Media Manipulation

If you watch the flow of stories in the media carefully, you may be struck, as I have, that just as some "bad" or embarrassing news begins to get a foothold in the media, some other much more tantalizing news fills the mass media screens, drowning out the other news. The drowning news tends to be celebrity news of some kind, and the covered-up news is unfortunately much more important, but lost to the minds of the public. The other trait is that the drowning news will wind up being nothing, and leading nowhere.

Is there any trend here that we can understand? Has anyone researched this?

Timeframe	Main News	Drowning News
Aug 18, 2006	Data Tampering Suspected In Killings of 24 Iraqis A high-level military investigation into the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha last Nov. 19, 2005 has uncovered instances in which American marines involved in the episode appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, according to two Defense Department officials briefed on the case. Story...	John M. Karr linked to Jon Benet Ramsey A series of leaked e-mail exchanges between a University of Colorado professor and a man believed to be John M. Karr, the suspect in the 1996 killing of 6-year-old Jon Benet Ramsey, were spread on the public record Friday, portraying Mr. Karr as obsessed with the youngster.
	Two former executives of DHB Industries, a maker of bulletproof vests for United States soldiers in Iraq, were arrested yesterday on federal securities fraud charges. Story...
	Judge Finds Wiretap Actions Violate the Law A federal judge ruled yesterday that the National Security Agency’s program to wiretap the international communications of some Americans without a court warrant violated the Constitution, and she ordered it shut down. The ruling was the first judicial assessment of the Bush administration’s arguments in defense of the surveillance program, which has provoked fierce legal and political debate since it was disclosed last December. But the issue is far from settled, with the Justice Department filing an immediate appeal and succeeding in allowing the wiretapping to continue for the time being. Story...

-- Raymond Lutz - 19 Sep 2007