At least nine people, including a child, have been confirmed dead and 27 rescued after a shipwreck off the Spanish coast.
Patrol boats and helicopters are searching for 48 refugees and migrants missing after their boat sank near the Spanish island of El Hierro, but officials say hopes of finding survivors are fading.
Nine people, one of them a child, have been confirmed dead after the incident in the early hours of Saturday morning, emergency and rescue services said. Rescuers were able to pick up 27 of 84 people who were trying to reach El Hierro, the westernmost of the Canary Islands.
A spokeswoman for the Canary Islands government told Reuters news agency on Sunday that the search continues “but it seems that the chances of finding someone alive are slim”.
Canary Islands regional President Fernando Clavijo had told journalists on Saturday night that the 48 people missing are “presumed dead”.
More bodies will likely appear “over the next two, three days”, washed up by the current, he added.
People on the boat were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, Spanish authorities said. They set out from Nouadhibou in Mauritania, some 800km (nearly 500 miles) away.
Boat sinks during rescue attempt
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Spanish emergency services received a call from the boat, which was located about four miles (6.5km) east of El Hierro.
It sank during the rescue attempt, they said, with wind and poor visibility making the rescue extremely difficult.
“After what happened yesterday and if the forecast for the arrival of the migrant boats happens, then it will be the biggest humanitarian crisis to happen to the Canary Islands in 30 years,” Canary Islands Minister of Social Welfare Candelaria Delgado told reporters on Sunday.
Three of those rescued suffered from hypothermia and dehydration, rescue services said.
The nine who died will be buried on Monday and Tuesday. Among the dead was a child aged between 12 and 15, according to the NGO Walking Borders, which helps refugees and migrants.
As hopes of finding more survivors diminished, police installed a morgue on El Hierro, authorities said.
Three other boats reached the Canary Islands during the night, carrying 208 people.
This disaster follows the deaths of 39 people in early September when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where they apparently hoped to reach mainland Europe.
In some 30 years of refugee and migrant crossings to the islands, the deadliest shipwreck recorded to date occurred off the island of Lanzarote in 2009, when 25 people died.
This post was sponsored by General Mills. All opinions are my own.
Growing up in a household of five children wasn’t so easy. As the oldest child, mornings were usually a blur helping my mom dress and feed my younger siblings, so cereal with milk and sliced fruit on top was our go to for a nourishing breakfast. My mom would have a glass jar and mix all the cereals together—so you get what you get and don’t get upset! But every day, thanks to this quick, easy, and nutritious breakfast, my mom was able to get all of us ready for school on time everyday.
As a registered dietitian (RD) and single mom with three children of my own, cereal has certainly come in handy for breakfast, snacks, and even for dinner. If you’ve scanned the nutrition facts panel, you can see that a variety of vitamins and minerals have been added to cereal – which is known as fortification. The addition of vitamins and minerals to cereal isn’t new and has been around for decades to help provide nourishment and close nutrient gaps that may exist for a variety of reasons, including food insecurity, an unhealthy diet, or even picky eating in kids. However, when I scan social media and speak with folks about cereal, so many inaccurate statements are made. I partnered with General Mills Big G Cereals because I wholeheartedly believe in the power of cereal to help nourish adults and kids.
In this post, I will address three common myths about vitamin fortification and specifically about vitamin D fortification.
Myth #1: The added vitamins and minerals in cereal are not as effective as naturally available nutrients
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), food fortification is the practice of deliberately increasing the content of one or more micronutrients (like vitamins and minerals) in a food to improve the nutrition quality of that food, and thereby providing a public health benefit with minimal risk to the person’s health. Throughout the 20th century, there were many common health problems in the US stemming from micronutrient deficiencies like goiter (from lack of iodine), rickets (from lack of vitamin D in kids), beriberi (from lack of thiamine), pellagra (from lack of niacin), and neural tube defects (from lack of folic acid). Since the initiation of fortification, these diseases have been virtually eliminated.
Cereal is an ideal food to fortify with vitamins and minerals because it is convenient, affordable, widely consumed by people in all stages of life, and has the ability to have a uniform distribution of nutrients. The vitamins and minerals that you find in fortified cereals play the same role within the body as the vitamins and minerals that are naturally found in foods.
In the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines for Americans, vitamin D was identified as an under consumed nutrient for all life stages. A staggering 96% of all Americans age 2 years and older fall short on this key nutrient. This is why General Mills now offers twice the amount of vitamin D in their Big G Cereals to help bridge this gap.
Honey Nut Cheerios Label courtesy of General Mills
There has been a debate about the effectiveness of synthetic and natural vitamins and minerals. Synthetic nutrients (or isolated nutrients) are usually made artificially, in an industrial process, while natural nutrients are obtained from whole food sources in the diet (like nuts, fruit, and vegetables). There has been research to determine if synthetic nutrients work the same way as natural nutrients in the body. A 2014 published study found that vitamin D supplement, when combined with calcium, improved bone health in older folks.
Bottom Line: Fortified cereals make for an easy and affordable way to help people get a delicious dose of essential vitamins and minerals as part of a balanced diet.
Myth #2:You can meet your vitamin D intake through sunlight alone
The two main ways you can get vitamin D are through sunlight and by eating food. But it’s tough for many folks to get sun exposure during the winter, in rainy areas, and on cloudy days. Your skin color also designates how much sun you need. Folks with darker skin need to spend more time in the sun to get enough exposure compared to folks with lighter skin. How much vitamin D you get also depends on how much clothing you’re wearing. If you’re bundled up, you’re not getting that much vitamin D!
Also, you can’t synthesize vitamin D by sitting indoors next to the window or when you’re wearing sunscreen. Plus, in today’s culture there is a lot of time being spent indoors in front of screens, using sunscreen, or sitting in the shade to avoid direct sunlight. Most folks will benefit from including vitamin D in their diet to supplement their limited sun exposure. That is why as an RD, I encourage the consumption of foods with vitamin D, including fortified milk, fortified 100% juices, and General Mills fortified Big G cereals (like Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms and more!), which now provide 20% of the Daily Value of vitamin D. That is twice the previous amount, making it an easy, affordable, and delicious way to up your vitamin D intake.
Bottom Line:Both sunlight and foods– including fortified foods– can help you meet your vitamin D needs.
Myth #3: You must get sun exposure to meet your vitamin D intake requirement
Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin because exposure to sunlight is one source of it. However, many folks believe that you must get a certain amount of sun exposure to get enough vitamin D. Exposure to sunlight is not always possible and has been linked to cancer. But did you know that you can also get vitamin D by eating foods rich in vitamin D and a vitamin D3 supplement? The caveat is that many foods rich in vitamin D aren’t foods folks eat on a regular basis, like fatty fish, sardines, egg yolks, and mushrooms. This is exactly the reason why vitamin D was added to foods like milk, orange juice, and grains.
General Mills Big G cereals, which are made from whole grains, are fortified with vitamin D to help fill the nutrient gap as it is under consumed by most of the U.S. population. General Mills Big G Cereals now deliver 20% of the Daily Value for vitamin D—which is twice the previous amount — to help take in this important nutrient in an affordable and delicious way. You’ll find some of your favorite childhood cereals including Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs (my fave!), Trix, and Lucky Charms now with 20% of the Daily Value of vitamin D. General Mills follows dietary intake of our current U.S. population and has updated these cereals to reflect what our current population needs to help close the vitamin D gap.
Bottom Line:You don’t need sunlight to get enough vitamin D. Many foods are a good source including fatty fish, sardines, egg yolks, milk, fortified 100% juices and General Mills Big G Cereals.
Game status: A.J. Brown is INACTIVE for Week 4 vs. the Bucs.
After injuring his hamstring back in Week 1, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown will be looking to make his return on Sunday. Brown injured his hamstring in practice prior to Week 2 and has not played since. With a big game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 4, Brown returning to the lineup would provide a huge boost to the Eagles offense.
A.J. Brown Injury Status
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Brown is officially being listed as questionable for Sunday’s game against the Buccaneers. For the first time since injuring his hamstring back on September 13 preparing for Week 2, Brown was able to practice in a limited capacity. While he was unable to practice fully, testing the hamstring the practice before a game is a positive sign. Now, it will depend on how Brown’s hamstring responds and if he feels good heading into the game on Sunday.
