i'm interested to know why Australia cares at all about an auto accident in the U.S., or how it affects them in anyway? Australia reporting U.S. news? Like this video has 6500 views today and its been on the site for more than a day but none of the videos surrounding it have over 50 views. Sounds like a global village spillage of agenda setting theory to me. It also has to do with what makes the news. Granted the first thing I clicked was the van swerving in front of a train as opposed to stories about the Tehran University and riots in Greece.

Same health care bill, different headlines

Republicans Accuse Democrats of Backroom Dealing on Health Care Bill
Backroom Arm Twisting?
-Fox News
New Government-Run Health Proposal Eyed by Democrats
-Wall Street Journal

Hmmmm interesting. So we have reporting on the exact same situation completely different language and attitudes that seem to convey completely different stories. Basically Obama met with only the Democrats to try and convince them to pass the health care bill. Senate Democrats would have to unanimously pass the bill because Republicans are unanimously opposed to it.

Here are some words fox news used to describe the situation: arm twisting, shady politics, entirely partisan effect, chock full of problems, disdain

Journalistic biases couldn't be more present in the news than in these two stories right here. Obviously organizational directives, editor biases, and language choice are affecting how these stories read. While the Wall Street Journal describes how Obama worked through the weekend, Fox News describes how Obama is using a democrat majority to push bills through without any republican approval.

Fox News: Fair and Balanced?

This is a clip from the documentary Outfoxed: Ruport Murdoch's War on Journalism which attempts to explain how Fox News skews news to advocate right wing views. It's another example of journalistic biases and more specifically organizational directives. Fox news has a reputation for pushing conservative agendas and this documentary was clearly put together by liberals as a smear campaign against fox. Or is it a factual documentary that exposes the corrupt and crooked ways of a politically motivated media conglomerate?

Depends on your own political agenda I guess, but this clip is with Bill O'Reilly, who is accused of intimidating and forcibly overpowering guests he disagrees with.

Comcast to acquire NBC

I was just reading about Comcast's plan to buy out NBC Universal and thought it was pretty relevant to the global village. In an economic recession Comcast realizes that people are doing whatever they have to to cut costs and save money. This often includes less or even no cable television because media is becoming more readily available online. Sites like netflix and itunes are making movies and shows available for rental or purchase, on dvd or even to stream right on the internet. Hulu offers some of the most popular tv shows on the web for no price at all. Most of the major players on cable like nbc, abc, and cbs are offering the newest seasons of their shows in their websites, with advertisements thrown in here and there. Comcast also owns other telecommunications outlets like phone lines, which people are also cutting down on. Many families already have cell phones and see no need for a landline in the house. Anyways, Comcast is buying NBC Universal from conglomerate GE because it realized that the future of programming is less in the method of delivery but more in content. NBC controls numerous other channels and outlets, as demonstrated by the image above. However it remains to be seen whether Comcast is capable of controlling a conglomerate like NBC Universal who has wide control over entertainment in general and even owns theme parks.

They drew first blood...

Disclaimer: If you don't like blood and gore and your basic ass kicking than don't watch this video. This is my boy, John Rambo, and his kill count in the first three Rambo movies. The clip is a little long but after 5 minutes of complete Rambo domination, his grand total is 157 kills.

Perfect example of marginalization in the media. Whoever Rambo is killing at the time is rendered completely inhuman and disposable. We root for Rambo because he is the star of the movie and we're following the plot from his point of view. Most viewers probably don't even realize the amount of foreign soldiers or police officers he actually kills. Similarly, one of the criticisms of global news agencies is marginalization and unfair access. Sixty to seventy percent of the time government information is formulated and distributed to news agencies by the government, relegating other countries with less access to news agencies powerless and unimportant. Embedded reporters tend to write stories that sympathize or side with the troops rather than the native people, but even if they write an unfavorable story they gave up their rights to free press as part of the terms of being embedded.

CNN Arabic?

The picture is a little small unless you click it but it's a screen shot of CNN Arabic. I didn't even know CNN Arabic existed. On the CNN homepage you can click CNN International, which then brings you to a page where you can click U.S., Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and others. You can also click CNN Aarabic which brings you to the news page written in Arabic. Obviously I don't know what it says because it looks like hieroglyphics or something to me, but it's a completely new set of stories geared towards arabic readers. It's not like the Tiger Woods voicemail translated into arabic though, it appears to be focused on news stories that those people are probably concerned about.

Personally I'm impressed. I had no idea there was different versions of CNN geared towards specific regions. I commend CNN for directly battling the elctronic colonialism theory and cultural imperialism. It appears they're actually developing different stories based on region that are geared towards a specific community. This can also directly combat the agenda setting theory, as certain countries could stop being completely dependent on the U.S. for news. They may actually get better suited news. However, I don't know who is writing stories for CNN Arabic and I suppose it could still be a westerner who knows arabic or just has translating technologies. Either way, it's a step in the right direction. UNESCO would be proud. Sorta.