Tiger Woods returns to golf

On the day that an American consulate in Pakistan is attacked and that Wikileaks posted video of soldiers laughing while they kill civilians in Iraq, the major U.S. news networks have more important things to cover. Tiger Woods has returned to golf. Update: Fox is first among the major networks to lead with the story. MSNBC also has a front-door item on the Iraq killings--and CBS on Pakistan -- but neither have dislodged Tiger. Curiously, the search term 'wikileaks' doesn't work at MSNBC's search[reddit], even though other similar terms work fine and there should be many results from MSNBC's frequent coverage of the whistle-blowing site. In fact, a quick check suggests that Bing isn't indexing 'wikileaks' at MSNBC's site at all, but is doing so for other news providers. Bing itself lets you do that search just fine, so long as you don't restrict it to site:msnbc.com. Compare to the same query at Bing restricted to Fox. The kicker: if you misspell wikileaks in MSNBC's search box, it returns error-corrected results. Surely it can't be censorshop, given that MSNBC's own Rachel Maddow posted the video on her official blog earlier today and is following the story closely!

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The Snowden Principle

insert

Holy shit. Did we all suddenly pick up and move to china?
pato pal ur

It’s not only mainstream sources – I notice that Democracy Now! doesn’t have anything about this on its site either.

Could it be that some news organizations are just trying to get a handle on this story before they report something that might ultimately turn out to be false and/or not what it appears to be?
- nerak
  
  Depending on the timing it may have been released after Democracy Now! did their show. They usually don’t update throughout the day, only for their 8am-9am EDT show. We might see it on there tomorrow morning.
  - pato pal ur
    
    Thanks for the comment, I kind of guessed that DN! doesn’t update throughout the day too.
    
    I suppose I was also trying to make a larger point that maybe we shouldn’t expect news sources on the web to react the way blogs do and just report something immediately before any research is done on it. Hopefully the full story about these killings will come out and it will receive widespread exposure in a few days.
Anonymous

Who the #%&# cares.
He is off his pedestal and is just a f&%$ked up man.
He is finished for me and many fellow golfers.
Phlip

Our forces have been killing journalists (and incarcerating them at GITMO) ever since, and “Change” is hard to come by in some areas.

The only difference with the old days is the distractor is not a young missing blonde woman.
Anonymous

Strangely, the top story at foxnews.com is the killings.
- Phlip
  
  They reflect poorly on Obama. He tanked our economy & started two wars, remember?
  
  No, Fox has never Supported our Troops, and never will…
Antinous / Moderator

So, if we had told Perez Hilton that Moqtada al-Sadr was hung like horse and sleeping with eight bimbos, we could have gotten better coverage of the Iraq war? Well, now we know.
jave

I hope all the iPad drool on BB over the last 4 days wouldn’t be considered censorship of golf, would it? E! is outraged by the coverage on ESPN is outraged by CNN is outraged by FOX is …. Any more false comparisons, or will we admit that news covers niches that we all won’t necessarily like?
Captain Obviousness

Uhhhh guys, the front page of Fox News has the wikileaks story at the very top of the page.
Sekonda

This is the kind of thing that causes Europeans and their liberal media to laugh at America. How can the media be so self-controlling and pathetic. It’s the news, it’s not meant to be friendly and happy it’s meant to bring facts and truth. Expose lies. No one gives a shit about Tiger “Fuck That” Woods.
- Cicada
  
  Okay, this might take you some time, but sit down and consider that it is true– millions upon millions of people give a shit about Tiger Woods. Millions upon millions of people (many of them deeply concerned with Tiger Woods) do not give a shit who the US military is shooting in Iraq.
  Basically, that thing that you think would be important to any human being? Not important to them. At all. Never will be. Tiger’s penis will always win. This is the world you live in, and the citizens you live with.
ryanrafferty

Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak on their podcast “No Agenda”, have been talking about these sorts of things, and more, for months now… they speak to problems regarding the collusion of mainstream media and government interest in a segment entitled: “distractions of the week”.

For those interested in the topic, check out: http://www.noagendashow.com
- jamiethehutt
  
  While I’m pretty interested in the topic of that show I’d be really wary of John spins for clicks Dvorak. Anyone who is considered too bias and unreliable to be linked to on Slashdot is NOT to be trusted.
  
  Here’s a link to a Slashdot story about Dvorak admitting to baiting Apple trolls: http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/06/10/1529257.shtml
scifijazznik

Ow, my balls.
jaytkay

Bing isn’t indexing ‘wikileaks’ at MSNBC’s site.