While Brown would certainly provide a boost to the offense, hamstring injuries have been proven to linger throughout a season. It’s possible that the Eagles could play it safe with Brown as they have their bye next week. This would give their star wide receiver an extra week to ensure that his hamstring is 100 percent.
What does AJ Brown’s injury mean for fantasy football
Brown started the season as many would have expected in Week 1 against the Green Bay Packers. He had five receptions for 119 yards and a touchdown, finishing the week as the WR7. However, Brown has been unable to play since and the Eagles offense hasn’t been the same without the wide receiver in the lineup. Philadelphia lost without Brown to the Atlanta Falcons and then snuck out a win against the New Orleans Saints last week, scoring just 15 points.
The added twist here is that the Eagles will also be without wide receiver DeVonta Smith on Sunday as he is recovers from a concussion. If Brown is unable to go in Week 4, the Eagles would be down their top two wide receivers. That would make Jahan Dotson and Johnny Wilson the starters at wide receiver.
Prior to the beginning of the season, the Eagles traded for Dotson, a former first-round pick, from the Washington Commanders. This would be a huge opportunity for the wide receiver out of Penn State.
Still, it’s hard to know if Dotson would have any fantasy relevance. When Smith left the game last week, Hurts leaned heavily on tight end Dallas Goedart. Goedart finished with 10 receptions for 170-yards. That would likely be the case against the Buccaneers as well.
The Eagles also seemed to find something last week with running back Saquon Barkley. Barkley scored on a 65-yard touchdown run against the Saints and had 17 carries for 147 yards. Without their top two wide receivers, the Eagles could rely heavily on Barkley and Jalen Hurts in the game. In last week’s loss to the Denver Broncos, the Buccaneers allowed running back Tyler Badie to rush for 70 yards on nine carries. Quarterback Bo Nix also had 47 rushing yards.
When Brown has missed time in the past, the Eagles offense hasn’t been the same and Hurts has struggled to develop chemistry with his other receivers. If there are two Eagles players to start this week, they are Goedart and Barkley.
In recent years, the American media has been plagued with all sorts of problems including, sliding profits, scandals about manipulation, plagiarism, propaganda, lower audiences, dumbing down, and so on.
Media omissions, distortion, inaccuracy and bias in the US is something acknowledged by many outside the USA, and is slowly realized more and more inside the US. However, those problems have made it very difficult for the average American citizen to obtain an open, objective view of many of the issues that involve the United States (and since the United States is so influential culturally, economically, politically and militarily around the world, they are naturally involved in many issues).
Those with power and influence know that media control or influence is crucial. A free press is crucial for a functioning democracy, but if not truly free, paves the way for manipulation and concentration of views, thus undermining democracy itself.
a principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience should not be articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely, ridicule. The proper procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that they become the very condition for discourse.—Noam Chomsky
The media is therefore one avenue by which such support and, if needed, manipulation, can be obtained. The US is no exception to this. As the following quote summarizes, the role of the media from the view of politics is often less discussed:
George Seldes, a reporter for over seventy years, points out that there are three sacred cows still with us today: religion, patriotism, and the media itself… Patriotism, defined as taking pride in one’s country, allies the masses with the ruling powers. The media refuses to discuss its consistent failure to inform the masses of this ongoing control. It has been in place for so long that few are aware of how it came about or that it is even still there. But many people are intelligent, moral, and idealistic; if the media would discuss the true history of these three sacred cows, that control would quickly disappear.
There are many ways in which the media is used to obtain such support and conformity. The U.S., often regarded as one of the more freer countries with regards to its media, is therefore worth looking at in more detail. This is a large topic so this section will be updated from time to time.
Uninformed population means harmful policies can go unaccountable
Many US policies, especially foreign policies, have come under much sharp criticism from around the world as well as from various segments within American society. As a result, some fear that they are running the risk of alienating themselves from the rest of the world. A revealing quote hints that media portrayal of issues can affect the constructive criticism of American foreign policy:
One reads about the world’s desire for American leadership only in the United States, one anonymous well-placed British diplomat recently observed, Everywhere else one reads about American arrogance and unilateralism.
The quote above also summarizes how America is viewed in the international community and how some of their actions are portrayed in the United States. Yet, the international community, often for very valid reasons, sees America’s actions differently.
Dr. Nancy Snow, an assistant professor of political science describes one of her previous jobs as being a propagandist for the U.S. Information Agency. In an interview, she also describes how Americans and the rest of the world often view the American media:
[P]ublic diplomacy is a euphemism for propaganda. In the United States, we don’t think of ourselves as a country that propagandizes, even though to the rest of the world we are seen as really the most propagandistic nation in terms of our advertising, in terms of our global reach, our public relations industry—we have more public relations professionals and consultants in the United States than we do news reporters. So there’s an entire history of advertising, promoting, and getting across the message of America both within and also outside of the United States.
Australian journalist John Pilger also captures this very well:
Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on all the vital issues were the same. In our country, said one of them, to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What’s the secret?
While many countries—if not all—in some way suppress/distort information to some degree, the fact that a country as influential in the international arena such as the United States is also doing it is very disturbing. The people of this nation are the ones that can help shape the policies of the most powerful nation, thereby affecting many events around the world. For that to happen, they need to be able to receive objective reporting.
An integral part of a functioning democracy is that people are able to make informed choices and decisions. However, as the 2000 Election testified, there has been much amiss with the media coverage and discourse in general.
The inappropriate fit between the country’s major media and the country’s political system has starved voters of relevant information, leaving them at the mercy of paid political propaganda that is close to meaningless and often worse. It has eroded the central requirement of a democracy that those who are governed give not only their consent but their informed consent.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p. 192.
(Note that in the above quote, the book was originally published in 1983, but is still relevant to today and applicable to the 2000 Elections in the United States and the various controversies that accompanied it.)
Since the terrible attacks by terrorists on September 11, 2001 in America and the resulting war on terrorism, various things that have happened that has impacted the media as well as the rest of the country.
One example was the appointing of an advertising professional, Charlotte Beers as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. As writer and activist, Naomi Klein pointed out in the Los Angeles Times (March 10, 2002), Beers had no previous State Department experience, but she had held the top job at both the J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather ad agencies, and she’s built brands for everything from dog food to power drills. Beers’ task now was to work her magic on the greatest branding challenge of all: to sell the United States and its war on terrorism to an increasingly hostile world where many nations and people have been critical of American policies. (Beers eventually stepped down in March 2003 due to health reasons.) As Klein also pointed out, the trouble has been that the image to be portrayed is not seen by the rest of the world as necessarily being a fair portrayal:
Most critics of the U.S. don’t actually object to America’s stated values. Instead, they point to U.S. unilateralism in the face of international laws, widening wealth disparities, crackdowns on immigrants and human rights violations … The anger comes not only from the facts of each case but also from a clear perception of false advertising. In other words, America’s problem is not with its brand — which could scarcely be stronger — but with its product.
The media frenzy in the wake of the war on terror has on the one hand led to detailed reporting on various issues. Unfortunately, as discussed on this site’s propaganda page, this has been limited to a narrow range of perspectives and context leading to a simplification of why terrorists have taken up their causes, of the US’s role in the world, world opinions on various issues, and so on.
One of the most famous media personalities in American news, Dan Rather of CBS had admitted that there has been a lot of self-censorship and that the U.S. media in general has been cowed by patriotic fever and that accusations of lack of patriotism is leading to the fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions.
For more about the war on terror and the attacks on the U.S., see this site’s war on terror section.
But deeper than self-censorship, has been the systemic and institutional censorship that goes on in the media on all sorts of issues. This has been going on for decades.
There is no formal censorship in the USA, but there is what some call Market Censorship — that is, mainstream media do not want to run stories that will offend their advertisers and owners. In this way, the media end up censoring themselves and not reporting on many important issues, including corporate practices. For some examples of this, check out the Project Censored web site.
Another effect of these so-called market forces at work is that mainstream media will go for what will sell and news coverage becomes all about attracting viewers. Yet the fear of losing viewers from competition seems so high that many report the exact same story at the very same time! Objective coverage gets a back seat.
