The following are bird's eye examples of news editing observed in a rigged two party system promoted and profited by the television networks.
1. Media conglomerates have arisen to buy television networks; they buy them without any time restrictions or obligation to provide blocks of time for free campaign debates among candidates. Television news is often more a partner or parrot to government than a questioner or examiner or prober, such as (a) not challenging official deceptive unemployment statistics based solely on those receiving unemployment benefits, (b) enormity of financial industry bailout commitment topping $23 trillion dollars and its implications (c) glossing over endemic lobbying linking elected officials and lobbyists for favorable legislation that increases profits or grants often at the expense of the public. The lack of sufficient government regulatory oversight over the financial industry is only briefly reported on network television.
2. There is minimum television news on how the two political parties go to extraordinary measures to disqualify independent candidates who do not meet their criteria for participation. Often everything is politicized from the point of view of the two parties on television news programming and those who fall outside this narrow political party prism are generally excluded from television news programming, the Supreme Court and government officialdom. The two political parties have used their prerogatives of power to designate favorites to retain power through subsidies, grants, contracts and favorable legislation, for example, in the petroleum, agricultural, financial, pharmacy, airline and insurance industries. The American people are sometimes not favorites, for universal health care becomes a financial obstacle and burden that is mishandled to provide medical coverage to Americans while the endless war on terror has unlimited trillions of dollars available to spend. The concept of incessant political favoritism to preserve power is reminiscent of extravagant ancient monarchies bestowing land grants and monopolies which have "the rotten sweetness of corruption"- from the movie The Big Sleep.
3. There has been minimal television news coverage of the huge costs in human suffering of Americans as well as Iraqis and Afghans in these preemptive wars. The body count of dead Iraqis vary wildly and is often ignored. Afghan civilian deaths in the war on terror are mounting without much press coverage. There are 2.5 million Iraqis in refugee camps in Syria and Jordan who are missing from our public air waves and these people have lost everything, now living in tents.
4. The same politically anointed individuals from the "official" political parties and their adherents in the mainstream press are the primary and constant occupiers of television news programming for discussions on domestic and foreign policy. Most Americans get their news from television programming which seldom includes notable critics of U.S. domestic and foreign policy to express their views, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Phil Donahue (his cable television show was abruptly cancelled prior to the "preemptive attack" on Iraq), Ralph Nader, David Cay Johnston, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, Tom Engelhardt and many more.
5. Mexican Drug Cartel Armies. The story of Mexican drug cartel violence along the border makes the news without reporting obvious failures of the U.S. government despite hundreds of billions of dollars expended on intelligence and national security matters since 9/11. In the rush to war in Iraq and Afghanistan the problems of Mexican drug cartels was looming on the border for years, yet a $60 to $80 billion dollar annual civilian national security apparatus either remained mute or enabled the Bush/Cheney regime to embark into the Iraq war, possibly diverting investigations into collective incompetence prior to 9/11.
6. The presumed necessity of the Iraq war was delivered like a speeding bullet on the television networks with little question or query, indicative not of a strong free press, but a compliant one. The U.S. attack on Iraq was initiated with fabricated information because Iraq had no part in 9/11 terrorist act. Was the attack on Iraq a distraction from any impending investigation or questions of security lapses by the Bush Administration for not being able to prevent 9/11?
7. The criminal 9/11 hijacking of commercial airliners into the World Trade Center was preventable. Too many dots were not connected. Permitting box cutters in airline cabins indicated, if not malfeasance, incompetence for many years. The fact that ring leader Atta received a visa extension six months after 9/11 was briefly reported on with no follow-up with television news, ignoring to probe this story.
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