Redz
Member
i personally don't think europeans opposition to the iraq situation stems from their leaders, for example in both england and spain(b4 the election), the general populace opposed the war.CSM said:I do not fault Europeans for their opposition to US actions; after all, there is a natural tendency to believe your own leaders before believing some other nation's leaders (it is the same in the US). I suspect the Europeans would have a different view had some of their cities been attacked on the same scale that New York was attacked, and additionally, been promised more and bigger attacks by the terrorists on a regular basis.
At the risk of sending this thread off on a tangent; i do not agree that it is fair to say that Europe has better quality media. I do think it is probably adequate, but your statement indicates the underlying arrogance that many Americans find distasteful in many European citizens. It is ironic that many Europeans are quick to point out American arrogance without recognizing their own.
this natural tendancy to believe our leaders, is dangerious in my view, and i personally distrust all politicians. in terms of being attacked, the u.k was subject to horrible terrorist attacks for a quater of century by terrorists from my country, ireland, however the approach they used, and their reaction to being attacked was different, and in the longer term was successful.
the european media does have a liberal bias, but in terms of newsstyle and lenght of programme between ad breaks, i believe there are advantages.
for example we have 4 advert breaks an hour, as opposed to your 8, on major networks. indeed no adverts on the BBC. i think this longer period of programming(15mins) allows more complex debates, as opposed to the more soundbite style of us political media, perhaps driven by the shorter timescales in which one can make a point on mainstream media.
true it may be arrogant to point this out, but i am quite proud of irelands media position, as we get all english television and our own, as well as fox news!
in addition there are more stringent media ownership rules in many european countries