A friend of mine [of journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski] was working in Mexico for various US television channels. I met him in the street as he was filming clashes between students and police. I asked What’s happening here, John? Without stopping filming he replied: I don’t have the faintest idea. I just get the shots. I send them to the channel, and they do what they want with them.
This highlights that market censorship isn’t always a natural process of the way the system works, but that corporate influences often affect what is reported, even in the supposedly freest press of all. Some journalists unwittingly go with the corporate influences while others who challenge such pressures often face difficulties. John Prestage is also worth quoting on this aspect too:
Even some mainstream journalists are sounding the alarm…. Henry Holcomb, who is president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia and a journalist for 40 years, said that newspapers had a clearer mission back when he began reporting. That mission was to report the truth and raise hell. But corporate pressures have blurred this vision, he said.
Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a news media watchdog group, told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists surveyed recently by FAIR admitted that advertisers try to change stories.
Some advertisers kill some stories and promote others, she said, asserting that there is an overwhelming influence of corporations and advertisers on broadcast and print news reporting.
The trends are all bad, worse and worse, Nichols said. Newspapers and broadcast journalists are under enormous pressures to replace civic values with commercial values.
He labeled local television news a cesspool. Local broadcasters are under pressure from big corporations to entertain rather than to inform, and people are more ignorant after viewing television news because of the misinformation they broadcast, he said.
Political bias can also creep in too. Media watchdog, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) did a study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in 2001 in which they found that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. While of course this is not a complete study of the mainstream media, it does show that there can be heavy political biases on even the most popular mainstream media outlets.
A year-long study by FAIR, of CNN’s media show, Reliable Sources showed a large bias in sources used, and as their article is titled, CNN’s show had reliably narrow sources. They pointed out for example, Covering one year of weekly programs [December 1, 2001 to November 30, 2002] with 203 guests, the FAIR study found Reliable Sources’ guest list strongly favored mainstream media insiders and right-leaning pundits. In addition, female critics were significantly underrepresented, ethnic minority voices were almost non-existent and progressive voices were far outnumbered by their conservative counterparts.
Concentrated ownership of media results in less diversity. This means that the political discourse that shapes the nation is also affected. And, given the prominence of the United States in the world, this is obviously an important issue. However, politicians can often be hesitant about criticizing the media too much, as the following from Ben H. Bagdikian summarizes:
[M]edia power is political power. Politicians hesitate to offend the handful of media operators who control how those politicians will be presented — or not presented — to the voters. Media political power has always been a fixture in American history. But today the combination of the media industry and traditional corporate power has reached dimensions former generations could not match. … Today … political variety among the mainstream media has disappeared. As the country enters the twenty-first century, the news and analyses of progressive ideas and groups are close to absent in the major media. Similarly absent is commentary on dangers of this political one-sidedness to American democracy.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp.xv—xvi
Bagdikian continues in that paragraph to then note how the American media are good at recognizing similar problems with other countries, by pointing to certain New York Times stories as examples. Yet, when it comes to looking at one’s self, then that example of good journalism seems to be less likely.
Many other media commentators have pointed this out as well, including, for example, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book, Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon Books, New York, 1988). In that book, they point out that there are many occasions, where the U.S. mainstream media have been very thorough, critical and in most cases, appropriate, in their look at the media and policies of other nations in geopolitical issues. However, when it comes to reporting on the actions of their own nations in geopolitical issues, reporting often fits a propaganda model that they also defined in their book. This propaganda model isn’t necessarily explicit. Sometimes it is very subtle, but comes about through natural interactions of the various pulls and pushes of different political, economic and social aspects that affect decisions on what to report and how. In some countries of course, especially authoritarian regimes, propaganda models may be very explicit.
Chomsky/Herman Propaganda Model
Using their propaganda model, Chomsky and Herman, attempt to demonstrate how money and power are able to filter out the news, … marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their message across to the public. (see p.2) They continue to then summarize their propaganda model that allows this filtering of news to be accomplished, as consisting of the following ingredients:
Size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms
Advertising as the primary income source of the mass media
Reliance of the media on information provided by government, business and experts funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power
Flak as a means of disciplining the media
Anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism.
Size and concentrated ownership
The issues of concentration in media and its often negative impact on discourse and democracy is discussed in more detail on this sites section on corporate influence in the media.
Advertising as primary income source encourages dumbing down
On the advertising ingredient, Chomsky and Herman also point out that the pressures to show a continual series of programs that will encourage audience flow (watching from program to program so that advertising rates and revenues are sustained) results from advertisers wanting, in general, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with the buying mood. (see p. 17.) Documentaries, cultural and critical materials then get a back seat. Others also recognize this as well:
It is no wonder then that media historian Robert McChesney suggests that cutbacks in news and informational programs are deliberate because the companies who own and control media want to keep us in our private worlds, cut off from other people’s pain and from too much knowledge about the world. They prefer us tranquilized, pacified, entertained. I have heard him describe in several speeches the mantra of dominant media to ordinary viewers, readers and listeners as simple: Shut up and shop.
It is these often unspoken values at the heart of the business culture that undercut the creation of and support for more democratic public interest media.
[W]ith few exceptions … programming is carefully noncontroversial, light, and nonpolitical in order to create a buying mood. … If an advertiser is large enough to make the initial payment [for the high costing commercials], each household is reached at a relatively low cost. In the familiar dynamics, this in itself favors the big operator over the small, a contributing factor to the emergence of giantism in the American economy.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p. 133
Reliance on official sources and the powerful
On the reliance upon official sources ingredient, Chomsky and Herman point out that because sources such as the government and businesses are often well known, they are deemed reputable and therefore not questioned much. However, when another government offers news items, we are often able to recognize it as possible propaganda, or at least treat it with some scrutiny that requires further verification.
Flak as a means of disciplining the media
In terms of flak, Chomsky and Herman point out how various right-wing media watch groups and think tanks were set up in the 80s to heavily criticize anything in the media that appeared to have a liberal or left wing bias and was overly anti-business. It has a profound impact, especially when combined with the corporate ownership, as the following quote highlights:
Corporations have multimillion-dollar budgets to dissect and attack news reports they dislike. But with each passing year they have yet another power: They are not only hostile to independent journalists. They are their employers.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p. 65
Anticommunism as a national religion and control mechanism
They also point out that the final filter, that of the ideology of anticommunism, is because Communism as the ultimate evil has always been the specter haunting property owners, as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status … [and] helps mobilize the populace against an enemy, and because the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests or support accommodation with Communist states and radicalism. … If the triumph of communism is the worst imaginable result, the support of fascism abroad is justified as a lesser evil. (see p. 29.)
This last statement on supporting fascism abroad reflects the support and installing of dictators around the world in places like Latin America, Africa and Asia to support economic interests and anti-communist activities, despite social costs. While of course the Cold War has since ended, this last ingredient still survives in other forms like neoliberal economic beliefs, demonization of rogue states and so on. One of the additional effects of this filter has been that during the reporting of conflicts, there has been almost an effect of [concentrating] on the victims of enemy powers and [forgetting] about the victims of friends (see p.32.)
Some of the structural causes of the above ingredients are such that they naturally come about, rather than some sort of concerted effort to enforce them by media owners. For example, if a news reporter is critical of a company’s business practices in some ways, and that company is a major advertiser with that media company, then it is obviously not in that media company’s interest to run that story. In a wider sense, any critique or serious examination of say the nations economic policies, or even the global economic policies, that go counter to what the media companies, their owners and advertisers benefit from would also not get as much, if any, discussion. Chomsky and Herman recognize this too:
The elite domination of the media and the marginalization of dissidents that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news objectively and on the basis of professional news values. Within the limits of the filter constraints they often are objective; the constraints are so powerful, and are built into the system in such a fundamental way, that alternative bases of news choices are hardly imaginable. (Emphasis Added)
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent; The Political Economy of the Mass Media;, (Pantheon Books, New York, 1988), p. 2.
Using extensive evidence and sources, they use this propaganda model to examine a number of key world events in recent history that have involved America in some way or another, including situations in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, of the KGB-Bulgarian plot to kill the Pope and of the Indochina wars.
