72 hours of reckless speculation, interspersed with moments of clarity

[SoCalDem]

Flipping channels from CNN, to BBC, to MSNBComcast, I keep seeing "experts", all offering their suggestions, historical factoids, and of course there is always the ever-flummoxed "host", baiting them all into pontificating about the "future of Egypt".

A precious few have been given time enough to talk about Egypt's PAST.

Richard Engel gets it, and a few others do too, but most of the ones I have seen, are just agitators, who are there solely to "question" Pres. Obama's "reaction" to the events or to throw a few more logs onto the fires of discontent.

Rampant speculation 24/7, by teleprompter-readers conversing with wannabee-experts can be dangerous.

In many countries, their television is controlled by their government, so whatever is on it, is representative of the "official government" line.

With so many devices in so many hands, all around the world these days...devices that can hone in on our televised "shows", it should be noted that a LOT of what they see and "know" about us, comes from what they see on OUR tv broadcasts.

When something as monumentous as this happens, I wish the president could call in as many TV people as possible and sit them all down & tell them that their incendiary "scoop-journo" attitudes can do great damage.

Things like asking the president to "choose a side", or baiting a guest with an obvious (to US) bias to pontificate about al qaeda influence does no good, and may do a lot of harm.

This is a big brother of "hate radio".

Hate radio drones on in the background for millions of people, and occasionally a nutso picks up a gun and "answers the dog whistle" of Palin, or Hannity or Beck or Limbaugh, but this is usually a singular act of lunacy, and the perpetrators are rather easy to deal with (even though the instigators go unscathed).

This is different. These broadcasters are able to send out a worldwide "dog whistle" message to people who are already in a state of hyper-anxiety, and are in the midst of real life & death revolutionary fervor.

Stirring the pot may grab & hold a viewer, but ramping up an already incendiary event that could end up biting us all on the ass, is just not a very smart thing to do.

[EFerrari]

1. I don't think I understand what the worry is?

[DCKit]

2. I thought you were going to talk about our many, many DU oracles.

It's like the Psychic Friends Chatroom in here lately.

[EFerrari]

7. LOL

[Dennis Donovan]

3. You need to turn off US media and turn on Al Jaz:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/29/live-blog-291-egypt-protests

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

[sufrommich]

4. I tried watching US television this morning, the simplistic

stupidity turned me away. Our cable"news" channels are geared toward 5 year olds, I swear.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. With the exception of Richard Engel on NBC....

...and Ben Wedeman on CNN, the rest of the US media coverage has stunk like ass.:thumbsdown:

[woo me with science]

10. It is truly embarrassing. nt

[Raschel]

6. I agree with you. I watched Fox news stir the pot this morning, exploiting this revolution in an

attempt to make our President look impotent, and also paint him as an adversary of the Egyptian people.

[emulatorloo]

8. I get the feeling there are a lot of PNAC "experts" being hauled out for this occasion

Addtionally there is not a lot of concern about accuracy when your job is to fill up 24 hrs a day with "news" programming. They are all about creating drama in order to get ratings.

Being "reponsible" is not in the vocabulary.

[SoCalDem]

9. and many of them have books they are pushing

:(

I wish we could get get CNN-I or just a live feed from the people on the ground there..let them tell the story.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Yep. I started worrying about what is going on in Egypt as soon as

I realized that CNN and MSNBC was "all over it".

Whenever our corporate media is all in there, we need to start to worry....cause their agenda ain't ours...for sure!

[SoCalDem]

12. One would think that they would at least put their A-Team on the desks

Alex nitWitt?? really?