US Media Depiction of the Middle East Conflict

I found this radio show transcript about how the American media is portraying the mess in Lebanon. It actually covers a lot of ground for such a short piece and leaves much food for thought, including tidbits like this:

"There's a CNN show called Reliable Sources, the media discussion show hosted by Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post reporter. It has been obsessed with the idea that television might be too graphic in the United States, that people will get the wrong impression, the wrong impression being that Lebanese civilians are the ones who are suffering under this bombardment from the Israeli military. That is underscored by CNN reporters -- Anderson Cooper, Paula Zhan, Wolf Blitzer -- constantly reminding viewers after a particularly gruesome or graphic report that Hezbollah hides among civilians, so this is the trouble you get into when do you this.
"It's reminiscent after 9/11 and when the war in Afghanistan began, there was a memo inside CNN. If you're showing graphic images of Afghanistan, remind viewers that this is happening because of 9/11. CNN would cut back to ground zero to remind people that however you feel about those images, if you feel that these people are suffering for no reason, you should be reminded that they're getting something that they deserve. And I think that's the message that CNN and much the rest of the media is sending right now."

Aside: I think Paula Zhan is an idiot. I watched her show once and couldn't believe what she was trying to present as journalism. She tries to sound hard-hitting and passionate but the emotion was completely misdirected. The show I watched involved the murder of a man on a cruise ship and she was interviewing the captain of the ship. She kept repeating, with much anger and disgust, that she couldn't believe that passengers had been allowed to move on and off the ship and were not detained for questioning until many hours later. She didn't even listen to the answer, given at least 4 times, that the ship had docked at 7am (at which time passengers were allowed to shore) and that the murder was not discovered until 11am. She just wanted viewers to see her moral indignation, and damn if the truth was going to get in the way of that!