It is a truism, often issued with pride by the main media themselves, that the national news has a major impact on the national political agenda. What the main media emphasize is what politicians attend to. Whatever is not given steady emphasis in the news is more safely forgotten by those who make the laws and regulations. Consequently, the media race for quick and easy profits that pushed the real issues into the shadows has imposed a high cost on American voters: it becomes easier for politicians to distract the public with false or exaggerated issues. … Continuous repetition and emphasis create high priorities in the public mind and in government. It is in that power — to treat some subjects briefly and obscurely but others repetitively and in depth, or to take initiatives unrelated to external events — where ownership interests most effectively influence the news.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xxvii, 16
In this way then, as with other societies, the range of discourse can affect how much is discussed, what is discussed, and to what degree. It is not that there is absolutely no reporting on important issues. For example, the mainstream will report and criticize on issues. However, it is the assumptions that are not articulated that affect how much criticism there will be, or what the context of the reports will be and so on. In that respect, given that there is some critique, we may get the false sense of comfort in the system as working as claimed. Yet it is at the level of these assumptions where the range of discussions get affected. In fact, Noam Chomsky, in another book captures this aspect quite succinctly, while also hinting as to the reason why:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. (Emphasis Added)
Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, Odonian Press, 1998
Parenti’s Media Monopoly Techniques
Political Scientist and author, Michael Parenti, in an article on media monopoly, also describes a pattern of reporting in the mainstream in the U.S. that leads to partial information. He points out that while the mainstream claim to be free, open and objective, the various techniques, intentional or unintentional result in systematic contradictions to those claims. Such techniques — applicable to other nations’ media, as well as the U.S. — include:
Suppression By Omission
He describes that worse than sensationalistic hype is the artful avoidance of stories that might be truly sensational stories (as opposed to sensationalistic stories).
Such stories he says are often downplayed or avoided outright and that sometimes, the suppression includes not just vital details but the entire story itself even important ones.
Attack and Destroy the Target
Parenti says, When omission proves to be an insufficient mode of censorship and a story somehow begins to reach larger publics, the press moves from artful avoidance to frontal assault in order to discredit the story.
In this technique, the media will resort to discrediting the journalist, saying things like this is bad journalism, etc., thus attempting to silence the story or distract away from the main issue.
Labeling
Parenti says that the media will seek to prefigure perceptions of a subject using positive or negative labels and that the label defines the subject without having to deal with actual particulars that might lead us to a different conclusion. (Emphasis added)
Examples of labels (positive and negative) that he points to include things like, stability, strong leadership, strong defense, healthy economy, leftist guerrillas, Islamic terrorists, conspiracy theories, inner-city gangs and civil disturbances. Others with double meanings include reform and hardline.
Labels are useful, he suggests, because the efficacy of a label is that it not have a specific content which can be held up to a test of evidence. Better that it be self-referential, propagating an undefined but evocative image.
Preemptive Assumption
As Parenti says of this, Frequently the media accept as given the very policy position that needs to be critically examined
This is that classic narrow range of discourse or parameters of debate whereby unacknowledged assumptions frame the debate.
As an example he gives, often when the White House proposes increasing military spending, the debates and analysis will be on how much, or on what the money should be spent etc, not whether such as large budget that it already is, is actually needed or not, or if there are other options etc. (See this site’s section on the geopoltiics for more on this aspect of arms trade, spending, etc.)
Face-Value Transmission
Here, what officials say is taken as is, without critique or analysis.
As he charges, Face-value transmission has characterized the press’s performance in almost every area of domestic and foreign policy
Of course, for journalists and news organizations, the claim can be that they are reporting only what is said, or that they must not inject personal views into the report etc. Yet, to analyze and challenge the face-value transmission is not to [have to] editorialize about the news but to question the assertions made by officialdom, to consider critical data that might give credence to an alternative view. Doing such things would not, as Parenti further points out, become an editorial or ideological pursuit but an empirical and investigative one.
Slighting of Content
Here, Parenti talks about the lack of context or detail to a story, so readers would find it hard to understand the wider ramifications and/or causes and effects, etc.
The media can be very good and can give so much emphasis to surface happenings, to style and process but so little to the substantive issues at stake.
While the media might claim to give the bigger picture, they regularly give us the smaller picture, this being a way of slighting content and remaining within politically safe boundaries. An example of this he gives is how if any protests against the current forms of free trade are at all portrayed, then it is with reference to the confrontation between some protestors and the police, seldom the issues that protestors are making about democratic sovereignty and corporate accountability, third world plunder, social justice, etc. (See this site’s, section on free trade protests around the world for a more detailed discussion of this issue.)
False Balancing
This is where the notion of objectivity is tested!
On the one hand, only two sides of the story are shown (because it isn’t just both sides that represent the full picture.
On the other hand, balance can be hard to define because it doesn’t automatically mean 50-50. In the sense that, as Parenti gives an example of, the wars in Guatemala and El Salvador during the 1980s were often treated with that same kind of false balancing. Both those who burned villages and those who were having their villages burned were depicted as equally involved in a contentious bloodletting. While giving the appearance of being objective and neutral, one actually neutralizes the subject matter and thereby drastically warps it.
(This aspect of objectivity is seldom discussed in the mainstream. However, for some additional detail on this perspective, see for example, Phillip Knightley in his award-winning book, The First Casualty (Prion Books, 1975, 2000 revised edition).)
Follow-up Avoidance
Parenti gives some examples of how when confronted with an unexpectedly dissident response, media hosts quickly change the subject, or break for a commercial, or inject an identifying announcement: We are talking with [whomever]. The purpose is to avoid going any further into a politically forbidden topic no matter how much the unexpected response might seem to need a follow-up query.
This can be knowingly done, or without realizing the significance of a certain aspect of the response.
Framing
The most effective propaganda, Parenti says, relies on framing rather than on falsehood. By bending the truth rather than breaking it, using emphasis and other auxiliary embellishments, communicators can create a desired impression without resorting to explicit advocacy and without departing too far from the appearance of objectivity. Framing is achieved in the way the news is packaged, the amount of exposure, the placement (front page or buried within, lead story or last), the tone of presentation (sympathetic or slighting), the headlines and photographs, and, in the case of broadcast media, the accompanying visual and auditory effects.
Furthermore, he points out that Many things are reported in the news but few are explained. Ideologically and politically the deeper aspects are often not articulated: Little is said about how the social order is organized and for what purposes. Instead we are left to see the world as do mainstream pundits, as a scatter of events and personalities propelled by happenstance, circumstance, confused intentions, bungled operations, and individual ambition — rarely by powerful class interests.
Cultural bias (as with perhaps any country) has an effect on how something is reported as well.
For example, look at how we in Europe and USA perceive the Muslim/Islamic world and the threat of Islam, due to media concentration on certain aspects of the news. (Since writing the above, around 1999, we of course have witnessed a horrible series of terrorist attacks on the U.S. The resulting war on terror and various attitudes towards the Muslim world has also become negative too. For more on these issues see this see this site’s war on terror section.)
The USA media coverage of President Clinton’s historic tour of Africa (the first tour by an American President) came under a bit of scrutiny. The previous link mentions how some right-winged politicians made comments on TV about how embarrassed they were when Clinton made some unofficial apologies relating to black slavery. Instead, they blamed Africans for the slave trade!
Referring to Ben Bagdikian’s work again, he also details how subtle forms of specific cultural reinforcement are made by corporate demands on advertising. For example,
To show certain types of imagery that is beneficial to their ability to sell products, corporations will demand for that inclusion of the following ideas appear in programs around their ads (for brevity, some of the ideas have been skipped in the quote): All business men are good, or if not, are always condemned by other businessmen. All wars are humane. The status quo is wonderful. … The American way of life is beyond criticism. (see p.154).
He then continues to point out that it isn’t just in advertisements that these images are made, but that corporations also demand that independent news reporting, editorial content etc also have such ideas expressed (see p.154).
Furthermore, he also mentions that [i]f audiences were told that the ideas represented explicit demands of corporations who advertised, the messages would lose their impact. (See p. 155).
And, while there is room for wider description of events and ideas in the media, he says that there are limits to this latitude. For example, he says that the most obvious limit is criticism of the idea of free enterprise or of other basic business systems and that while there may be cases of specific criticisms of corporate activities, the actual structural system beneath, itself is not criticized, just, as he points out, how in the former Soviet Union, criticism of communism would not be possible. (See p.155).
