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Comment by brown9-2 | Hacker News Reader

Which is an easier explanation to believe?

1. The "media" got together and said to each other, "We better not cover this story at all, because it will give too many people dangerous ideas"

2. Media outlets individually (particularly in the US) decided not to cover the actions of the Icelandic government because they think most of their viewers don't care much about Iceland and/or because "check out what has slowly been happening in Iceland over the past 5 years" isn't much of a breaking news story.

This story has been covered, but just because it isn't to the extent that you wish it was covered does not mean a conspiracy must exist.

NPR did a story on Iceland just two days ago: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/01/170867071/episode-...

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"2. Media outlets individually (particularly in the US) decided not to cover the actions of the Icelandic government because they think most of their viewers don't care much about Iceland and/or because "check out what has slowly been happening in Iceland over the past 5 years" isn't much of a breaking news story."

It's highly relevant because of the stark contrast in the manner in which Iceland prosecuted the bankers like the criminals they are, versus the crazy manner in which bankers are treated in the US and Europe.

One law for the corrupt, rich, and connected bankers, and much harsher laws for ordinary people who are not connected, wealthy and powerful (e.g. individuals targeted for illegal downloads versus bankers blowing up the global economy causing untold economic hardship). This sends out a strong message from a government to it's electorate: fuck you, you miserable peasant. Not only will you go along with these bailouts, you'll cheer loudly for your bought candidate when he's re-elected.

I'm from Ireland, and we should have copied Iceland to the letter. The difference is we're in the EU and our government is happy to be Angela Merkel's little bitch, and take the pain (sovereign debt burden) to maintain the illusion that everything is rosy in the garden.

Iceland even had the balls to crowd-source it's new constitution, giving real, tangible power to it's people (you couldn't even imagine this in most countries). Talk about real democracy compared to crony capitalism:

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/22/icelanders-approve-their-crowds...

Great article on Iceland from Michael Lewis (Wall Street on the Tundra):

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/iceland2...

Icelandic here. What bankers did we prosecute? As far as I know, only two people of minor importance have been prosecuted.

And we didn't "crowd-source" our constitution (which hasn't been changed yet, btw). The committee of 25 people simply maintained a website where they could collect opinions. They had no significance other than being input to the work of that committee. But I suppose many Icelandic are happy to let this kind of misunderstanding propagate, rather than explaining how we messed up the election of those 25 people, how their suggestion for a new constitution is actually only "advice" for the parliament, and how nothing has happened yet as we still have the same old constitution.

We also don't like to mention that there is little wrong with our old constitution. It's pretty standard. The suggestions for the new one, as far as the banking crisis goes, are about more transparency in government. Other changes are about different things (such as ownership of natural resources, etc.)

There is a lot of misinformation and hype in the foreign media around how Iceland has handled the crisis. As an Icelander living abroad, talking about this topic mainly consists of telling people "actually, that's not what happened..".

Very interesting. Regarding ownership of natural resources, though, I think that's pretty relevant and related to the financial crisis. In other countries, that's exactly what's taken as collateral for loans. As I understand it, Iceland refused to give up the volcanic heat for debt -- a very wise decision.

I think Iceland (and other countries) could do well looking at Alaska and their oil fund for inspiration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

Very interesting, indeed as an outsider it's hard to see what really happens there... no matter the media that reports on Iceland they will try to hype something. Can you please write here a list of facts about what happened there after the crisis besides what you already wrote? I'm curious to learn

You ask me to write an unbiased history essay for the last 5 years, which I'm neither qualified nor able to do.

Haven't read these in detail, but the look ok on a quick glance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_Icelandic_fin...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute

Yeah, I'm having a hard time buying the conspiracy theory here. Iceland's entire population is the equivalent of 2 or 3 larger neighborhoods in Chicago. Its just not pressing news. Its a small and unimportant country. I doubt most Americans could find it on an unlabeled map.

Not to mention, parliamentary style governments are always being torn down and rebuilt as different blocs of power emerge. Things can change fast, especially if that country also does direct democracy referendums. That's a feature, not a bug and very different to the more stable and conservative style of government the US was built on.

Also, a screen blocking "join us on facebook" dhtml pop-up? Wow. Another example of the hostile web here.

They took the exact opposite course during the financial crisis and experts from the IMF and other Nobel laureates have credited that for their remarkable recovery. As our economy continues to flounder, I don't buy that this is something everyone should not at least be aware of.

>"They took the exact opposite course during the financial crisis"

They are a tiny country who nationalized their banks, stiffed creditors, implemented unnecessary austerity measures and devalued their currency. I'm not sure they're a model for US economic policy.

Obviously the circumstances are different, you wouldn't use this as a one-to-one model, but that doesn't mean there aren't things we can learn, and it certainly doesn't justify the scant media coverage.

