Monday, March 30, 2009

The State of Our News

Years ago, I was watching CNN when I nearly fell out of my chair as it covered the opening of a new museum, presided over by then Iraqi strongman Sadam Hussein, devoted to those fallen at the hands of the evil Americans. I kid you not, that was the perspective of the report. Angered, I emailed CNN and asked when they became the Baghdad news network. During the Iraq war, it became embarrassingly apparent that CNN had been playing footsie with the dictator in order to keep their Iraqi operation.

This week Humberto Fontova over at Babalu outed another dirty secret when he noted that the Miami Herald Tribune was copying news releases put out by a Cuban propaganda arm, ACN. There is no free press in Cuba. Any "news" issued by the same is by definition propaganda issued by the regime, as the press is an organ of same. There is no disclaimer that this is a press release. There is obviously no context in these so-called reports. To give you an idea of just how serious this is, can you imagine gleaning news about Nazi Germany from the propaganda put out by Goebbels? You decide.

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