I’m a weight-inclusive healthcare provider, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, when I decided to go back to grad school to study nutrition science and become a dietitian, my goal was to help people lose weight.
At that time, I was deeply, deeply subscribed to diet culture and the idea that weight = health. I was riding the wave of “success” of my latest and most intensive weight loss project (excessive exercise + micro-managing every bite that went into my mouth). I felt virtuous and morally superior, yet there was a little voice in my head asking me if what I was doing was truly healthy in the broader sense.
As I worked through the two years of science class prerequisites I needed before I could apply to grad school, I was more or less maintaining my weight loss (if I gained a few pounds I doubled down until it came off again), but it was harder and harder to maintain even though I was doing everything “right.” I was killing it in biochemistry and anatomy, working full time, and still managing to keep up my rigid fitness and nutrition plan. When I started grad school and had to spend part of each day on campus, I batch cooked, made spreadsheets, woke well before dawn to lift weights, and did everything I could to continue to maintain the weight loss I was so freaking proud of.
Shifting to a weight-inclusive mindset
In spite of all that, the weight started to come back. I set intentions to more than double down (triple down?) the next time I had a school break, but I was tired. Tired of making weight loss another full time job.
I was also starting to question the belief that it was possible to maintain weight loss for the long term by simply working “hard enough.” I was startled by the realization that the very behaviors we treat in people with eating disorders are behaviors we applaud or even prescribe in people who weigh “too much.”
As I read more and more “obesity” and health research, I started to see the holes in the researchers’ assumptions and methods, including how they almost never factored in things like fitness levels, yo-yo dieting or the effects of weight stigma.
I also learned more about the effects of weight stigma (or any form of oppression) on physical and mental health. I learned that being physically active and having other basic “healthy habits” like eating vegetables, not smoking, and not drinking excessively more or less erased the gap in health that some studies found between people in “normal” BMI bodies and those with BMIs in the “overweight” or “obese” ranges. Again, most studies don’t factor in those things, which is why weight science is so disturbingly flawed.
I was still mentally navigating all of this when I finished my internship, graduated, and passed the grueling exam to become a registered dietitian nutritionist. I continued to mentally navigate all of this through my first few years as a dietitian. Eventually, the idea of weight inclusive care grabbed my attention, and the more I learned, the clearer it was that this was the only way to provide care.
So, what is weight-inclusive care?
Weight-inclusive and weight-neutral approaches to care
Interest in weight-inclusive care has been increasing among healthcare providers as well as people seeking healthcare. So what does “weight-inclusive” care mean, and how does it differ from “regular” care?
Weight-inclusive care is an approach that assumes that patients of all weights are capable of achieving health and wellbeing if they have access to non‐stigmatizing health care. This approach also challenges the belief that a particular BMI reflects a particular set of health behaviors, health status, or moral character. Weight is not a focal point for medical treatment or intervention, nor is it viewed as a behavior.
Similar to weight-inclusive care is “weight-neutral” care, which has been defined as an approach that focuses on improving patients’ relationships with food, emphasizing emotional and physical wellness over the pursuit of a lower weight or size, and advocating against weight stigma.
I used to use the term “weight-neutral” to describe how I practice, but I now prefer “weight-inclusive,” while the two terms are synonymous in many ways, weight‐neutral implies passive rather than active inclusion. Sometimes, word matter.
Also, weight-neutral care can sometimes fall into the trap of “healthism” via the idea that it’s OK to be fat as long as you meet (or are striving for) a certain standard of health. Weight-inclusive care includes the understanding that “health” is an amorphous concept. Health is going to vary from person to person, and each person’s level of health may ebb and flow across their lifespan. It also recognizes that someone may not choose to (or have the ability) to pursue heath.
The standards for healthcare in this and most other countries is not weight-inclusive, or even weight-neutral. They’re “weight-centric,” also referred to as “weight-normative” because it represents the standard paradigm in medicine, public health, and in society.
Weight-centric/weight-normative approaches to care
The weight-centric/normative paradigm emphasizes the idea that “excess” weight causes chronic disease and other poor health outcomes. It also emphasizes weight loss as a treatment for many health conditions and concerns even when evidence-based treatments such as medication, surgery or physical therapy are available.
It’s not uncommon for patients with a body mass index (BMI) in the “overweight” or “obese” range to receive weight loss recommendations when seeing a doctor for a sore throat or a skin condition.
The weight-centric paradigm has been defined as having these six tenants: The belief that…
weight is under individual control
weight gain is caused by too many “calories in” and too few “calories out”
you can predict someone’s health status based on their weight
excess body weight causes disease and early death
changing eating and exercise patterns can produce long‐term weight loss
losing weight will result in better health.
The weight-centric/weight-normative approach assumes that weight and disease are related in a linear fashion, and the fatter you are the more diseased you are or will become. It also emphasizes personal responsibility for “healthy lifestyle choices” and the importance of maintaining a “healthy weight.” These beliefs drive the weight‐normative approach’s focus on weight loss and weight management to prevent and treat a myriad of health problems.”
While the weight-inclusive and weight-centric approaches differ greatly in the emphasis each one places on weight, healthcare professionals using either approach might have some things in common. For example, they may recommend similar self-care practices. Again, the big differences lay in how much importance each approach places on body weight in the context of health and medical treatment, in their perceptions of how much we can change body weight, and how healthcare providers respond to patients based on their weight.
Weight-inclusive care for all
Weight-inclusive care is good for patients of all body weights, for many reasons. With weight-centric care, fat patients may receive a prescription for weight loss instead of evidence-based care, as I mentioned, while thin patients may not receive certain preventive screening exams because of the belief that because they are thin, they can’t possibly have issues with blood sugar or cholesterol. (I use both “fat” and “thin” as neutral descriptors.)
With weight-centric care, providers often assume that fat patients eat an unhealthy diet and don’t exercise, and may treat them with disbelief if they speaks up and says, “Well, actually…” They may assume that thin patients eat healthfully and exercise regularly, even if they don’t. This means demeaning some patients and missing the opportunity for health-supporting lifestyle recommendations in others.
With weight-centric care, fat patients with anorexia (called “atypical” anorexia even though it’s not really atypical in terms of frequency) are often dismissed (or told they must have binge eating disorder). “Normal” weight patients who display (or express concern about) disordered eating behaviors are often dismissed because their bodies “look just fine.”
However, with weight-inclusive care, providers don’t assume anything about their patients because of their weight (except perhaps that their fat patients have likely experienced weight stigma, including from previous healthcare providers).
The weight-centric approach is not improving health for the majority of individuals across the BMI spectrum. It’s clear that an approach to health that focuses on weight and weight loss is not the most effective paradigm in terms of health outcomes or patient-centered care?
What does weight-inclusive care LOOK like?
If you were to go to a weight-inclusive healthcare provider, one of the first things you might notice is physical accessibility. When you walk into the office, its set-up communicates to all patients that their healthcare needs will be met without shame or discrimination.
The waiting room has furniture that fits higher-weight individuals. So does the exam room, which also includes a blood pressure cuff that fits larger arms. If you need a larger-sized gown, the nurse or medical assistant can grab one that’s already supplied in the room (rather than getting flustered and going to hunt one down…or worse, telling you that they only have one size.)
You won’t be automatically asked to weigh in. There’ll be “hop on the scale” if you’re there for a sore throat or a skin rash. If they do want to weigh you, they ask for permission and explain why they want this information (do they just want to update their records, or is it needed to monitor a specific health condition or to make sure a medication is dosed correctly?).
If you say, “No, thank you” to being weighed, no one will get irritated with you, give you the side eye, or treat you as being “non-compliant.” The providers and support staff will have received continuing education or other training about weight bias, including implicit (subconscious) bias. They’ll also know that weigh-ins can be triggering or even traumatic for some people.
If you say “OK,” you’ll be weighed in a private area (none of this being weighed out in the open in a busy hallway nonsense), and you’ll have the option of “blind” or “closed” weighing — closing your eyes or standing backwards and not being told your weight.
What does weight-inclusive care FEEL like?
