09 August 2008

Are we stupid or what?

Russia invades Georgia, ostensibly to "rescue" ethnic Russians living in Georgia (colonized there by the former Soviet Union) sort of like the Nazis invading the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia to "rescue" ethnic Germans who had settled there, a move which began World War II. This could be the Russians beginning the re-conquest of as many of the former Soviet Republics (the "near abroad" in Russian parlance) as they can.

And what are the top headlines in our national media? How Americans are faring in the Beijing Olympics, and what John Edwards has been doing with his d--k.

Are we stupid, or what?

Or is it that our media thinks that news is meant to entertain, or to propagandize, rather than to inform?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The media does what they need to do to get the ratings they need to make the money it takes to support their businesses.

If you want better media, find it and support it. I'm sending $10/month to support an independent journalist who is on his way to Azerbaijan, having just finished a series on Kosova, and having previously lived in Lebanon and done multiple imbeds in Iraq. FWIW, he recommends this article by Joshua Kucera as a way of understanding the situation in South Ossetia better. There are parallels to the Sudentenland, but it's complicated. Post-Soviet life in the former-Soviet republics is difficult to sort through, with lots of messy conflicting information and motivations.

Interestingly enough, this journalist's blog is right next to yours in my RSS aggregator.