CNN Blog - August 18th, 2006
This is my first in a series called CNN watch. I was planning on beginning this in September, but this week is proving to be typical of all of the things that are wrong with CNN.COM. I couldn't wait.
This morning's headline on CNN (and for the past 60 hours at least) is the decade-old murder of Jonbenet Ramsey. There is a picture of the alleged pedophile - murderer. While it was a sensational event, and the revelations are startling (I have always felt that the evidence shoveled to me by the media in the nineties implicated the parents), it is still a lot of coverage about a dead white rich girl. It was a tragic event, of course, but if CNN covered every child that dies tragically the way that they cover the rich white girls, their audience would perhaps have more empathy for those in our society who can't get medical care for lack of resources, who live in dangerous neighborhoods in which girls as young as Jonbenet are raped and killed, and focus on resolving the problems in that part of our society (education, education, education).
So, what else is going on in the world today? A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the president is in violation of two constitutional amendments and FISA? It sounds like big news to me, and news that impacts all of us (whether you know it or not). Oh, there it is, the fourth "Top Story" right after a story about a tea party video that pisses off Hezbollah, and two scary "The terrorists are coming!" stories. And what is the headline? "Government Appeals Blow to eavesdropping". Had Clinton been president, the headline would have read "Federal Judge finds President Guilty. Senator Lieberman Calls for Impeachment". Then when you read the article, the first five paragraphs present the president's arguments from the mouths of Alberto Gonzales and Tony Snow. The next three paragraphs paraphrase the judge's ruling, and the next three paragraphs give details about the suit itself, including of course that Judge Taylor is a Carter appointee (which means, of course, that her ruling is irrelevant).
Is there anything else going on in the world today? Nothing much, I guess, since we finally withdrew from Iraq. Oh, wait a minute; the third headline under the "World" section is "Iraq bombs after `worst month death figures'". What the hell does that mean? When you open the article, the tagline at the top is "Iraq: Transition of Power". Then the article goes on to say that 3,438 Iraqis were killed in July, which comes on the heels of 3,000 in May and 3,000 in June. And that whole story is almost a "throw away". Why CNN has never pointed out that EVERY MONTH, MORE IRAQIS ARE KILLED THAN WERE KILLED IN THE UNITED STATES ON SEPTEMBER 11TH! I promise that I will limit my use of profanity in my diary, but WTF WTF WTF WTF??????? Oh, yeah. One American life is worth something (especially rich white females), an Iraqi life is worth nothing. No wonder we are despised.
CONSPIRACY THEORY
From time to time, I will throw out a completely nutty theory that is meant only as rabid speculation. I have no evidence of any of this, but my mind just goes there sometimes.
We know that John Ramsey is a Republican. He ran for office in Michigan last year. Perhaps he worked in cohesion with the Bush Administration to nab "the real killer" of Jonbenet to distract Americans from the important news of the day. John Mark Karr - The Bush Administrations answer to Lee Harvey Oswald.