Text book case, GOOD REPORTING becomes MEDIA WHORING... re CRIME UP in USA...

This very informative CBS article, can't help but play by the media template for dealing with BushCo incompetence and corruption and greed for power: EVERYTHING of importance or substance, when our media deals with BushCo, is distilled down to a "HE SAID, SHE SAID" horse-race.

That means you can take a complex but simple issue, eg "stem cell research WILL SAVE LIVES by using stem cell that WILL BE DESTROYED when they are discarded anyways, instead will be used for cutting-edge medical research" and turn it into a "GRAVE MORAL CONCERN!" by quoting a bunch of pro-slavery Right-Wing Republicans who maintain that "GOD WOULD RATHER SEE BABIES, children, and grown men and women DIE of curable illnesses, than offend His sense of morality by using otherwise discarded stem-cells for cancer, Alheimer's, and back-injury research."

Instead of discussing the potential to end debilitative spinal and neural injuries, the ENTIRE MEDIA STORY becomes about "HOW MANY BUSH SUPPORTERS CAN WE FIND TO OPPOSE such research based on the ludicrous grounds that individual stem-cells HAVE HUMAN SOULS, and therefore to use them for research IS AKIN TO MURDER!"

To this basic, distraction issue - some people OPPOSE stem cell research based on their 'Religious" concerns - you next PILE ON, find ALL THE RIGHT WING SUPPORTERS for the research BAN that you can find, and now make the story ABOUT THEM, and not about how the stem cells would be DISCARDED ANYWAYS, with or without pseudo-religious 'concern' for those cell's eternal souls.

As you can see, with this MEDIA NARRATIVE, the question no longer becomes, "What can stem cell research do for the injured, the ill, the dying?" but instead the story becomes "HOW MANY RETHUGLICAN LUNATICS can we cram into a single story?"

The issue of stem-cell reseach (which is actually a spin-off of the even more judgemental, condemnatory, and moralistic ABORTION 'issue') is not the only such case where the ENTIRE MAJOR MEDIA takes a simple story and SPINS IT into a "he said, she said' narrative, which allows the Press/media to KISS BUSH admin. ASS by craming every admin. toady they can into the story.

THIS otherwise excellent article by CBS news producer Beverly Lumpkin about an increase in crime across the USA is a beautiful, text-book example of media pro-Bush bias in reporting.



The REAL news embedded in Ms. Lumpkin's article is VERY_SIMPLE:

"AN_INCREASE_IN_CRIME_NEARLY_EVERYWHERE_ACROSS_THE_COUNTRY."

Yet the stupid bush-ass-kissing media portrays it is as PEOPLE STORY!

"DOJ Official Skewered at Crime Forum" !!

IF clinton, gore or kerry were presidents, you can bet on some things: THAT the HUGE government DEFICITS would be ON THE FRONT PAGES at least THREE, FOUR TIMES A WEEK.

- That a RISE IN CRIME across the nation WOULD GET BLARING HEADLINES, "CRIME UP ACROSS THE NATION!"

- That the fact that the VICE PRESIDENT was STILL BEING PAID by a company that his government was handing HUGE no-bid, no-oversight contracts to (HALLIBURTON) would be making the Righties FOAM AT THE MOUTH for IMPEACHMENT.

- That the fact that a President clinton/kerry/ or gore went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war (actually, Mr. Bush went AWOL from the Alabama Air National Guard, after REFUSING to take an Air Force flight physical as ordered by his superior and commanding officer in Texas - a ROUTINE part of military order), and is now sending NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS on REPEAT second, third, and FOURTH tours, with MANDATORY RECALLS, STOP-LOSS, and extended tours as a BACK DOOR DRAFT -- all that would be splashed across the front pages "CLINTON ABUSES VOLUNTEER MILITARY for his somalia/kosovo/Afghanistan/Iraq war schemes!"

- The fact that a clinton/kerry/gore White House was SLASHING FUNDING for VETERANS, especially wounded, traumatized, PTSD, and BRAIN INJURED VETERANS would be labelled "TRAITOROUS!" by the frothing-at-the-mouth Right Wing press and media.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-08-brain-center_x.htm?csp=34

Well, thanks to CBS "news" producer BEVERLY LUMPKIN, for giving us a text-book example of how the media WHORES for bush, by turning EVERY story into a 'he-said, she said' personality game.