To be fair, Bing couldn’t find its way out of a paper bag.

Srsly, once a month I try Bing for laughs. The results are useless.
Lucifer

Some non-anglo died more than 24 hours ago in Iraq? That has all the elements to make the story not matter. And that’s probably why it will not matter.

Watchers of a little man putting balls into a hole is what we have become.
Crashproof

Searching for “wikileaks” now gives an error message, followed by two links to the same article about the incident.

Also: there’s a link to the story on the front page of msnbc.msn.com.
mgfarrelly

Don’t mistake apathy for censorship.

Better to wonder over the philandering of some millionaire who plays a child’s game than, as Barbara Bush said “waste our beautiful minds” on such ugliness.

Oh look, an iPad…shiny…
- ryanrafferty
  
  I think that’s a nice sentiment, and I agree I wouldn’t call it censorship… but there is a very tightly knit relationship which develops between government and media resulting in media outlets waiting to be handed “confirmation”. In the end this process functions like censorship, but without any of the hallmarks seen in more totalitarian regimes.
greenwindow

Media is only concerned with entertainment. Reporting on actual, important news is a byproduct of the entertainment focus.
Anonymous

So a bunch of softcore pseudo-news sites are putting Tiger ahead of WikiLeaks – what on Earth would’ve led someone to suppose this would have worked out any differently?

They’re not really news sites. And he’s the biggest athelete in the history of the world.

Do you really think foxnews and msdn give real estate to stories based on their importance?
Anonymous

You should add the google news main page to the results, some reports are also stating that http://www.collateralmurder.com is not reachable from parts of the US. Google also switched the videos released to signup or login using the excuse that the content was not suitable for minors – I guess it was also unsuitable for the kids shot in the video.
Oshkosh John

I hate golf, and I hate the people who play golf even more!
Uniquack

What’s needed is a human face to associate with this latest tragedy– ideally, the face of one of the injured children. If people see the face of one of the wounded children and have witnessed in the video possibly the death of their father, it will create a much more powerful image to use to drive the point home regarding what this war is really about. The famous picture of the naked girl running from her burning village comes to mind. I don’t mean to exploit their tragedy, but only to hope that some good can come from the shock of it. It’s also perhaps a good reason why they didn’t want to bring the kids to an army medical center, where they would receive not just treatment but would not stay anonymous.

People need to know what this war means. Our industrial society is collapsing as oil is peaking and the elite think grabbing Iraqi oil will somehow buy them some time in the end. While Rome is burning, there are bread and circuses for the commoners, gabbing worthlessly about iPads and Tiger Woods.
Av

This is why I get my news from the BBC / Aljazeera.
Glossolalia Black

BBC, Al Jazeera, NHK, all the way.
Mark Frauenfelder

Surprise! Some of the commenters at the Fox News story think the victims deserved it.
- Teller
  
  “Nobody likes to see innocent civilians killed, but I won’t fault these pilots for their aggressive behavior. They made a decision to engage based upon what they saw, which is something that they were trained to do and is in accordance with every decision made in a combat zone. They requested permission from higher and were granted that permission. What happened is unfortunate, but not criminal per the rules of engagement, which state that US forces can engage when they have positive ID and imminent threat/danger (RPG & AK-47s in the open). The fact that the individuals carrying those weapons were not firing them at that moment does not mean that the threat wasn’t imminent–everyone carrying an RPG has intent to threaten or cause death/damage to an opposing force.”
  
  From Rachel Maddow’s site.
ultranaut

Is it just me or are we living in a fucking dystopia?
- mdh
  
  Consider yourself lucky, I seem to be living in a celibate dystopia lately.
  - arkizzle / Moderator
    
    Ha, that took me a moment :)
robulus

Can we please get back on topic?

I think it’s great Tiger is back to the game, I mean, he’s only human, right? Forgive and forget, that’s what I say.

Also, those Kardashians, wow! They sure are wealthy and spoiled!
ZippySpincycle

As of just now (5:30 PM MDT), it’s prominently shown on the homepages of MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Neither ABC nor CBS News has it on the homepage.

(CBS does feature a headline that appears to have been inspired by The Onion: “Topless Women Shocked That People Like to Watch Topless Women”)
- Anonymous
  
  –As of just now (5:30 PM MDT), it’s prominently shown on the homepages of MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Neither ABC nor CBS News has it on the homepage.–
  
  But how are we supposed to know what Tiger Woods is doing with his penis NOW? I thought that CNN was essentially a giant diagnostic feed for a golfer’s genitals – news…network? Is that a name for a schlong report?