Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Whatever happened to ‘freedom of the press’?

I hear people discuss the “liberal media” all the time. I hear the term used at work, at school, on TV and I read it in several newsmagazines, usually quoting some neo-con nutjob. It is absolute BS. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not believe everything I see or read and I think news people are people, they have their own beliefs, views, etc and it is possible that their personal bias will cloud the topic on occasion. And sometimes they lie. But, that is not my point here. My point is that when I logged in this morning, after checking my Email, I bring Internet Explorer to see what is going on in the world. On the front page of CNN is a huge story on the number of soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I skimmed the article briefly and then went looking for a story on www.npr.org about the refugees in Syria (I heard a brief portion on the radio and wanted the rest of the story). When I returned to cnn.com (my homepage), the story about PTSD was gone. Not moved, gone. I looked all over CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC. It is no where to be found.

This is not the first time this has happened. I have seen articles on the homepage of websites that just quietly disappear more than once, but the only other time that I know of specifically was in late ’02 or early ’03, there was a large picture of Dubya with the headline ‘He Tried to Kill my Daddy’, of course, speaking of the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein. Ten minutes later when I opened my web browser again to read the article to someone, it was gone. It made me look delusional and I have never talked to anyone else who saw it. But it was there. It made Dubya look like a whiny shit who was going to kill Americans because of something that did not happen 10 years before. So, someone killed the story.

Had this happened to you? Do you remember the story I am referring to? Do you believe that this administration would squash a news story that embarrassed the President? I do.

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