War News Queue
The sources I’ve been using for war news have been changing with each passing day. I find CNN to be particular annoying because of the sensationalism and the editorial opinion which consistently leaks into their articles. I want the facts, I don’t want “Iraqis on collision course with U.S. Troops”. OH MY GOD COLLISION COURSE! WHAT SHALL WE DO HUBBBBBBBBBB
The British News sources appear to have a more level head. In particular, the BBC and the Guardian Unlimited (In particular: this page) have a more, in my opinion, professional tone and seem to be reasonably up to date.
For pure, raw news, Drudge is still pretty good at staying way ahead of things. I’ve, also, just added two aggregate weblogs to NewNewsWire that were suggested by Gilmore, The Command Post and The Agonist. While terribly painful news is interesting to me, I’m finding myself waiting until a particularly juicy tidbit lands in a more mainstream source before I start seriously sweating it.
[3/27/03 Update]: 15 stories they’ve already bungled…
Scrollable map of Baghdad: Not much here, yet… but interesting. NO THIS IS NOT A WARBLOG HHAHGBUHAUGHBHUG
IF YOU THINK CNN HAS EDITORIAL LEAKAGE PROBLEMS TRY TUNING INTO FOX NEWS I SWEAR TO GOD I COULD FLIP BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN FOX AND HOWARD STERN AND BOTH OF THEM WERE USING SOUND EFFECTS TO PUNCTUATE THEIR REMARKS (AT THAT POINT EVERYBODY DIED, THE END)
Rands, have you been to:
They generally blab the stuff you would never EVER hear on the majors.
There's a reason the majors (and even most of the minors) won't reprint Debka's stories: they're pretty consistantly about 99% bullshit, and on the rare occasions that they appear even plausible, it's difficult/impossible to evaluate their sources.
(Er, to be clear, the above is in reference to Debka's "original" stories. A good chunk of their site is just reprints/rephrasings of wire service stories, and I guess they're no better or worse a source of those than anyone else.)
Their most recent boner: reporting that Tariq Aziz defected. Nice one, guys!
I find conspiracy theories interesting in the same way that I love reading a good piece of fiction. When someone comes up with something truly original, it's fascinating to read.
Still...
What I'm looking for with regard to the war news is fact... not opinion... I realize that it's unrealistic to believe that I'll ever find a news source which is not biased as it's practically impossible to write something down and not insert yourself into it, but sites like Debka feel like someone's impression of the news rather than the news.
The Times of India is what I've been reading. The news is neither overly eager to shout about the triumphs of either side, nor overeager to call America the great white Satan, and the opinion sections provide an interesting and new perspective on things.
So precise it can pick up a thin dime! Yours for only 14.95!
Um, yes. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/default? that was. Yes yes.
I get the news from my front porch in Baghdad, you insensitive clod!!!!!!!
T RANDS YOU'RE FORGETTING DONGS OVER BAGHDAD (WAS RE: MUST SHIT/JIZZ/PISS ALL OVER IRAQ)
I just listen to KGO 810 all the time. The hosts are always talking smack on each other so, if it's not completely neutral, at least it's interesting. I guess.
Unless you're a military expert, gettings facts is pretty useless.
You turn on the news and the Yanks have captured some city, so what? The Iraqis have taken X number of casualties, so what?
What you really need is analysis, not facts. Is the city some shithole or an important strategic asset? Do X number of casualties mean anything? Is that a lot more than expected? And, most importantly, do either of these matter in the long run?
What you're looking for is www.stratfor.com. Unfortunately it's subscription-only apart from a (pretty decent) free weekly newsletter. If you don't care about breaking news you can always try searching google groups for "stratfor report" since people post them pretty often.
Yes, I'd really like analysis, as well, but what I'm mostly looking for are news sources who don't attempt to force an opinion on me. CNN doesn't overtly tell me what to think, but they spend far too much time in the world of supposition... quite annoying.
What I've realized is that news organizations never really care about what you think. If they've got a certain political slant it's cause they're trying to appeal to that type of viewer.
The only responsibility they have is their shareholders, and all means keeping the advertisers happy. CNN hypes their news not because they give a shit about what you believe but because they want to draw more viewers and therefore sell more advertising. When you buy a newspaper you are not buying information or analysis. The price you pay is only to cover printing costs. What's really happening is that you, the reader, are being sold to advertisers. The advertisers are a newspaper's customers, not you.
Once you realize that it's easy to see why 99% of what you read or see on TV is worthless. They're not trying to mislead, they're not trying to hide the truth, they're not trying to indoctorinate you. They just don't care.
Example: What's was the Kosovo conflict about? You could watch months of American coverage about how evil Serbs were or Serb coverage about how evil Americans were but you still wouldn't know what the hell was going on. All you hear is what the respective governments are saying, and that's all bullshit anyway. CNN wasn't trying to coverup the fact that the pretext for the bombing turned out to be false yet you'd never realize it by watching the news. (The hundreds of thousands of dead Albanians which never materialized) They just didn't care about analysis. Any jackass can read a white house press release on the air but it takes time and intelligence to write analysis. Hiring jackasses just happens to be cheaper.
Technically, everything CNN said about Kosovo was accurate because they were just reporting what others were claiming about it. They weren't actually saying those claims were true. That doesn't change the fact that most of those claims were bullshit.
In summary: Forget about "neutral news". Regardless of political slant, chances are it's worthless information. You could have watched a station that devoted equal time to Clinton's statements and to Milosevic's statements. That would be perfectly neutral but it would still be completely useless. In the end all you would know is what two liars thought of each other.
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