Monday, November 11, 2013

Fantasyland Media: 10/17/13

Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want to keep from the public eye.

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Yahoo News:
"Paris (AFP) - Swiss radiation experts have confirmed they found traces of polonium on clothing used by Yasser Arafat which 'support the possibility' the veteran Palestinian leader was poisoned.

In a report published by The Lancet at the weekend, the team provide scientific details to media statements made in 2012 that they had found polonium on Arafat's belongings.

Arafat died in France on November 11 2004 at the age of 75, but doctors were unable to specify the cause of death. No autopsy was carried out at the time, in line with his widow's request."

-->The NY Times reports that the head of a Russian forensics agency claims no polonium was found. No mention of the report published by The Lancet, the world's leading medical journal. Of course, Israel and the United States would love this story to disappear, and The NY Times is doing its best to serve its masters. 

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Common Dreams:
"How Obama Administration-Controlled Media Is Used to Avoid Scrutiny from the Press. What makes the crackdown on leaks, increased denials of Freedom of Information Act requests and surveillance of journalists even more pernicious is how this conduct by President Barack Obama’s administration has taken place as the administration simultaneously uses its own media to pump out its own message.

In a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists on, 'The Obama Administration and the Press,' which details leaks investigations and surveillance in post-9/11 America, an entire section focuses on the administration’s promise of transparency. ...

Social media, photos of the president, videos of White House officials, blog posts written by Obama aides—Those who could all be used to create an 'open dialogue with the public,' Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief, said. 'But if used for propaganda and to avoid contact with journalists, it’s a slippery slope.' "

-->The NY Times didn't cover this story. You would think that the ways the Obama administration controls the news would be of interest to Americans.

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Common Dreams:
"Media discourse in the buildup to potential U.S.-led attacks on Syria was monopolized by experts and think tanks with links to arms and intelligence industries. Despite this conflict of interest, these financial relationships were not disclosed in a vast majority of media appearances, the non-profit research organization Public Accountability Initiative revealed in a report released Friday.

Twenty-two commentators presented as experts during the so-called corporate media debate about military attacks on Syria have ties to "large defense and intelligence contractors like Raytheon, smaller defense and intelligence contractors like TASC, defense-focused investment firms like SCP Partners, and commercial diplomacy firms like the Cohen Group," the report finds. Of 111 appearances in major media outlets, the ties of these 22 commentators were disclosed a total of 13 times. A majority of these commentators voiced support for a U.S.-led attack on Syria.

Stephen Hadley is just one of the analysts profiled by the study. '[H]e has voiced strong support for a strike on Syria in appearances on Bloomberg TV, Fox News, and CNN, as well as in a Washington Post op-ed,' the study reads. 'Though he has a financial stake in a Syria strike as a current Raytheon board member, and is also a principal at consulting firm RiceHadleyGates, he was identified all four times only as a former National Security Adviser to George W. Bush.' "


-->Democracy Now covered this story, but not The NY Times. No wonder people have no faith in their mainstream media, especially when a new war is being hyped.