Annals of the reactionary media

Drew Thornley of My Take writes of the honor killings in Pakistan:

The mainstream American media spent months covering in detail the “atrocities”at Abu Ghraib and continues to give negative press to allegations of inhumane treatment at the hands of American soldiers. As of December 28, 2005, Google searches of “honor killings” and “honor murders” returned 365,000 and 643 results, respectively, while “Abu Ghraib” returned 15,900,000. While few “honor murderers” pay for their crimes, those who perpetrated crimes at Abu Ghraib were dealt with swiftly. They were prosecuted and sentenced; justice was served. The saga of Abu Ghraib should have resulted in negative press for a few shameful soldiers but positive press for the military as a whole due to its response to the events. Yet the events at Abu Ghraib pale in comparison to the real atrocities that receive little or no attention by the same media, such as the crisis in Darfur, Castro’s jailing and/or murder of political dissidents, the May 2005 massacre of public demonstrators in Andijan, Uzbekistan, and the hundreds of “honor murders” committed each year.

When you read this paragraph, you realize there is a deep psychological disturbance in our mainstream media, a kind of willed need to ignore the world around them. It probably was, more or less, forever thus, but modern communications, specifically the internet, have brought this willed ignorance to the surface as never before. And yet the MSM continues in the same direction, even in the face of seeming economic failure.

Sheryl and I were discussing this phenomenon this afternoon with our friend Gerard who reminded us of the obvious. Many of these media outlets that keep ignoring what is happening in the world while trumpeting every US failure are increasingly playing to niche audiences in our society. They have no real interest, financial or otherwise, in the truth – or in the future of humanity, really (that last is my observation).