Update - It has been 11 hours and FOX still has not published the comment.  Login was successful and the comment has been re-submitted twice.  FOX let’s me say nothing.

Fox News just published an article say that the Obama administration might invite Iran to an upcoming conference on Afghanistan.  I immediately submitted the following comment:

This is a great idea. Iranians share cultural and linguistic heritage with roughly one third of all Afghanis and Iran is determined to keep the Taliban out of power. They are natural allies in this fight. If everything goes to hell over there, do we want to send our soldiers into Pakistan? Why would we when the Iranians are itching to go? This is a step that we should have taken in 2001 and I am glad to see FOX talking about Iran in contexts other than the nuclear weapons and Mr. I’m-Madder-Than-You’s crazy statements.

They have yet to publish it. In fact, they have never published any of my comments but if should be interested if they do. Let’s see if the keep the bias-clamps on or not.

Economic commentators tailor their comments to the expectations of their clients.  We all know that, right? So what? The what is that one of pro-pundits, Zachary Karabell, admits it in Newsweek.

The article is an odd mix of expose (all experts have agendas), advice column (decisive pundits get hired), and apology (the rise of certain pundits is market driven).  Karabell begins the article by describing the fickle, self-interest of financial analysis and ends it by telling not to worry – the market determines who we listen to.  Is this supposed to make us feel better?  Karabell ends the article telling us to question financial experts but his argument suggest that we should question the entire investment system.

1. He contradicts himself about experts skewing their opinions.   First, he says that all analyst “emphasis” perceptions that fit their niche. He worked for a company that focused on growth markets, so he depicted a half -full picture.  Pundits working for more bearish companies provide a half-empty image.  Fair enough, except he also claims that pundits don’t “skew their analysis to serve their own bottom line.”  Emphasizing sounds a lot like skewing to me. Karabell probably meant to say that most pundits don’t out right lie or purposely rig their options.  But we can rest assured that they skew their opinions, for he already told us so. We don’t have to back pedal – they do it.
2. Karabell does not seem worried about disclosure either.  Wouldn’t the public benefit from knowing professional stance of TV experts?  Wouldn’t this information help us decipher their opinion?  Isn’t this a very easy step that would help bring clarity and accuracy to professional economic reporting? Mr. Karabell evidently doesn’t think so, for his confessional article doesn’t even mention such simple adjustments.
3. The psychological basis of markets – the most important thing Karabell says is that investors choose experts based on how they are currently feeling.  When investors feel confident, bullish experts become popular and when worried, bear experts reap the rewards.  For all the fancy number talk and derivative parades, human emotion drives the market.  Could we have a better indictment of our insane wealth transfer system? Again, Mr. Karabell must not agree for he tells us not to worry – the markets drive us. NO, NO, NO – our emotions drive the markets and that is what your agruement suggets.

Karabell pulls a fast one on us but telling us a bit of truth but then pretends that it doesn’t really matter.  Human emotion and self interest drive our financial markets – take it from him, even as he refuses to admit what he said.

The questions is do we really want to continue handing over so much our national sovereignty to these small group of greedy, emotional men?

I don’t.

It is time to get the media to open up their source book and for us to put faith into smaller, local markets. Why give all the money to a few super rich owners who know little and care less about what a company actually does?

Let’s invest in worker ownership and share risks (and benefits) with the people who really work. This is one of the great possibilities of our day and one of the great opportunities of this crisis.

Factcheck .org says that many Republican claims about stimulus pork are completely bunk.  Republican claims of buying golf carts, office furniture and trains to Disneyland are fabrications.  Not exaggerations, but fabrications.

Media Matters reported that only 6% of the Sunday Morning TV experts who discussed the stimulus were actually economist. Most of the experts were simply over-paid talking heads providing opinions that are not much more valuable than yours or mine.

A Media Matters for America review of the Sunday talk shows and 12 cable news programs from January 25 through February 15 found that during 203 hours of programming on Sunday mornings and weekday afternoons and evenings, of 722 total guest appearances in discussions about the economic recovery legislation and debate in Congress, only 41 were made by economists — a mere 6 percent.

Our economic challenges are huge but neither the Republican Party nor the US media seem concerned about addressing the problem.  Since 1980, the government has been borrowing money from our future to afford tax cuts for the rich. Yet all the Republicans can offer is more tax cuts. The media happily amplifies their entertaining lies about how this swindle will set us free.

Neither the political opposition nor the fourth estate are doing their job. The questions they need to ask are simple – the answers are impossibly difficult – but the questions are simple:

1. How will we get the credit flowing again? We are spending much more supporting the banks, than we are on the stimulus.  And NO stimulus will ever make any difference if credit doesn’t start flowing again.  This is not news.  We all know this but and the Republicans could be developing their solution.  Instead, they spend all their time creating stimulus ‘ideas’, which only amount to more tax cuts.  The media should focus most of their time on this critical issue.  Is that what they do for us? Hardly.
2. How are we going to reform the system?  The regulation of our markets used to provide the stability that made us the most attractive investment environment on the planet.  That security has been destroyed.  Who will ever trust these Manoffs again until we know what is in the cookie jar and how can take it out? The Republican could show real leadership by developing a workable framework to regulate future investment markets.  Instead they make up fake stories about golf carts and rides to Disney world.  Does the professional media ridicule these pathetic diversions? Nope, they say nothing.

The last two days form a great example of the deep US media bias against Iran – and by default – in favor of conflict.

CNN, FOX, NBC and the New York Times all reported on Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Iran is Israel’s biggest threat and the UN report that Iran has more enriched uranium than we thought.

None of the reports mention that the US removed Israel’s previous most serious threat – Saddam Hussein.  The media presents Iran as a burgeoning menace rather than a decrease in the number of threats.

