WIKILEAKS REVEALS NEW DOCUMENT SHOWING 15,000 MORE IRAQI CIVILLIAN DEATHS

WikiLeaks website founder, Julian Assange, at  News Conference 

 

The biggest news story to hit the Internet this weekend is another scandal involving the U.S army in Iraq. WikiLeaks, a website known for revealing exclusive information regarding many U.S cover-ups such as posting documents of the Guantanamo Bay operation, hacking into Sarah Palin's yahoo account and showing video of American Apache helicopters gunning down 12 people in Baghdad in 2007, have now released a 400,000 documents showing a higher death toll of Iraqi civilians than previously recorded. The man pictured above is Julian Assange, the founder and editor in chief of WikiLeaks, and the man responsible for exposing these documents.

I ventured to every possible news source to see what different approach each network chose to develop with this particular story. The headlines of each article spoke volumes about how each story would unfold and what perspective the network would take in terms of selecting information. The first website I looked at was CBC, which its headline read "Iraqi Death Toll Higher: WikiLeaks". Strong words such as "death" in a headline will capture people's attention, along with stating that WikiLeaks was the source responsible for this information. Overall, the article was pretty neutral because it was not biased and provided a voice from both sides, including Julian Assange (quotes from his press conference) and from the Pentagon spokesman Col.Dave Lapan who states the documents lack context, thus the information can be inaccurate as well, which other news some of the other news sources failed to include.

The next source I looked at was Fox News, oh Fox News, why are you even considered news? I purposely went here, aware of their highly conservative agenda. Their front page headline read "Iraqi Deaths Higher than U.S Count?" The question mark in the headline suggests that the document is plausible and maybe not true, compared to other headlines who stated the death count as a statement, not a rhetorical question. Furthermore, when you click on the headline it will bring you to the full story, followed by another headline that reads "WikiLeaks' Latest Document Dump Suggests Iraqi Death Higher Than U.S Count". The choice of words in the headline outlines Fox's stance on the story, clearly against these allegations, seeing as they collide the word document with "dump" and they once again are suspect about the accuracy of the documents, thus they use the word "suggest"once again steering away from a statement. And of course the word "latest" also reveals that this isn't WikiLeaks first time leaking stories and this is just another "dump" of a story that might not even be true. The title overall mocks these allegations of torture by U.S soldiers. The majority of the Fox News article concentrates on another Pentagon spokesperson, Geoff Morrell, who says these publications are "deplorable" and that they could bring security risks and harm to the U.S soldiers, a different approach from CBC. The article continues to focus on the security risks of U.S soldiers rather than the 150,000 innocent civilians who were killed.

So far, I have looked at a Canadian news article from CBC, a U.S right-wing article from Fox News, and now I am going to take a look at an article from the middle eastern perspective. Al-Jazeera was the only news network that had a separate category entitled "Secret Iraq Files" which contains several up-to-the-minute articles and videos of this particular story, compared to other news stories that only had one or two articles on this story. Al-Jazeera, goes in-depth, about every aspect of the story. For example, Al-Jazeera has a whole article on the checkpoints deaths and a chilling video with graphic war images of some of the incidents. One of the images that particularly stuck with me was of a little boy who was shrieking and covered with his parents blood on him. The article goes into great detail about each incident and death that occurred, giving a personal story and face to each death. I found out more information on Al-Jazeera's website than on any other sites, it was the only website who struck an emotional cord with me, revealing gruesome facts about the victims, such as how U.S soldiers shot and killed a pregnant woman who was rushing to the hospital at a check point. It seems as other websites left out shocking or horrific details of torture, being selective with their information. In this article, there were no mentions of the Pentagon or any spokespeople from the Pentagon. Some of the headlines read as "U.S Turns Blind Eye to Torture", "Iraq Files Reveal Checkpoint Deaths" and "WikiLeaks Releases Secret Iraq File". The first headline could be seen as Anti-American, blaming the U.S for ignoring torture in Iraq or it could be accurate, depending on what your perspective is.

 All three news articles took different approaches as to what they chose to reveal and what they chose to leave out. Also all three articles had a focus where they would concentrate on a specific aspect of the story they thought was relevant or that they wanted to push onto the audience. CBC was neutral as Fox was pro-American and Al-Jazeera was pro-Arab. Overall, these exposed documents shows us what the audience doesn't know about the war in Iraq and how the government is essentially lying to us and concealing information to us. It shows "our heroes" who are across the borders torturing and killing innocent civilians...and for what? Weren't we there to "liberate" and set the Iraqi's "free"... so much for democracy.

News is delayed and takes time for us to find out, seeing as we don't find out everything as they happen. There are many unimaginable secrets and horrors we don't yet know about. We need to inform ourselves and educate ourselves about different events in the world, and as aspiring journalists we need to report truthfully, authentically, even if it means going against what your network wants you to write. The public has a right to know to the truth. I'll end with this quote.

