In this post Jay Rosen points to Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent’s report on NY Times coverage of Iraq WMD. (Does this guy really work for the paper?) Both articles are an excellent read. The clincher - in the second paragraph:

To anyone who read the paper between September 2002 and June 2003, the impression that Saddam Hussein possessed, or was acquiring, a frightening arsenal of W.M.D. seemed unmistakable. Except, of course, it appears to have been mistaken.

The question remains how the NY Times will deal with this in future stories. It is one thing to acknowledge past mistakes, quite another to initiate the institutional change that is necessary to address Okrent’s points.

I went and saw the doco/movie Supersize-Me on Thursday night. What an eye opener! I went expecting something negative about the impact of fast food on the population, but oh my - I wasn’t expecting what unfolded! I’m not going to spoil it for anyone, but I must say, I’m glad that we don’t have “supersize” here in Australia - what a nightmare!

Two things that really struck me - 1. the emphasis on advertising to and luring in children, and 2. the idea the “education” of consumers isn’t good enough. I was always in the camp of “if you choose to eat there, that’s your choice”. Seeing the film I’m not so sure that’s an adequate response. Unfortunately, the film, does not present any clear message about how such companies should be reacting. Of course not advertising to children and nutritional information clearly and readily available are part of that. But it’s not the whole picture.

It should be noted that McDonalds here have conveniently chosen now to launch new wrappers and containers for their products containing nutritional information. No doubt they’ll claim it’s coincidence that the new packaging has been launched at the same time as the movie…

Oh, and don’t be fooled - the Macca’s salads (at least the US varieties) aren’t all that much better, and sometimes worse, than the greezy burgers.

Jim Moore notes that Michael Moore’s new film now has US distribution. And the circumstances are pretty amazing. Check it out…

Just found an article that I meant to comment on a while back (most probably via American Dynamics) by Juan Cole on the war of images - and just who is winning and losing… Very good read.

Umm - who gives a flying-f$%k about “Joanne Lees’s secret lover“? How is this in the public interest? What relevance does it have as news? A friend last night said that she felt the media “had it in for her” from the start - I don’t know how much to make of that, but i definitely don’t understand how her “shocking admission” (as it was referred to on TV) is front page news - it just seems like a media sensationalist beat up. Maybe someone can clue me in?

Scott Rosenberg notes some big news from the New York Times: “But admitting mistakes is the first step toward preventing their recurrence.”

Will Blaze with an alternative take.

Jay Rosen presents a thought provoking article on whether the Nick Berg video, or some of the more grusome moments as stills, be shown in the mainstream media. It also prods whether there is “liberal bias” at play. It isn’t a straightforward answer, and the article and comments that follow it demonstrate a range of views. Definitely worth reading.

One bone to pick, not on Jay, but on a general argument that the video should have been shown. The images coming out of Abu Ghraib have nothing on that video in terms of the immense negative impact it has on the viewer. As some of the comments highlighted:

Heart of Canada warns: “Once you see a film like that, it can affect you for the rest of your life. If you surf around the web, you’ll read people’s accounts of how they became physically ill, tormented, haunted, horrified, traumatized, and more by watching the murder.”

and

Aaron Brown of Newsnight on CNN (May 12): “To show a tape of the beheading is pornographic while not advancing the story at all. But we also get there is a risk that we are sanitizing too much sometimes, that taste can interfere with understanding; and, in that regard, we have no quarrel with what they are doing in Dallas tonight even as we will not show it.”

I’ve already commented on how sickening the video is. Seeing abuse and seeing a murder are worlds apart. It’s the difference between seeing two soldiers giving the thumbs up over a dead Iraqi body, and actually showing the video of the beating that took the life away from that person. They are not the same, and a line should be drawn.

As for claims of bias - right leaning commentators are claiming that “liberal bias” seems to be at play in showing the Abu Ghraib images, but not the Nick Berg video. To make that argument, however, the commentator must acknowledge that showing the images of some of the 10,000 odd Iraqi’s that were killed in the war is ok. That showing the image of a dismembered Iraqi child after coming across an unexploded cluster bomb is ok. It’s a bullshit argument - rich with irony that a claim that not showing one US “innocent” being killed in such a violent way is showing bias, when the same commentators cry foul when any sign of the violence being inflicted by the US military machine on Iraqi innocents across the country appears in print or on TV.

This graf from Rosen’s peace sums up the danger of such an argument beautifully:

Don’t be calling for self-censorship by Big Media today when you may be hoping for less of it tomorrow– because the images have changed, and the implications are now different. Be aware that if you want gatekeepers to let pass more of the news that helps your side, and less that helps “them,” then you aren’t really addressing the gatekeepers at all. In fact, you have surrendered the topic of news judgment to politics and its maneuvers. You’ve politicized it.

Jay is right to raise this point with both sides of the political spectrum. I’ve most definitely been guilty of this in the past, but I am learning to recognise that bias is a much harder thing to quantify than it first appears.

Questions remain about the Nick Berg video.

I had the misfortune to see a segment of the video of Nick Berg being beheaded today. If you had any illusions that it was a quick and painless death, think again. It was brutal and vicious. I can’t get the small segment I saw out of my head. I couldn’t watch the entire thing. This was a US civilian working in Iraq - not a mercenary (as were the four killed in Faluja). I can’t help but thinking of the phrase often attributed to Vietnam vets - fubar. That’s a pretty good description of how things in Iraq are turning…

Update: Will Blaze comments.

“… still shaking” an apt description. Interesting point about the hooded perps - a friend and I were discussing the fact that there is no real way to tell if those involved are who they say they are… As Will says, “Which means this video is now effectively a propaganda tool for just about anyone out there of any political stripe. It can be spun any number of directions, and that’s bad for the world.” Indeed.