Your doctor and the other providers and staff won’t assume anything about your health based on your weight or body size. They’ll go by things like your health history (including what’s already in your chart and answers to questions they ask you), any concerning signs or symptoms you’ve been experiencing, what you tell them about your health behaviors, and any tests they order.
If you’re in a larger body, your provider won’t give you a weight “lecture.” If there is a reason to discuss weight, they ask the patient’s permission first, and if that permission is given, they explain why they brought it up. They don’t assume a patient wants to lose weight, or that they have or haven’t ever tried to lose weight before.
If there is ever a reason that a your weight of concern and weight loss could have some benefit (this is not usually the case, but it can happen), weight loss would be discussed in the context of other treatment options. You would be fully informed about the potential risks of weight loss by any means (including weight regain, medication side effects, etc.). If you have a history of eating disorder behaviors, your doctor wouldn’t put weight loss on the table.(Sadly, there are MANY cases of people in larger bodies struggling with or recovering from an eating disorder only to have a weight-normative provider blithely recommend weight loss.)
Weight-inclusive providers challenge weight-based stereotypes and can be a safe harbor if you’ve experienced weight stigma from other providers. You’ll know they’re focused on your psychological and physical health, and not your weight. You’ll probably be more likely to keep up with preventive and follow-up care because you know that if you have a health problem, the focus will be on treating the actual condition.
Why being weight-inclusive is more than “being nice”
There’s been a disturbing trend in the weight-centric/weight-normative healthcare spaces of co-opting the fight against weight stigma/bias/discrimination. A fight that was started by fat activists and allies who demand the right for non-stigmatizing care.
Weight-centric providers who believe they are against weight stigma may have the best of intentions, and this may be because they don’t really understand weight stigma. Anti-weight stigma efforts in the context of weight-normative healthcare often looks like treating fat patients kindly while they continue to suggest weight loss as the cure for most ills.
This is still stigmatizing, because it is still centered on the belief that a patient’s weight and body size are problematic, and that their size is causing their health problems. Even though in most cases, there are ways to directly treat the problem without the patient resorting to dieting, taking weight loss drugs that can have serious side effects, or having surgery on their digestive tract.
Again, I think many weight-centric providers do have good intentions, and have simply bought into the “anti-weight stigma” propaganda from “obesity” advocacy groups that take money from pharmaceutical companies that produce weight loss medications, and from companies that promote bariatric surgery.
Don’t get me wrong, being treated nice is better than not being treated nice. But when your provider still views your weight and body size as a problem that needs to be fixed, that’s still weight stigma.
Carrie Dennett, MPH, RDN, is a Pacific Northwest-based registered dietitian nutritionist, journalist, intuitive eating counselor, author, and speaker. Her superpowers include busting nutrition myths and empowering women to feel better in their bodies and make food choices that support pleasure, nutrition and health. This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute individualized nutrition or medical advice.
Seeking 1-on-1 nutrition counseling? Learn more about her Food & Body, IBS management, and nutrition counseling programs, and book a free intro call to see if the program is a good fit, and if we’re a good fit!
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CJ Opiaza proved she’s indeed the frontrunner in the Miss Grand Philippines 2024 pageant, as she dominated the special awards on the national tilt’s coronation night.
Opiaza, who’s representing Castillejos, Zambales in the pageant, proved that she’s the candidate to beat, as she bagged five special awards in the Miss Grand Philippines 2024 coronation night at Newport Performing Arts Theater in Pasay City on Sunday night, Sept. 29.
Meanwhile, Pasig’s Selena Antonio-Reyes brought home the Miss Ilios award, while Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental’s Geralyn Basto de Klerke was named Miss Congeniality.
Opiaza was named the heavy favorite to win the Miss Grand Philippines 2024 title by pageant observers such as Missosology and Sash Factor.
The coronation night culminates with reigning titleholder Nikki de Moura passing her title to her successor, who is set to represent the Philippines at the Miss Grand International 2024 pageant on October 25 in Bangkok, Thailand.
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A Palestinian doctor tries to save severely malnourished children amid Israel’s US-backed illegal siege on Gaza.
Ahmed Nasser is one of a handful of doctors in north Gaza treating scores of children for malnutrition. The odds of saving lives are against him as he does not have the resources he needs. Israel has cut off food, fuel and water, resulting in a man-made famine that is unprecedented in its scale and pace. Every Palestinian in Gaza is food insecure and dozens have died from dehydration and malnutrition.
Israel and its closest ally, the United States, deny that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid, which is a war crime. But we worked with Palestinian reporters in Gaza and used open-source data to investigate how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks.
As the warm summer weather approaches, there’s nothing more refreshing than a cool, fruity, and flavorful drink to brighten your day. We all love a scrumptious cocktail, but for those who want to keep it high-protein and non-alcoholic to focus on a healthier summer, these mocktails are a great option! Let’s explore some tasty high-protein mocktails that won’t wreak havoc on your summer health goals, and provide you tips for crafting the perfect guilt-free and delectable drinks.
What are Mocktails?
Mocktails are alcohol-free versions of popular cocktails or original non-alcoholic drink concoctions. These refreshing beverages are a creative way to combine various fruits, herbs, and flavors that not only satisfy your taste buds but also provide health benefits.
Tips for Creating Healthy and Delicious Mocktails
Here are some tips to make your summer mocktails both healthy and scrumptious:
Use Fresh and Seasonal Fruits: Take advantage of the wide variety of fruits available in the summer months. Fresh and seasonal fruits tend to taste better, and they’re loaded with vitamins and antioxidants.
Opt for Natural Sweeteners: Instead of adding sugar or artificial sweeteners, consider using natural alternatives, such as honey, agave nectar, or even the natural sweetness of fruits.
Incorporate Herbs and Spices: Add a dash of flavor and health benefits by incorporating herbs and spices like mint, basil, ginger, and cinnamon in your mocktail creations.
Choose Low-Calorie Mixers: Replace sugary sodas or juices with low-calorie options like sparkling water, club soda, or freshly squeezed citrus juice.
Stay Hydrated: Remember to balance out your delicious mocktails with plenty of water to stay on track with hydration goals.
High-Protein Mocktail Recipes to Inspire You
Here are some functional and delicious high-protein mocktail recipes to sip all summer long:
Pineapple Basil Splash
2 cups fresh pineapple juice
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup lime juice
Pineapple Orange Fruit Drink Mix, prepared according to package directions
1 cup club soda
Muddle the basil leaves in a pitcher. Add pineapple juice, lime juice, prepared Fruit Drink Mix and mix well. Fill your glass with ice and pour the mixture over it. Top off with club soda and garnish with a basil leaf.
Strawberry Ginger Lemonade
2 cups strawberries, hulled and halved
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Lemonade Fruit Drink Mix, prepared according to package directions
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 cups sparkling water
Blend strawberries, lemon juice, and ginger until smooth. Pour the strawberry mixture and prepared Lemonade Fruit Drink Mix into a glass filled with ice and top it off with sparkling water. Garnish with a strawberry or lemon slice!
No matter which mocktail recipe you choose, following these tips will keep you on track with your summer health goals while still indulging in some delightful refreshments. Here’s to a refreshing summer filled with good health and great times!
Berry Watermelon Mint Cooler
2 cups of cubed seedless watermelon
10 fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon honey (optional)
1/4 cup lime juice
1 cup sparkling water
Wild Berry Fruit Drink Mix
Blend watermelon cubes, mint leaves, honey, Wild Berry Fruit Drink Mix and lime juice until smooth. Pour the mixture into a glass filled with ice, and top it off with sparkling water. Garnish with a sprig of mint!
Lemon Razzy Summer Spritzer
Steep the herbal tea by pouring hot water over the tea bags, into a heat safe container like a glass measuring cup or a mason jar. Steep tea for 3-5 minutes. Remove bags and set aside to cool.
*NOTE: You might have better results with step two if you mix the fruit drink powder into the hot tea. In which case, add more water or club soda to reach desired flavor potency.
Mix the fruit drink by adding 2 packets of fruit drink mix to a large mason jar or blender. Add water, cap the container, and shake vigorously or blend until dissolved.
Assemble the spritzer by pouring the tea and the fruit drink in equal parts over a glass filled with ice and top with club soda. Add a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice for added health benefits!
Enjoy right away or store in the fridge for up to two days.
