Why Americans are Schizo

Just reading the “headlines” can make your head can spin. Here’s a lovely sample of the crazy-making news, this time courtesy of Yahoo! News:
Full Coverage: Iraq
Off the Wires
Marines see a safer Iraq AP, 10 minutes ago
Baghdad Green Zone rocked by explosions Reuters, 28 minutes ago

You might get carpal tunnel as you scroll down to read the AP's gung-ho “Marines” story, whereas Reuters gives the bombing of the green zone only two paragraphs!

Baghdad Green Zone rocked by explosions

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Green Zone government and diplomatic compound in central Baghdad came under renewed mortar or rocket attack on Sunday night, Reuters witnesses said.

The sound of at least six separate explosions shook central Baghdad and smoke could be seen rising from the U.S.-protected compound. A siren blared and a recording warned people to take cover. The attack followed two separate barrages earlier in the day.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin)

IT WAS THE THIRD HIT OF THE DAY!!!

All Crap, All the Time

This isn't news to anyone who's noticed our media's 24/7 obsession with primary coverage. Isn't there a bigger world out there?
MEDIA-US: Foreign TV News Fell to Pre-9/11 Levels in 2007
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (IPS) - With the exception of the Iraq war, foreign news coverage by the three major U.S. television networks declined significantly in 2007, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.
Indeed, the foreign news bureaus of the three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, had their lightest year in 2007 since 2001, [...]
[...] An estimated 25 million U.S. residents watch the 22 minutes of evening news the three networks broadcast on an average weekday evening. Although cable news -- including CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC -- have made important gains in the number of viewers of viewers who watch them, the audience for the network news is still roughly 10 times larger.
[...] Still, the amount of coverage devoted to Iraq last year was less than half of the coverage the networks offered during the year of the invasion and less than 50 percent of the coverage in 2004.
[...] Indeed, total terrorism-related coverage fell sharply in 2007 compared to the previous year -- from 1,191 minutes to 476 minutes. "Of all the statistics that I compiled this year, the parity between terrorism- and environment-related coverage was the most fascinating," Tyndall said. [...]
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40676