"The fault, dear Brutis, is not in our stars but in our ourselves"

- Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)




Down below are links of all 3 articles and the video provided by Al-Jazeera.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/10/23/wikileaks-iraqi-death-toll.html


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/23/wikileaks-release-afghan-war-docs/

http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/2010102216241633174.html

TMZ VS ACCESS HOLLYWOOD: WHO BRINGS YOU CLOSER TO THE STARS?

   

                        

                vs

Okay, I admit it!

I'm an entertainment junkie who is always wasting time on websites such as TMZ, Perezhilton, People, US Weekly and the list goes on. I want to know what attracts people to entertainment news and why the world has such a fascination with celebrity culture. Are we living vicariously through celebrities and is entertainment news really considered "news"?


I'm sitting on my couch watching, of course, the STAR channel, meaning back to back celebrity news, everything from TMZ to America's Next Top Model. However, my light bulb moment, came from watching TMZ and then an episode of Access Hollywood right after. I began to think about the different styles, approaches, and angles that each show presents.

Let's start with TMZ. TMZ is only a couple of years old and started out as a website first, before it branched off as a TV show too. But already TMZ is making a BIG splash into the entertainment world, breaking some of the biggest stories in history, such as Michael Jackson's death, releasing Rihanna's infamous beat-down photo, and leaking the horrific rant tapes of Mel Gibson. So, the question of credibility is not a problem on TMZ's part but what sets TMZ apart from other news sources is there incredible ubiquitous, interactive, and in-your-face element that TMZ brings to the entertainment world. TMZ brings a voyeuristic and a paparazzi element to their style, following celebrities around with cameras in Hollywood, while catching them off-guard, not in a studio, not photo shopped or prepped but raw footage of them participating in everyday life, from going to the grocery store to walking their children to school. TMZ claims they present a raw, realistic quality to their news, and that their TV show is not scripted and the fun banter between their staff on the show is real. TMZ has a mock-factor to their show, where they are in power and mock celebrities and, in a sense, mock the celebrity culture which is ironic in itself. The laid back, humorous, almost goofy "news" which, at times, can't even be considered as news, draws in a large audience. Also, it doesn't hurt that the show's creator, Harvey Levin, is a former lawyer who definitely uses his expertise to every story involving the law which is 90% of celebrity stories. *Cough* Lindsey Lohan *Cough*.

Now onto Access Hollywood, which conveniently happens to play right after TMZ. Access Hollywood is your typical entertainment news show, and the opposite of TMZ. Although, TMZ is structured, they try to give off the perception to their audience that they are not structured, while Access Hollywood is proud of their organization of their celebrity news. Access Hollywood begins the show, like many other entertainment news shows, with their top stories, junkets, and categorizing each segment from fashion to music etc. Also, the show is very scripted, professional, hardly mocking celebrities but promoting and supporting celebrities. Access Hollywood presents interviews and segments with celebrities that have been pre-taped, therefore the audience will see a pre-packaged, scripted, camera-ready interview, which is completely different TMZ who show celebrities caught-off guard. So the question is, what attracts an audience more? if we look at reality shows, which is a phenomenon among TV, we see that people are attrated to reality, seeing as Jersey Shore is the highest rated reality show in the world right now. So I think it is safe to say that "reality" interests people, seeing the downfalls, personal lives of celebrities intrigues audiences. The public forget that celebrities are people so when they see a dressed down Madonna with no make-up, walking her children to school, people see another side of her which they would rarely see on other shows such as Access Hollywood. I also noticed that Access Hollywood dramatizes many of their stories that are meant to be serious, adding dramatic music and close-up camera shots, to the point where it feels like I'm watching CSI. However, entertainment shows need to dramatize their stories in order to give their stories some substance or relevance. For example, Access Hollywood ran a story about Lisa Rinna reducing the collagen in her lips and did an interview with her to discuss her lips, but everything was so dramatized where they brought in an expert to discuss her lips, which ultimately led to the promotion of her new reality show. If all the glitz was removed from the story, it would ultimately fall flat.

The celebrity fad will never die, thus we will forever be surrounded by entertainment news. Whether your a TMZ kind of person that wants the paparazzi type of following on celebrities news or the Access Hollywood viewer who wants a traditional entertainment format, it is interesting to see the accessibility of celebrity culture and their large following of viewers that the world invests in today, including me. Maybe people turn to entertainment news to get away from the tragedies that international and local news brings, filling their heads with a Hollywood illusion, remaining ignorant about the world around them.

Anyways, that was overly dramatic.  Here is a clip contrasting two of the styles of TMZ and Access Hollywood:)


 

http://www.tmz.com/videos/?mediaKey=bd4cb280-65fa-4abb-b500-c8f03fe65b4b&isShareURL=true - TMZ LINK