Ginger Snaps Back

sophisticatedlesbian:

lakrymosa:

denshark:

Please note that I am not disagreeing with the post with the Time magazine covers.  

Just regarding that post thats going around about how the media controls what we see and stuff with the Time magazine covers.  Well while I totally agree that censorship is wrong and that the public should have the right to the same information as the rest of the world, the author of that post was showing their opinion on the topic and trying to influence our own by choosing what we see just by making that post.  Which is, of course what I am trying to do here so I’m not complaining.  That is what the media is.  But corporations controlling what we see and keeping it separate from the public is absolutely horrific.  

I’m currently going through the Time site where they pulled the photos and they are indeed accurate don’t get me wrong at all, but the “American Dream” one where all the covers are the same isn’t the only one where all of the covers are the same.  The majority of all of the Time magazines are the same.  And there are instances when the cover in the rest of the world is “soft news” and the U.S one is a hard hitter.

And for a few of the covers, it is because the US version had the same cover in a previous issue.  

Though the rest of the world got an issue about Gaddafi, we got something about the science of pain.  And we never did get that issue with the same cover.  So that is again proving how the media censors our news in the U.S.  But just to show that Time does indeed recycle stories and articles from previous issues.

And see this one?  Yikes that looks bad for Time.

From the above issue, this is a screenshot of the stories in the issue in Europe.

And here it is in the US.  We still get the cover story, but yes it is true that it is NOT the cover story in this issue.  So we are not being denied the story itself.  Just its flash.  I could not fit the cover story for this issue in with the screen shot, but it was, as it says, about anxiety.  

Before making extreme and brash claims, just remember to weigh a few other factors in your thinking.  Such as; has this been previously published/has the American readership grown “bored” of such a story.  Or, Is there a more important story to American readers this week?  For example;

The Occupy movement might have potentially bumped the Afghanistan story since it was a media sensation and needed to be reported on that week.  I don’t know, I’m not a journalist.

But the main point I’m trying to say is, before you get up in arms about this issue.  Please, please do some research yourself and don’t just listen to everything you hear on social networking sites.  You’ll broaden your knowledge and be able to form a more educated opinion for yourself.  

Interesting.

For me, I was interested in whether or not the stories were in fact censored or just taken off the cover. Thank you for posting this. 

This is a very valid and interesting post to read, however, it should not be dismissed so off-handedly that simply because the cover is different doesn’t mean the news is any different. I understand that OP is against censorship as much as the next person, however to not classify what happened in that issue as censorship is, in my opinion, incorrect.

Yes, if you do the research, you’ll find that the story is indeed inside that particular Issue. But how many people will genuinely go looking for this kind of thing? I’m sure there’s a fair number, and individuals like yourself, but as a general rule—and not necessarily a sign of laziness—we don’t look past the cover. We tend to trust what our media has to say far more than we should, so unless the cover says something pertaining to the subject we’re hunting down information about, the likelihood of the casual-reader picking up a random TIME magazine in hopes of reading a groundbreaking story are… well, slim to none.

And if we argue that it was covered in such a manner so as to direct sales more at American readers, I find that just as dismissive. Simply because something sells does not make it right. Simply because Americans may not want to look at the facts or events abroad doesn’t mean they aren’t true, or aren’t happening. It’s a grave insult and injustice to gear popular reading material towards those who don’t care much beyond their own back yard.

I dunno. This whole post really did make a lot of valid points, but I felt like it was ultimately defending TIME’s actions, and I can’t really be okay with that. The mere fact that so many people were up in arms over the cover lends proof that, despite what we’d rather believe, we buy into the first image on the cover, and that sets the tone and desire for which we may read the actual article.

So, perhaps these people who were so irritated about this article did some of their research. And, perhaps, they still found enough to be angry or worried about. That’s perfectly possible, too. Even with the inclusion of the story, there’s enough surrounding this particular incident that could make anyone uncomfortable, or angry.

Right Wing Media: “Predatory Homosexual Behavior” Caused Penn State Scandal

abaldwin360:

by DAVID BADASH | The New Civil Rights Movement

Right wing and Tea Party media groups are attacking major media outlets that — rightly — have equated the Penn State child sex abuse and rape scandal with the Catholic Church’s pedophile priests scandal, and instead are pointing the finger — wrongly and ignorantly — at homosexuals. Last week,“Newsbusters” took umbrage with Brian Williams and NBC News, and this week, “The New American” went even further, citing “predatory homosexual behavior” as the cause of the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal.

[FULL STORY]

The media is going to be ejaculating Bald Eagles and American Flags for weeks.