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DOJ Official Skewered At Crime Forum
Mayors, Police Chiefs Rip Feds' Lack Of Help In Stopping Crime
Beverley Lumpkin.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2006
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/30/politics/main1953669.shtml



photo - U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty listens during a press conference at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, Aug. 16, 2006. (GETTY)

A Quote
"Every city in the country is saying I got 13-year-olds with guns."
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

(CBS) This story was written by CBS News producer Beverley Lumpkin.



Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty spoke Wednesday at the Police Executive Research Forum, where he was barraged with a series of highly critical questions from some very unhappy police chiefs and mayors.

McNulty clearly knew coming in that he was going to be grilled. But the criticism was much stronger than he seemed to have anticipated, and he did not seem to be very well-briefed on some issues of prime importance to the attendees.

Before McNulty began speaking at the forum, where no cameras were allowed, there was a summary of statistics. The numbers clearly reflected an increase in crime nearly everywhere across the country. The spikes were notable and alarming, and PERF head Chuck Wexler said they reflected that the rise in crime "Is not about one city; it's about the country."

With that kind of preamble, when McNulty opened his remarks and quickly mentioned the "potential rise in crime," he was already off on the wrong foot.

He spoke of how much he likes getting together with law enforcement personnel and how important it is to have working partnerships with state and local agencies. He stated several times how anxious he was to hear from them what the feds can do to help. He also delivered an apologia, saying he was "well aware there are many needs and desires on the part of law enforcement that we are not able to address," and adding that the challenge is to look for ways that the feds can help.

The first question went right to the heart of the Bush administration's policy on guns — and the fact that Congress "is making it harder for the police and ATF to track" them. The questioner begged McNulty's aid in making it easier to trace the guns, making the point that the problem is kids with guns and tracing them would make their partnerships work more easily. McNulty seemed unaware of the issue. What in particular, he asked, was the problem?

Trenton, N.J., Mayor Doug Palmer spoke up, citing restrictions on the use of data. He noted that his state has one of the nation's toughest gun laws, but said Pennsylvania has one of the most liberal, and thus guns come into his state far too easily.

"I know the NRA is strong, but we're stronger," Palmer said. In addition, he noted, members of Congress don't have to call a parent whose child has been shot in the face.

McNulty mentioned that he'd recently visited the ATF's tracing center in West Virginia and said that they're making great progress. But, he added, he had to "confess" he was "not familiar" with the issue.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick seemed to have heard all he could take.

"What you see is a national evasion of the gun problem. ... The problem has become bigger than Capitol Hill. … We really need a national response," Kilpatrick said.

He added that when he took office, homicides were down but "now everything is exploding again." He "thought it was a Detroit problem" until he got to the meeting. His police chief had been assuring him Detroit was not alone, but he didn't believe it until now.

Kilpatrick argued the need for an effective, national emergency response. It's "the NRA versus the rest of everybody else," he lamented, adding that help is necessary now that "every city in the country is saying I got 13-year-olds with guns" robbing and killing.

The room burst into loud applause when Kilpatrick pointed out that there is $386 billion going to the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that local law enforcement needed a substantial amount of that money, plus a national plan.

One official complained that President Bush had never met with police chiefs. "There's a war on the streets and the President doesn't meet with us. The federal government has given up on us," he said.

The official also indicated that the feds "came up with a remarkable solution 10 years ago — to send money to locals to take care of crime — but now they've given up on that," referring to the COPS program, launched during the Clinton administration. COPS aimed to send money to states and local entities to hire, train and equip police officers. The goal was to get 100,000 police on the street.

McNulty seemed taken aback, but said he understood very well how significant that funding had been.

"You say there's less police on the streets than before 9/11. That's an important thing to know," McNulty noted.

Bill Bratton, Police Chief of Los Angeles, then noted that the surge in crime has a new and troubling element — it's largely driven by young people who are disassociated from mainstream America. Bratton advised McNulty to relay that message to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and to President Bush and Congress. Bratton said the COPS program had "gotten it right" and asked for the federal government's involvement anew.

"Homeland security has become the monster that ate criminal justice!" Springfield, Mass., Police Commissioner Edward Flynn added.

The COPS grants have disappeared, but there's no single guilty party, Flynn lamented. What's gradually happened, he said, is that "we've got a zero-sum game.

"Doing our core mission, we can be more effective homeland security partners. But if we are overwhelmed with our core mission, we can't be good homeland security partners," Flynn said. But he added that there can't be a "forced choice" between homeland security and criminal justice "resulting in more dead bodies."