"Why Can't Foreign Lefties Learn to Be Objective Like Us?"

Columnist Christian Christiansen takes the Chicago Tribune's Gary Marx to task for hypocrisy on the New Latin American network Telesur.

"Why Can't Foreign Lefties Learn to Be Objective Like Us?": "Nor, for that matter, does Marx explain why having leftist governments involved mean that the channel could not be of high quality. I spent a great deal of time in Sweden, where a 'leftist' (by U.S. standards)state has indirectly supported radio and television for the past 75 years. The last time I checked -- which is every day -- those news programs were objective and of a very high standard, unlike the consumption-cheerleading celebro-porn produced by many 'news' organizations in the United States. We ignore genocide in Darfur in favor of 24-hour Michael Jackson and The Runaway Bride, yet have the gall to critique the journalism of other nations?

Where Marx really makes his best joke, however, is when he asks whether or not Telesur will be able to criticize the Chavez government since the operation will be based on the grounds of Venezuela's state-run television station, Channel 8. In other words: will their journalistic integrity be compromised by political and economic pressures?

That a journalist from the Chicago Tribune would worry about conflicts of interest at Telesur -- or any other media outlet, for that matter -- really shows some major-league chutzpah. Perhaps it would benefit Marx to come back to the United States and do a little investigative reporting on the political economy of his own employer: the Tribune Company.

Let's start with what the company controls (from the Tribunecorporate website): 'Tribune Broadcasting owns and operates 26 major-market television stations and reaches more than 80 percent of U.S. television households. The group is anchored by Superstation WGN, which can be seen in more than 57 million homes outside Chicago via cable and satellite services. Nineteen Tribune stations are affiliates of the growing WB Television Network, in which Tribune holds a 22 percent equity investment.'"....

She is too nice in my view. This paper like most other mainstream outlets promoted the Iraq War an refused to criticize George W. Bush over it. It ignored the obvious lies and support the war through a pro war leaning editorial policy. The mainstream media in this country has no credibility, what so ever, when it comes to objectivity. In fact these slights at the new Telesur pretty obviously represent hawking the Bush administrations foriegn policy. That foreign policy includes hostility to social democratic regimes like Venezuela and Uraguay as well as authoritian Communist ones like Cuba. You can get put on Bush's hit list for destruction for persuing the same policies as Roosevelt and Kennedy. Furthermore if the corporate media is so free to criticize the President how do you account for the purging of Dan Rather?

This corruption by corporate money sadly extends to the modern Democratic Party, so many Democrats will parrot the antiChavez baloney as well.