I can, however, state that as with lots of OTHER topics, media attention
From: Laura Quilter <[log in to unmask]>
This article is interesting to me. A couple of years ago I was discussing
the media portrayal of the Internet with a friend. We remarked on how the
Internet was getting big press, and how at first it seemed all good: the
Internet will revolutionize education! support democracy! be the beginning
of a new Renaissance of human creativity! yadda yadda ya. And then there
started to be all these scare stories: Woman stalked on Internet! Internet
sex-scandal! Child Molesters Roam the Internet, seeking innocent babies!
Etc. Etc. I don't know if this is a natural backlash against overly
positive rhetoric. I haven't even seen statistics that compare the
numbers of Internet scare stories with other types of Internet articles.
seems to whip up a frenzy around a distorted story, and then never correct
the errors.
All kinds of problems can result: The Mayor of Boston now wants
"censorware" in the Boston Public Library (censorware that blocks more
than just obscene or Nazi sites). New York newspapers just ran a series
of stories about kiddies accessing porn in NY Public Library, and now the
NYPL commissioner is saying "we'll look long and hard at this situation"
with an eye towards censorware. A big scare story in California media
about a 16-year-old boy being lured away from his family by a HOMOSEXUAL
ADULT for GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT turned out to be -- a 16-year-old queer kid
running away from his abusive and anti-gay family to meet ANOTHER
16-year-old queer kid in the same situation. (Which makes *me* think the
Internet can be a useful tool in the war against the solitude that causes
gay teens to have such a high suicide rate.)
These kinds of hit-and-run scare-stories end up being quite damaging
actually. The Internet is a COMMUNICATION TOOL and I think that media
stories about it are a pretty interesting case of (corporate-controlled)
media attacking (wouldbe-corporate-controlled) media. I'm not sure what
that means. Story below.
Laura M. Quilter / [log in to unmask]
Electronic Services Librarian
University of Illinois at Chicago
http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL MEDIA
VERSUS THE INTERNET
60 Minutes Anti-conspiracy Slop Job
by Ian Williams Goddard
The major media have launched a disinformation war designed
to smear the Internet. The Internet represents a heretofore
unparalleled level of informational competition for the major
media. A primary pretext for these Internet attacks focuses
on the "conspiracy theories," or alternative news and views,
that the Net allows the public to freely access and express.
Most recently the CBS program 60 Minutes (02/1/97), using
false and misleading claims, attacked conspiracy theories
and alternative information on the Internet such as my work.
60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl, while arguing for the removal
of undesirable information such as mine from the Internet,
promoted the hysteria-inducing fear that freedom of access
to conspiracy theory is a threat to the minds of the children.
After showing my TWA 800 web page with my name prominently
displayed, Lesley Stahl pointed a finger at the lead graphic
I created (http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm) saying:
STAHL: Shouldn't this be expunged ?
GUEST: On what grounds?
STAHL: That it's wrong, that it's
inaccurate, it's irresponsible, that
it is spreading fear and suspicion
of the government; 10,000 reasons.
GUEST: Ooh, sedition I see. So it's
anti-government, so it spreads fear.
But who should regulate it? ...
STAHL: So you think it's better
to leave all this junk out there?
Now let's see how accurate the claims of 60 Minutes are.
My graphic, or "junk," which 60 Minutes calls "wrong" and
"inaccurate," contains one sentence making three claims:
(1) The "streak of light"
reported to "hit the plane"
(2) "followed the course like
the outline of a parabola"
(3) not unlike a guided missile.
(1) The New York Times (07/19/96) said that eyewitnesses
reported a "'streak of light' hitting the plane just before
it blew up." An eyewitness I've interviewed, Roland Penney,
told Newsday (09/01/96) that "the thin white line" that raced
upwards toward TWA 800 "hit that plane." This is just a small
sample (more here: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm)
of the massive body of available missile-witness accounts that
60 Minutes wants you to believe are "wrong" and "irresponsible."
(2) As quoted on my web page, The New York Times (07/19/96),
citing the evidence that "the airplane was hit by a missile
fired from a boat," reported the following:
Paul Angelides, who lives in West Hampton
Beach... saw what he described as a "red
meteor with a smoke tail" that followed
the course like the outline of "a parabola."