Other Flavors of the Sparkling Summer Spritzer
Same recipe, different fruit drink mix and tea combinations for endless summer-sipping!
In a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals, the New York Liberty host the Las Vegas Aces for Game 1 of the Semi-Finals, on Sunday at 3pm ET. The Liberty have been the No. 1 seed for most of the year, finishing the season with a league-best 32-8 record, while the Aces overcame a slow start to ultimate secure the No. 4 seed, posting a 27-13 record on the year. Both teams swept their best-of-three first round series, with the Liberty beating the Dream in back-to-back games, and the Aces defeating the Storm.
The Liberty took all three regular season games this season, but the Aces won the Finals at their hands in September, so there’s no clear favorite going into this one. On one hand, New York has been the most dominant team this season and is kicking things off with two games at Barclay’s Center, but on the other, it’s hard to count out the back-to-back champions. The Aces are going for the first three peat since the league’s inception.
Let’s take a look at five things to watch for ahead of Game 1.
Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson — how will the MVPs fare?
For years now, Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson have dominated the WNBA. Stewart (two MVPs, two championships) and Wilson (three MVPs, two championships) are friends off the court, but have a long history of fun postseason clashes. Last year, Wilson got the upper hand, leading her Aces team to a 3-1 Finals victory, while Stewart averaged 16.3 points per game in the Finals, almost 7 points less than her regular season average.
Stewie has had a great second half to the season, and seems to be back in MVP form, but whether she can keep up with Wilson’s production will help determine the outcome of this series. A’ja Wilson has had a historic WNBA season, averaging 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per game, and was unanimously named MVP last week. Both players are going to put up number, but who comes out on top in this match-up of all-time greats could be the difference
Sabrina Ionescu: can she keep up this postseason production?
Sabrina Ionescu has been critical to this Liberty team’s success. Until a late-season shooting slump, she was (somewhat) in the MVP conversation, and Aces head coach Becky Hammon actually blasted media for not including her in their First Team All-WNBA ballots.
Ionescu shot 18% in the final three games of the regular season to cap off a post-Olympic break that saw her shooting just 33% from the field. But, she quelled any concerns about her shooting with a massive Game 2 performance in which she exploded for 36 points on 12-23 shooting, tied for a franchise record for most points in a playoff game.
She’ll have to face better defenders in this one — Jackie Young is one of the toughest guard defenders in the league and will likely have the Ionescu match-up at times, and the Aces have made Ionescu’s life difficult before. But, her game has evolved since the two teams faced off last fall, and if she can continue her postseason explosion, the Liberty become much more difficult to contain.
Las Vegas Aces guard play: which Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray, and Kelsey Plum will we see?
Becky Hammon has noted time and again how critical the Aces’ guard play is for the teams success. After all, this is a backcourt that includes three U.S. Olympians — including a Finals MVP (Chelsea Gray) and two form former No. 1 picks (Jackie Young, Kelsey Plum).
Gray missed the first 12 games of the regular season after recovering from a foot injury she suffered in last year’s playoffs, and it took her a while to get back into form. But, her teammates have stressed she’s back in full form, which means she’s one of the most important players in the league.
In the first two games of the 2024 postseason, she looked to be back in the swing of things. Gray averaged 14 points and 8 assists across two wins against the Storm, prompting Kelsey Plum to sing her teammate’s praises.
“A lot of people put up numbers — and that’s no fault of them,” Plum said. “But Chelsea impacts winning. Ask any player in the league, any high-level player, I guarantee they want Chelsea Gray on their team with five minutes left.”
Kelsey Plum with high praise for Chelsea Gray postgame:
“A lot of people put up numbers — and that’s no fault of them. But Chelsea impacts winning. Ask any player in the league, any high-level player, I guarantee they want Chelsea Gray on their team with five minutes left.” pic.twitter.com/P0pLW1a7Z7
Meanwhile, Plum herself bounced back after a two-point Game 1 showing, posting 29 points on 11-15 shooting in the deciding Game 2. Young has been quiet since the Olympic break, and has averaged just 10.5 points on 34.8% shooting in two playoff wins. She’ll have her hands full defensively in this one, but if she can hit open shots (as she has for the majority of her career) that helps too.
The role players: Leonie Fiebich, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, Tiffany Hayes, Alysha Clark
This game is as star-studded as any WNBA matchup, boasting three former MVPs and 8 Paris Olympians. But, the role players will be critical, too. The Liberty have some of the best in the game, and the Aces have the most likely Sixth Player of the Year candidate in Tiffany Hayes. Hayes averaged 9.2 points on 50.3% shooting this season, and was massive in the first round of the playoffs, averaging 14.5 points on 63.2% shooting, including 75% from three.
For the Liberty, Leonie Fiebich was effective off the bench all year, but was even better as a starter, and now, head coach Sandy Brondello seems to like her fit in the starting lineup in place of Courtney Vandersloot. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is also one of the best two-way players in the game, and seems to be healthy after missing several weeks due to knee surgery. Fiebich and Hayes are the only main rotation players who weren’t on last year’s rosters, and their output will be critical.
“New York is a lot better than they were last year. Just plain and simple,” Plum said. “They’re bigger, they shoot the ball at a better clip. If you go down the line, pound for pound individually, all of them are better basketball players.”
Which Jonquel Jones are we getting?
Jonquel Jones can be the most dominant post player in the league. The Former MVP has been the x-factor in previous wins against the Aces — in June, she exploded for 34 points and 8 rebounds in a 90-82 win over Las Vegas. But, she’s also had games where she’s been a lot more quit, attempting just a few shots and not exerting herself in the interior. Jone will have to be her best self in this one, and she was a big reason why the Liberty even had a chance in last year’s finals against the Aces. Conversation around New York’s success generally centers around Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, but Jonquel Jones has the capability to be the most dominant player on the floor at any moment.
This page: https://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising.
To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version:
Advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it.
Chuck Blore, a partner in the advertising firm Chuck Blore & Don Ruchman, Inc., quoted by Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p.185.
Ever since mass media became mass media, companies have naturally used this means of communications to let a large number of people know about their products. There is nothing wrong with that, as it allows innovative ideas and concepts to be shared with others. However, as the years have progressed, the sophistication of advertising methods and techniques has advanced, enticing and shaping and even creating consumerism and needs where there has been none before, or turning luxuries into necessities. This section introduces some of the issues and concerns this raises.
Various free media such as the numerous channels available in America and other nations are naturally subsidized with advertising to help pay the costs.
As corporate competition has increased, so too has the need for returns on massive expenditures on advertising. Industries spend millions, even billions of dollars to win our hearts and minds, and to influence our choices towards their products and ideas. This often means such media outlets attract greater funds than those outlets funded through public funding or TV licenses. It can mean that such outlets can also then afford better programming of key events and programs.
Given the dependency media companies can have on advertising, advertisers can often have exert undue influences (knowingly or tacitly); if something is reported that the advertiser doesn’t like or the media company has funded a documentary that exposes bad practice by an advertiser, the media company can risk losing much needed revenue to stay alive.
Additionally, as Noam Chomsky points out in his article, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream, for a company such as the New York Times, it too has to sell products to its customers. For the New York Times and other such companies, Chomsky points out that the product is the audience, and the customers are the corporate advertisers.
This at first thought doesn’t seem to make sense. However, although readers buy the paper, he argues that readers fit a demographic and it is this that is valuable information that can be used by advertisers. Hence, to the advertisers, the product that the New York Times and such companies bring to them is the audience itself and it is the advertisers that bring the money to the media companies, not the audience.
[T]he New York Times [is] a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. … You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations.
Ben Bagdikian, a prominent media critic, and author of the well-acclaimed book The Media Monopoly, provides more detail and examples. In Chapter 6 of his book, for example, Bagdikian describes in detail the pressure on media companies to change content (to dumb down) and to shape content based on the demographics of the audiences. Slowly then, the content of media isn’t as important as the type of person being targeted by the ads.
He also shows that the notion of giving the audience what they want is also a bit misleading because, if anything, it is more about targeting those readers that can afford the products that are advertised and so it is almost like giving the advertisers what they want!
