Noam Chomsky set a milestone with "Manufacturing consent" on understanding
the role of mass media in shaping public opinion.
This page is part of a set which was
built as a series of events unfolds, announcing the end of the second stage
in the history of Mankind.
Summary
Police operation at Racak (Jan 15)
The appeal of the "Portuguese Group Stop the third World War", Oct. 10,
1998
Situation short before the first NATO ultimatum, Oct. 11, 1998
The CNN Message Board - September 25, 1998 - ?. Last news : all
our messages deleted, Feb 18. 1999
The Police operation at Racak (Jan 15, 1999), which is
being used to justify an attack to Serbia
When is the evidence going to be presented ? (Message posted to CNN Board,
Jan 28, 1999)
After reading the Washington Times report, mentioned by
>Andy Como - Thursday, 01/28/99, 9:07:55am (#11228)
on the police operation at Racak, here is my comment :
for the first time since Jan. 15, acusation evidence is mentioned (besides
the reports of Kosovo Albanians) : "In a series of telephone conversations,
Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic and Serbian Interior Ministry Gen.
Sreten Lukic, ... discussed how to make the killings look as if they had
resulted from a battle between government troops and members of the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army.... explore whether the killings could be blamed
on an independent, armed group that supposedly came to the region and attacked
the residents of Racak after government troops had left. Sainovic was told
that making this claim was not feasible"
Now, my questions are:
When are we going to hear those tapes ?
When are we going to see the evidence of the defense, that is the images
of the police operation at Racak, filmed by the two journalists of television
Associated Press TV (APTV), which contradict the version propagated by
the media ?
Breaches in media control (Message posted to CNN Board, but deleted by
CNN Staff, Jan 20, 1999, 8.05 P.M.)
I think this a very important day, as far as what concerns the media.
It started yesterday (Jan 19) with the portuguese leading newspaper
Diario
de Noticias, the first (as far as I know ...) that dare to state this
simple fact :
the american diplomat (William Walker) stated without hesitations,
and before any enquiry had been conducted, that the death of 45 albanians
was a "massacre" perpetrated by the Serbs, version that was adopted, without
hesitations, by the foreign offices and the media all over the world.
Le Monde, leading French newspaper, has distinguished so far by a extreme
demonisation of the Serbs.
Well, in the
edition of tomorrow (Jan 21), even if they forgot so far to change
the title of the window ("Massacre of Kosovars, Impunity of the killers,
a Paralised West") they're telling a quite different story:
The Massacre of Rakac, was it too perfect ? According to the version of the OSCE verifiers propagated by teh
press, the massacre took place Jan 15, early afternoon. The Serbs open the doors of the houses, tell the women to stay at
home and take the men away, so they can execute them at will, with a bullet
on the head. Some of the Serbs were singing, some witnesses say, while
they executed their victims, before leaving, around 3.30 P.M. The two journalistes of television Associated
Press TV (APTV), which filmed the police operation at Racak contradict
this report.
Links to the articles contradicting the "oficial" version, propagated by
the mass media as usual immediately without posing any questions
Number 1, October 10 1998, with the initial version of this
appeal.
Broadcasting of the appeal in the media, October 11
this appeal only resisted the censorship 1 hour and
10 minutes in the New York Times Forum, until 13:00 hours EST October 10.
In this short time there were 30 visitors to this page. At least two messages
of other participants in that forum, asking why this appeal was removed
were also censured.
our gratefulness to CNN for not having removed the appeal
from the CNN forum (posted October 11, 9:00 hours EST). This however does
not justify a change of our expression "total control of the of mass
media", since the board has a restricted audience.
Situation short before the first NATO ultimatum - October
13, 1998
Breaches in the control of the media, October 11
CNN shows that there are only very small breaches in the total control
of the information. Two examples:
in the internet Kosovo articles, and without doubts due to
the vast majority of the opinions that had been expressed in the Kosovo
message board, created September 25, CNN started, from October 5
on, to also include a link to the Serbian perspective (until then
it had only links to the perspectives of Albania, the KLA and
NATO).
the report of Richard Blystone, October 10, showing how Serbian
peasants of Kosovo try to protect from KLA terror, although they
have only primitive armament in comparaison with the KLA. Unfortunately
this report was presented only in CNN Europe.
The CNN Message Board "Kosovo"- September 25, 1998
- ?
Link to CNN Kosovo Message Board removed from headlines and articles
on the Kosovo conflict - September 1998
In the first two weeks of October CNN had a link to the Kosovo Message
Board from the articles about Kosovo. This was the link providing
90% of the visitors to the board, as the statistics on the the page for
this appeal showed. This link was removed mid October. January 10, 1999
it was inserted again.
Link to CNN Kosovo Forum suppressed, October 23 1998 ; restored
October 29
Transcription from the CNN Internet board :
Francis Lopes - Friday, 10/23/98, 3:47:32pm (#6444)
In my message 8 hours ago I wrote : "... In the
age of the "information highway", of internet, of 100 television channels
... "
Well my friends, this CNN forum exists only for those
of us who bookmarked it. In the forums page the link to this forum has
been removed !
---
Sigurd R. Borgen - Friday, 10/23/98, 4:07:25pm (#6447)
Francis Lopes # 6444 : I have send a mail to CNN earlier
today about the missing link !
You can click on "Top Stories" and the link comes up
in the next window. They do mistakes too.
---
October 29 : today the link was restored.
ALL our messages deleted by CNN Staff,
as the Rambouillet ultimatum reaches the deadline, Feb 18, 1999.
Some of them having been there since October 1998 ! This is something we
never seen before happening on the CNN boards. - more Last Update : February 23, 1999