Creditors were left to deal with the mess that they were complicit in creating while ordinary people who just wanted a house to live in were freed from crushing debt. Some limited austerity measures were put in place that didn't cut into core social spending. The people were taken care of while financiers were told to take a hike, and just as all the experts didn't predict the crash, none of them predicted Iceland's recovery. Maybe the big lesson here is that economists don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and there are other factors in play than neoclassical theory. That is why this hasn't received coverage, because it would lead to self-reflection that would make those in power uncomfortable.

There are no examples of a bank crisis in a country of the size of the US economy other than the one in 1929, and I guess nobody want to repeat that receipt. That is probably what a purer capitalist/liberalist would prescribe still.

Of larger nation than Iceland Norway and Sweden handled the bank crisis around 1990 by nationalizing the banks and adding to their capital reserve. The shareholders lost their money, but the banks were able to recover in not too many years.

The worst thing that can be done is a bailout. In that case the people that took unnecessary risks for their own short-term gain are rewarded, and everyone else have to pay.

That actually sounds like a much better policy than what was implemented in the US. Bailing out foreign creditors to private banks was simply a huge waste of money.

There was plenty of coverage of Iceland during the financial crisis - despite its small population - because they had a disproportionate effect on the EU economy. It feels strange that such coverage should die off after real reform and recovery should take place.

Those are not the only two options, you know.

There is a systematic method to deciding which stories are covered by MSM outlets and which aren't. It is not a coincidence that most outlets chose not to cover the Iceland story, regardless of it being a very small country.

Not everything is a "conspiracy", and failure to acknowledge that there are certain forces at play is a blatant misunderstanding of the role MSM plays in public brainwashing.

There isn't a single piece of substance in what you just said, just a bunch of vague proclamation and accusations about "public brainwashing" by the "MSM". Your post reads exactly like a hand-wavey paranoid conspiracy theorist except you're saying you're not a conspiracy theorist. Maybe you should be a bit more specific instead of this rambling nonsense about how you are enlightened and all the regular people are brainwashed.

Because it's possible, it must be true! Who cares if there's no hard evidence.

Besides, the simplest answer is that "the media" is selfish, desperate, and cheap. Original coverage, coverage that requires remote HQs, deep coverage is not a priority and those departments were probably axed ten years ago.

"Selfish, desperate, and cheap."

Yes, exactly. As someone who knows the media world better than he'd like to, I cannot think of a more succinct or generally applicable characterization. You, sir, have nailed it.

Thanks for the opinion, I'm well outside of that but would love to find good sources with more signal than noise.

I'd like to stress that this is by no means a fair characterization of all the people who work in media. There are a awful lot who push against this current every day. Some of them (on occasion) win. But it tends to be a fight, and the victories invariably seem like minor miracles.

When they're not winning (which is frequent), and thinking "what the fuck am I doing here?" (also frequent) chances are good that whoever or whatever they're getting snowed by can be fairly described just the way you did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model#Case_examples

Just because you are ignorant of the evidence doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Same argument can be used to provide plausibility for the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, celestial teapot, and God.

Wait, what? The criticism that the original comment had no meat was fair. But then, when you're linked to concrete examples of the hypothesized Propaganda Model at play, you invoke a generic argument about the FSM? Do you not see how you're making the same weightless arguments by invoking a straw man?

No, I wasn't referring to the "propaganda model" I was referring to his second comment, which btw, does not describe the propaganda model at all.

I can only assume that you missed the part where I linked to the evidence you said didn't exist?

I never said evidence didn't exist for ALL conspiracies. I said that there was no evidence in the particular article we're discussing.

I know about Iran-Contra, the gulf of tonkin, etc. How about the USS liberty?

Your link was very interesting.

Again, this is easier explained by the MSM not being interested in enlightening its readers, watchers, and listeners versus advertorials, PR puff pieces, and infotainment. Does this make it easier to spout and circulate propaganda points? Certainly. Is the shallow, provincial coverage sign of a greater conspiracy? Not in context of the rest of the coverage being terrible, no. I wouldn't say you're "wrong", but the rest of their coverage is as incomplete and fact free as how they approach things that may not reflect their ideological bent :)

My point is that the forces at play likely have much more to do with what each outlet individually decides their audience is interested in and/or what would make a good story for them. Media institutions are much more interested in their own bottom line (and ratings/readership/etc) than anything else.

Are you suggesting the possibility that Rupert Murdoch might secretly be a liberal, just with a keen sense for business? While profit may always a motive, I suspect it's a very rare media entity that is objectively focused on profit.

If they are not, market theory would predict that they would be replaced by entities that are.

But we're surrounded by evidence that efficient market theory is not how the world works.