(3) A streak of light that shoots across the sky leaving the
smoky and curving trail cited in claim 2, is by definition
"not unlike a guided missile." The two primary possibilities
are that this streak is (a) a meteorite or (b) a missile.
The radical degree of curvature sighted in my graphic, which
is consistent with most accounts, eliminates (a) leaving (b);
and therefore it is indeed most like a guided missile.
That's the kind of logical analysis CBS wants to have
"expunged" from the human record because it spreads fear
about the government, and specifically about the U.S. Navy,
which the owner of CBS, Westinghouse, works for [1].
So, each and every claim I make that 60 Minutes would like
you to believe is "wrong," "inaccurate," and "irresponsible,"
is IN FACT logical, true, and accurate according to over 150
eyewitness accounts cited in major media sources. Therefore,
the claims of 60 Minutes are, to the contrary, the only
claims proven to be false and inaccurate.
WHAT 60 MINUTES IS NOT TELLING YOU
While Lesley Stahl may have laughed at web pages claiming
that the major media are not telling all about TWA 800, the
fact is that the major media routinely suppress verifiable
information that should spread fear of the government.
For example, CBS has the Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR)
video from Waco, TX (4/19/93) that shows the FBI shooting
machine-guns into Mount Carmel, the Branch Davidian's home,
most heavily as the fire started and people tried to escape.
Not only has a top FLIR expert evaluated the video [2],
concluding that it shows gunshots toward the building,
but according to Gordon Novel (head of investigation in
the Ramsey Clark Waco lawsuit, who acquired the FLIR video
from the quickly dead former head of CIA, Bill Colby) CBS
even had the video examined by the independent laboratory
Infraspection Institute of Berlington, VT, which also
concluded that the video shows machine-gun fire toward
the building. 60 Minutes did its homework and was ready
to run the FLIR video with the findings.
However, Novel reports [3] that all it took was an angry
call from the Justice Department for CBS and 60 Minutes to
cave-in and opt instead to suppress the truth by not runn-
ing the FLIR program. Because it seems CBS does not want
to spread any fear or suspicions about the government, CBS
viewers can be sure never to see the shocking FLIR video.
Contrary to Ms. Stahl's laughter at the claim, the major
media, even her own program, are willfully suppressing
powerful evidence against the US government and in so do-
ing are willing to sacrifice the interests of the American
people for the security of those in power with the blood
of men, women, and children all over their hands. Then,
after covering up mass murder in Waco, 60 Minutes moves
on to smear and suppresses evidence suggesting that the
US government killed all 230 people aboard TWA 800. The
pattern is clear: serve the State, screw the people.
MAJOR MEDIA vs THE INTERNET
While the major media work to smear the Internet as an
unreliable source of lies and rumor, the facts are that
the Internet has proven to be more reliable in terms of
getting the truth out more quickly than the major media.
A case in point is the recent coverage the ABC program
20/20 (01/17/97) gave to the compelling evidence of fore-
knowledge by the federal government of the Oklahoma City
bombing [4]. While 20/20 called this report "an exclusive
investigation," the fact is that every detail they "scooped"
could have been found on the Internet a year beforehand.
Indeed, ABC took the credit for the leg-work of many grass-
roots investigators, whom the major media had been smearing
previously as the "paranoid nuts" that lurk about in the
dark and fearful world of the Internet.
The chaotic dynamics of Internet-information processing
is light-years ahead of the major media, which can only
hope to keep pace with the rapidly evolving information
structures that form the electronic world of cyberspace.