Netanyahu did not directly address the issue of stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, nor did he mention the US-backed two-state solution.

The new leader of Israel spoke only about a coming conflict, ignoring the present war.  This conflict bias was happily picked up and repeated by the US media.

Iran has under reported the amount of uranium, which is a serious problem.  But we fail to realize that the inspectors found out about it, a very positive sign.  And this uranium is NOT weapons grade.

The material would have to undergo further enrichment if it was to be used as fuel for a bomb and that atomic inspectors had found no signs that Iran was making such preparations.

Obviously, Iran’s nuclear advancement is not great news but the negative, portrayal in the US media is one the catalyst fueling conflict between our countries.

To clarify this bias, here are some of the recent events in Iran the US media has NOT reported:

Radio Free Europe reported:

Iran and Tajikistan are discussing the creation of a Tajik-Afghan-Iranian TV network with Iran providing the equipment, Afghanistan providing the air time, and Tajikistan providing the studios

The Jerusalem Post reported that:

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says he can envision Iran playing a role one day in helping to stabilize Afghanistan.

De Hoop Scheffer says a broader regional approach is needed to help put down the insurgency in Afghanistan.

The US media could discuss Iran as a source for help and stability in Afghanistan.  We could discuss how helpful and hurtful Iran has been in Iraq and we should speculate on why Iran wants nuclear weapons.

Instead we pursue a reactionary, irrational argument that Iran is developing nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. That is the extent of the US media’s strategic thinking on the issue.  It is amazing flimsy reasoning yet we rant and rave it all over the air waves.

This is amounts to pro-war bias that spreads across Republicans and Democrats. This is one of the real biases affecting our media and it is time that we change. Don’t let the wind bags spout on.  Write them, call them, shout them down. We don’t need another war. There is much more going on than we are being told and it is time for us to start thinking.

In answer to the Right’s continuous rant about the US media’s liberal bias, this site will list the media’s more consequential bias – its unquestioning pursuit of corporate interest.  Today’s topic is Iran.

This complex and madding country is routinely covered in the simplest, most aggressive tones by both parties and the US media does little to address the war mongering of our politicians.Politicians forget that the Bush Administration stacked the Iraqi government with the most pro-Iran factions of Iraq. They also don’t mention that Iran’s calling al Sadr off is one of the major factors of the success of the surge.  Our politicians only point out that they are funding and arming some of those fighting against.

We know that Iran is both helping and hurting us but that is too complex to consider.  Who cares if it might save American lives and create a lasting peace in Iraq, it doesn’t fit in our narrative. The politicians won’t say and the media doesn’t make them.

Iran was and is a major help in Afghanistan.  They helped convince the Northern Alliance to fight with us and then to make peace.  Our politicians seldom acknowledge this and no one in media makes them.  Right now, we are only fighting Pakistan in the Afghanistan but if Iran joins in, things could get much worse.  The Taliban is a Pakistan funded proxy.  Pakistan agreed to our removing them as long as we didn’t let the Northern Alliance run the country (Iran and Russia).

We told the Northern Alliance not to enter Kabul. They did and have never left.  Pakistan, through the Taliban, has been fighting back ever since.  We need the help of Russia and particularly Iran if we are to maintain peace in this region.  Will politicians admit how important Iran is to Afghanistan?  Will the US media as them about it?

War with Iran.  American military and political leaders even since Vietnam have said that we should never enter a war that we don’t understand how to win and how to get out.  Yet our politicians, lead by John McCain, have been beating the drum for war in Iran for years.  The military doesn’t want this war because there is no clear way to win or way to get out.  Is the media supporting the military and insisting that politicians live up to their promises and explain how we get out?

Nuclear Iran – Our politicians routinely say that a nuclear armed Iran will attack us or Israel.  They are a country with dozens of warhead pointed at them.  Will they really commit national suicide?  Will they really work so hard to be the second Muslim state with nukes and then just give them to another country?  Do they really seek the destruction of the west or region power? Have nukes given India and Pakistan what they wanted?  Is Iran ready to bear the security and maintenance cost of nukes?  Might they be satisfied with the capacity to build nukes, like 117 other non-nuclear states? Should our international agreements mean something to us?

Should not our media help us negotiate some of these issues?  Reality does not match the sound bite extremism of the US politicians but our media does nothing about it.  They report only what our politicians says, not what is happening on the ground, not what we have done in the past, now what other countries say.  This is the real bias – a massive blindness to alternative views, to paths to peace, to rational perspective on a tricky country.

The Right continues to push an idea of a liberal bias in the American media and to some extent they have demonstrated that many media has a thin, insignificant bias on a few social issues. We are starting a multi-part series to discuss a much larger and more consequential bias – a pro-corporate bias.  The US media routinely takes so many pro-corporate stances that what should be obvious becomes impossible to see.

For instance, let’s take a quick look at Columbia.  The country is in the middle of a long civil war in which both the government and the rebels support by growing and selling cocaine.  But once President Clinton picked sides and began supplying money, weapons and advisors to the government, the US media only talks about the rebels as drug dealers.

The rebels are stuck in the mountainous jungles and the government owns hundreds of ships and planes, yet some how only the rebels get all the coke into the US.  Should fishy to you? Does anyone in the US media investigate? If the government is still dealing, where is that money going?

If the illicit drug trade really generates over $300 billion a year, where is all that money? It can’t be stuffed under mattresses.  Since President Bush took office, we are supposed to believe that there has been over $2 trillion in drug profits yet the money isn’t in our banks?  The US auto industry is $380 billion dollar market.  It makes no sense that there is that much money in drugs and that we are actually trying to stop it.

There are a whole host of questions to ask about the role of the government and our banks yet our media continues to feed us the same drug-banker friendly story.