February 23, 2008
A little MSM experiment
Speaking of media bias, it's not always what's said that's biased but there's also bias by omission.
For the hell of it I did an archive search at the New York Times for Nelson Mandela between January of 1981 and January of 1989 (Mandela was in prison during those years) and came away with 619 results.
I did a similar search for Oscar Biscet from January of 1999 (the year he was first arrested by the castro regime) to date and found 8 results.
Out of sight, out of mind. No wonder the political prisoners in Cuba are invisible to the American people and the world.
NOTE: Mandela was in prison longer than the period I searched. I wanted to keep the number of years constant in both examples however and NYT's electronic archives only go back to 1981.
Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at February 23, 2008 04:13 PM
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To continue the experiment, I Googled both "Oscar Biscet" and "Nelson Mandela."
The results were "about 2,360" results for Biscet.
And "about 4,350,000" results for Mandela.
Obviously, Mandela has been a public figure much longer than Biscet, and the "results" include much more than mentions by the MSM.
Still, it is a good indicator of how little the world knows about Biscet.
That is a challenge that each of us should commit to helping overcome.
Posted by: Marc R. Masferrer ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 23, 2008 06:30 PM
Henry,
Very interesting indeed! A blatant example of the MSM's double standard ... innate to "limosine libs"!
If we look at these two men, they are similar in many ways. Some have referred to Dr. Biscet as the Cuban Mandela. Yet, through the Libs "eyes", they have striking differences in ideology. They are both black, but Biscet's ideology and dissension to the castro regime, turns the MSM "color blind"!
They both have fought oppression and apartheid. They have been persecuted and imprisoned. The difference lies on "WHO" the "oppressor" is in both instances. Mandela's was the "White" oppressor and in Biscet's case, through their "bias" eyes, castro's revolution benefited blacks in Cuba. "After all, castro has made it possible for every Cuban to get an 'education' and get 'free-healthcare'" So they would first have to acknowledge and be in agreement that castro's revolution has been a failure, to be able to consider Biscet's plight!
Unfortunately, Mandela's ideology is more in line with that of the MSM than Dr. Biscet's. Therefore, the MSM will not go out their way to write about Dr. Biscet. Mandela, has been a longtime friend and admirer of castro. Vis a vis with your previous post on how dictators are presented by the MSM, Mandela has been sharply critical of U.S. support for Israel. He has condemned the United States for the war in Iraq, and has consistently dissaproved of President Bush's Middle East Policy.
... and sadly enough ... the fact that President Bush (despised by our MSM) awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Dr. Biscet would keep a very bias media from putting forward the reality of castro's dictatorship and Dr. Biscet's fight for basic human rights ... ironically for doing something the media does ... and takes for granted ... writing!
I wish you well :) Melek
"All of the dictatorships are the same. If we are going to justify the dictatorship because of all the schools and hospitals Castro built, then we have to justify Hitler, Stalin and Pinochet because they also built schools and hospitals. How do you justify that when a Cuban finds anything that can float, they will leave Cuba?" ~ Armando Valladares
Posted by: Melek at February 23, 2008 07:51 PM
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