Letters to the Editor

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  • U.S. Media is blinkered.

    I believe you need to expand your parameters to point up the failure of the American media during, not only the time you mention here, but during a much longer lapse.

    As a Canadian and what I fondly hoped was a friend of the U.S. I was reading and hearing a far wider source of information than solely American media. Before 2003 I was well informed about the lies the Bush administration was trumpeting, and appalled at the harm it was doing to the good name and honor of the U.S.

    I don't pretend to be a wiser person -- merely a better informed one. In the 2006 elections, the U.S. electorate was just beginning to catch up to the knowledge that millions in the rest of the world had known for years. The only significant difference is the quality of information non-Americans were getting from their media outlets.

    This is not to say those outlets were inherently superior to such organisations as the NY Times, but they were not being blinkered by corporate ownership and by pundits championed and funded by the administration and its backers. There is only one way to say this -- the American press, and to a greater degree the broadcast media, were not free during this period. The journalists who dispute your opinions may never accept this -- but the only way Americans will learn knowledge instead of unfounded belief is by opening their eyes to the other sides of the news -- and test the words of U.S. outlets against others in the world who have different managers.