But that doesn't stop the ideologues in power from running companies as if it is.

How would the media know that their viewers don't care about Iceland if they never told their viewers about Iceland in the first place?

I don't understand why people insist on using the "shadowy figures gathering in smokey rooms" straw-man, Herman/Chomsky's propaganda model has been around for 25 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

Because as a general rule, Americans don't care about anything that happens in a foreign country, with four narrow exceptions:

1) we care about the pomp and circumstances surrounding the British royalty (weddings, deaths, etc)

2) we care about what happens in Israel

3) we care about events that make us feel morally superior (rapes in India)

4) we care about things that could affect us (terrorists in Afghanistan, EU's sovereign debt crisis, etc)

American media doesn't even cover what happens in major European countries like the U.K. or France or Germany, much less in minor ones. And it's not just among regular people. Even educated, well-informed people generally don't care about what happens abroad. It's just American exceptionalism at work. We feel we are so dramatically different from anyone else, either in other countries or in other times, that nothing that happens in those other places could possibly have any relevance to us. The idea that we would look to other countries for ideas on how to solve domestic problems is completely alien to us.

Your comment doesn't seem to address the idea that I was bringing up, that the media has a role in shaping what people care about rather than being an impartial conduit that is slave to peoples' desires. For example, how much of the attention that is paid to British royalty is because it is presented as something that should be paid attention to?

While I don't think we'd agree on whether or not this is a good thing, I really think you hit the nail on the head.

I know I personally view world news through the lens of "how will this affect me?". If I want to learn something about how things are going in Iceland, I'll read Wikipedia (which I do fairly often, but most people probably don't).

As for looking to other countries for a solution, I'd say that's part of what makes us Americans. The idea of "we rebelled against the European power for a reason, we don't want to be like them" is ingrained into our culture. I don't think that's a terrible thing, but rather one of the things that make us unique. Diversity is not a bad thing.

The other part of what defines American culture is our individualism. That's changing rapidly these days, as our population centers become more concentrated and a larger percentage of the population are more closely tied to a larger social community. I think you'll see a bit of a "whiplash" effect, as we quickly lose many parts of our "Americanism" and become more like Europe. When that happens, the media coverage will change to reflect that.

Not blindly imitating European countries is one thing, being ignorant of their policies and their effects is another. The latter is the case here, and it would take some pretty convoluted rationalization to spin that as "diversity".

Individualism has historically been correlated with urbanization. Just because people are living closer together does not a community make. In fact, urbanization has tracked with the breakdown of old communitarian social relations and its replacement with market relations. If anything is going to erode that, it will be new "solidarity economies" and things of that nature rather than the simple concentration of population.

I would be interested to know what percentage of average American TV news viewers could locate Iceland on a map if it was not labeled.

That would say something about the state of American education rather than the state of Iceland, if so.

The same people likely couldn't point out a lot of other 'big' countries/continents or even US states, so I don't see what that argument proves.

My point is that TV news caters to the lowest common denominator of brains so they aren't going to tell everyone about a country they can't locate on a map. That is of course, unless, there are "terrorists" there, or Israel is involved.

3. Those behind large media conglomerates all happen to have the same rules, incentives and culture. Certain stories are collectively suppressed not just because "they wouldn't be interesting to US public" but because it would undermine certain assumptions and values that are held in the large corporate culture.

Read "Manufacturing Consent" book for a more thorough explanation on how the system works.

(It works on individual level -- journalists and corporate --- certain stories are suppressed by the owners).

or 3:

individual media outlets know that if they cover this they will incur the wrath of their advertisers and go bankrupt, so they don't cover it.

Exactly. Most media feed from the same trough; and they'd do anything to maintain that status quo. Especially in these tough times, when newspapers are failing and the radio/TV business model is in dire straits thanks to alternative news sources like the Internet.

Is your name Ockham? If not, you must be a dear friend (as am I). I salute you!

I think a bigger question is why didn't the US media cover the creation of the EU. I seem to remember that the day that that happened, it warranted all of a paragraph or two somewhere near the back of the NYT.

I think most of the media entities decided individually that they are better off not covering this, for whatever reason that serves their masters.

You should really read about Operation Mockingbird. I was just listening to WBAI on my way to lunch and they were talking about it along with MK Ultra and Operation Northwoods.

These are not conspiracy theories, these are facts.

In a lot of countries (including the USA) mainstream news can only show what the government allows them to...

...in this case I would not be surprised if the government essentially told news outlets not to tell the story.

In a lot of countries (including the USA) mainstream news can only show what the government allows them to

[citation needed]

So the government has mysterious shadow figures that communicate with tens of thousands of newspapers, TV and radio stations and major news web sites, telling them what not to cover, and somehow this has never gotten out?

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