Moon Of Alabama displays an AP tweet with the words, “Watchdog group says bombs disguised as rocks in Yemen show Iranian aid,”
The title of the MofA article says it all:
“Arms Research "Watchdog Group" Lobbies For War On Yemen And Iran
Slant is the right word.
The late Larry Glick would always say on his radio show, “we’re going to get the story behind the story.” Let’s call that the sbts. there is little true journalism going on nowadays, but inadvertantly, the mainstream will give it away somewhere in the article.
Indeed, it is only in the seventh paragraph that we get the sbts.
Michetti’s organization, an independent watchdog group that receives funding from the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the European Union to research weaponry recovered in Yemen, said it examined a fake rock bomb in January near Mokha, some 250 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of the capital, Sanaa.
Watch dog does not mean a vicious doberman keeping evil robbers from stealing the family treasure while everyone is away from home. Rather, it is a lap dog wagging its tale and barking on command.
One supposes that everyone knows in their heart of hearts that all news is propaganda, but that most people are happy to let it slide if it fits the narrative of what one prefers. Here in the Nova Anglia, there are few who have not listened to someone breathlessly talk about something they’ve heard on NPR as if it had been given to Moses along with the Tablets.
This is, of course, another reason to we at the Neutralist push for a neutralist ethos. There will always be a manipulation of news to go fight some war somewhere for some noble cause that will turn out to be not so noble in retrospect.