DYNAMICS OF INFORMATIONAL FREEDOM
As on-line researcher Thomas Shoemaker [5] observes [6],
the process-focused nature of the Internet's informational
structure renders the Net too dynamic and fast-paced for
the outdated product-oriented media behemoths, which the
Internet threatens to cut down to size:
The media of which Lesley Stahl belongs
to is failing. They achieved dominance
years ago, when there was less competition
from other information systems: their main
worry was about what other members of their
monopoly were doing. Now they are in decline
and denial. They have and continue to view
the "news" as a "product" which is massaged,
molded, dressed up, packaged, promoted, and
then delivered to the consumer as a finished
commodity.
The internet is perceived as a threat by
Lesley, her co-workers and their bosses,
because it is not product-focused, but
process-focused. They cannot successfully
cope with the creative, turbulent decentral-
ization of the internet...it is just too
free for them. Their idea of news is an
address to the peasants (us) from the
royal family (the media, of course).
The process nature of Internet informational-structure allows
a story to unfold spontaneously in such a way that the whole
decentralized society is free to become active participants
in a public investigation and analysis of available facts,
free to make the input that Lesley Stahl wants "expunged"
from the human record.
But even as their Internet smear campaign, frequently focusing
on TWA 800, may signal a fear in CBS of the chaotic and spon-
taneous nature of informational freedom, CBS may smear those
proposing that TWA 800 was hit with a U.S. Navy missile simply
because CBS is owned by the large military-industrial-complex
contractor, Westinghouse, which works for the U.S. Navy [1].
ON THE INTERNET, GOOD INFORMATION DRIVES OUT BAD
The fear that bad information threatens the good on the
Internet fails to observe that over time and with the input
of thousands of minds, we have a greater ability than ever
to see all sides of the story. The instant input of so many
people who know parts or all of a give topic allows the
Internet as a whole to more quickly drive out bad informa-
tion than the major media where few are permitted input.
When I write an essay and post it to the Internet, instantly
people with other ideas or expertise in an area I cover can
critique it for all to evaluate. While many replies offer
only empty insults expressing rage rather than constructive
analysis, on the whole, this system of automatic feedback
and input accelerates the process of "social learning."
The major media of all varieties make their case in forums
that are insulated from the instantaneous and equally visible
input and critique of others. It's exactly as Tom Shoemaker
observed previously, that the major media wants to address
the public like the royal family addresses its sea of
peasants, where rebuttal is discouraged and denied.
To a larger degree than at any time in human history, the
Internet puts us all on the same level; the Internet is a
great equalizer. Let us honor this gift to humanity, not
disparage it as those who still live in the old ways seek
to disparage the new and empowering media that is the Internet.
***********************************************************************
IAN GODDARD ([log in to unmask]) Q U E S T I O N A U T H O R I T Y
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
VISIT Ian Goddard's Universe -----> http://www.erols.com/igoddard
_______________________________________________________________________
(c) 1997 Ian Williams Goddard (*) free to copy nonprofit w/ attribute.
TWA 800: THE FACTS --> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/twa-fact.htm
WACO - WTC - OKC ---> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/facts.htm
_____________________________________________________________________
[1] CBS/Navy link: http://www.westinghouse.com/indst/h_gesc.htm
Found on cited CBS webpage (03/09/97): "Westinghouse Government
Operations manages several sites owned by the federal government.
US Navy sites managed by Westinghouse Government Operations:
(1) Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
(2) Plant Apparatus Division near Pittsburgh,
(3) Machinery Apparatus Operation in Schenectady, New York."
[2] FLIR analysis and testimony of Dr. Edward Allard as filled in court:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9702&L=flight-800&O=A&P=8949
[3] AMERICAN FREEDOM: 1(8) p 11. http://www.amerifree.com
[4] Review of 20/20 report: http://www.jbs.org/vo13no04.htm#okc
[5] Thomas Shoemaker's TWA 800 research page:
http://www.webexpert.net/rosedale/twacasefile/default.htm
[6] Thomas Shoemaker comments on the Internet to Flight 800 list:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9703&L=flight-800&P=1786
[7] More examples major media attacks on Internet-conspiracy theory:
http://home.dc.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9611&L=flight-800&O=A&P=14831
http://www.erols.com/igoddard/decree.htm
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