The dumbing down of the content also acts to promote a buying mood. Hence, as Bagdikian summarizes, programming is carefully noncontroversial, light, and nonpolitical (see p. 133). As he traces briefly the history of advertising in magazines he also hints that this has happened for a long time:
The influence of advertising on magazines reached a point where editors began selecting articles not only on the basis of their expected interest for readers but for their influence on advertisements. Serious articles were not always the best support for ads. An article that put the reader in an analytical frame of mind did not encourage the reader to take seriously an ad that depended on fantasy or promoted a trivial product. An article on genuine social suffering might interrupt the buying mood on which most ads for luxuries depend. The next step, seen often in mid-twentieth century magazines, was commissioning articles solely to attract readers who were good prospects to buy products advertised in the magazine. After that came the magazine phenomenon of the 1970s — creating magazines for an identifiable special audience and selling them to particular advertisers.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p.138.
Globally, there is very little regulation about this kind of manipulation as there are many grey areas making it difficult to provide definitive guidelines. However, some very obvious cases are easier to target.
For example, in 2009, France introduced advertising legislation that retouched images had to be explicitly identified.
In the summer of 2011 in UK, two advertisers had their adverts banned for airbrushing an actress and a model excessively to the point it was too misleading. A campaigner against this kind of misleading and a Scottish member of parliament, Jo Swinson added that the concern here is half of young women between 16 and 21 say they would consider cosmetic surgery and we’ve seen eating disorders more than double in the last 15 years.
Megan Gibson, writing for Time, added that Swinson’s concern was that, The ads are purporting the effects of make-up, when in reality they’re showcasing the effects of Photoshop.
PetaPixel reported the above UK ban too, also noting that it came about a month after the American Medical Association called upon ad agencies to stop the altering of photographs in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image.
PetaPixel quotes an American Medical Association board member:
The appearance of advertisements with extremely altered models can create unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image. In one image, a model’s waist was slimmed so severely, her head appeared to be wider than her waist. We must stop exposing impressionable children and teenagers to advertisements portraying models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software.
In December 2011, Extreme Tech reported that the American advertising industry’s self-regulating watchdog, the National Advertising Division (NAD), has moved to ban the misleading use of photoshopping and enhanced post-production in cosmetics adverts. (Extreme Tech also added that this brings it closer in line with regulations in the UK and European Union.)
Swinson, the American Medical Association, the NAD, are all making the point that in these cases companies are showcasing the effects of image manipulation rather than the product itself. So this is exactly what filmmaker Jesse Rosten’s spoof ad does:
To some people there shouldn’t be government intervention; parents should be able to teach their children how to see reality from advertising. Unfortunately, as also mentioned on this site’s section on children and consumption, children have not developed the cognitive ability to do this. Furthermore, even when responsible parents are to work with their children in this way, how will two people fair against an army of psychologists, advertisers, marketers and lawyers trying to teach their children the opposite?
The expectation amongst young people that photos and adverts create by using images of real people is that what they see is therefore also real. It may take many years, perhaps much later into teenage or adulthood to realize and come across information that these images are manipulated, by which time most of the effects may have been internalized.
To live in a society where you have to constantly be told everything you see may not be real is surely more damaging than to live in a society where most things are real but the hopefully few unreal things can be identified. That would hint to a truer form of freedom.
Sometimes, news stories or editorials are often subtle product advertisements, even with a rise of new terms in critical circles, such as advertorials.
In other cases, due to large ownership, a news company will advertise another program belonging to the parent network and highlight it as a news story, as some reality TV programs in America, such as the Survivor series, have shown. Another example is the hype on ABC News of Disney’s Pearl Harbor movie (Disney owns ABC), which some have even described as propaganda. Examples abound, and it would be a futile effort to attempt to list them all here. Such use of news time to promote entertainment has come under criticism of late.
Richard Robbins also captures this well:
Protected by the free speech provision of the First Amendment, corporations marshal huge public relations efforts on behalf of their agendas. In the United States the 170,000 public relations employees whose job it is to manipulate news, public opinion and public policy in the interests of their clients outnumber news reporters by 40,000. A study in 1990 discovered that almost 40 percent of the news content of a typical U.S. newspaper originates as public relations press releases, story memos, and suggestions. The Columbia Journalism Review reported that more than half the news stories in the Wall Street Journal are based solely on corporate press releases (cited in Korten 1995:146 [When Corporations Rule the World]). United States corporations spend almost half as much on advertising (approximately $120 per person) as the state spends on education ($207 per person).
Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999) p. 138
On April 7, 2002, UK’s BBC aired a documentary called Century of the Self looking back at the rise of consumerism in the 20th century. In discussing the role of the media, it was pointed out how journalism also changed as big business started to gain more influence. Many, in order to get stories that would attract readers, would have to agree to editorial content being dictated by business, such as placement of specific advertising in the pictures, placing certain sentences and paragraphs, and mentioning key products related to the story, etc. (More about consumerism in general can be seen on this site’s section on Consumption and Consumerism.)
A number of scandals errupted in 2005 revealed all manner of fake news and media manipulation. (The previous link, from this site, goes into this in further detail.)
Advertainment — Advertisements disguised as Entertainment!
We are also seeing more sophisticated techniques, such as short films where the aim is to sell a product but to cleverly do the advertising in a subtle way. These mini films can be very entertaining and exciting, but also promote a product behind the main theme.
While it could be argued that there is nothing wrong with this, it is just a more sophisticated way to sell products, more forthcoming and explicit mention that this is a commercial would be good for more people to be aware of what they are watching. (Although, that might be as hard as asking a government to tell their audience that they are about to watch some propaganda and to take it in appropriate consideration!)
Also, the enormous sums of money that can back up this sort of entertainment versus others, can in the long run further affect the type and diversity of the content we receive.
In fact, brand-sponsored content as Steve Golin likes to call this, is as old as television. Today, many gripe that the World Wide Web is nothing but a World Wide Commercial for which securing eyeballs for advertisers is the first and last concern. Lest we forgot, TV was also invented to sell to us in the comfort of our home. Content has always been an after thought. At the dawn of TV, soap operas got their name from the soap that was hawked by the show’s sponsors, who exercised a good deal of control over the show’s themselves, (which existed merely to fill the space between commercials.)
Bagdikian also goes on to show that mass advertising also introduced a new factor in selling: It began to prevent competition and that it would negate the classical theory of supply and demand that was described by Adam Smith (see p.143). And this isn’t just an observation limited to Bagdikian. Robert McChesney, for example also observes similar things:
Advertising [in oligopolistic markets] provides a way to protect or expand market share without engaging in profit-threatening price competition.
Robert W. McChesney, Rich Media Poor Democracy; Communication Politics in Dubious Times, (University of Illinois Press, 1999), p.139
In addition, corporate influence has affected what gets reported and what doesn’t, as John Prestage highlights:
Even some mainstream journalists are sounding the alarm…. Henry Holcomb, who is president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia and a journalist for 40 years, said that newspapers had a clearer mission back when he began reporting. That mission was to report the truth and raise hell. But corporate pressures have blurred this vision, he said.
Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a news media watchdog group, told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists surveyed by FAIR admitted that advertisers try to change stories.
Some advertisers kill some stories and promote others, she said, asserting that there is an overwhelming influence of corporations and advertisers on broadcast and print news reporting.
The trends are all bad, worse and worse, Nichols said. Newspapers and broadcast journalists are under enormous pressures to replace civic values with commercial values.
He labeled local television news a cesspool. Local broadcasters are under pressure from big corporations to entertain rather than to inform, and people are more ignorant after viewing television news because of the misinformation they broadcast, he said.
Jon Prestage, Mainstream Journalism: Shredding the First Amendment, Online Journal, 7 November 2002
Bagdikian also points out that as economic and political influence also becomes a factor for large businesses, ownership of media companies is often a result:
Mass advertising is no longer solely a means of introducing and distributing consumer goods, though it does that. It is a major mechanism in the ability of a relatively small number of giant corporations to hold disproportionate power over the economy. These corporations need newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting not just to sell their goods but to maintain their economic and political influence. The media are no longer neutral agents of the merchants but essential gears in the machinery of corporate giantism. And increasingly they are not only needed but they are owned by the corporate giants.
Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p.150.
UK’s Channel 4 aired a documentary on September 27, 2002 about the photographer James Natchway, who has produced pictures of poverty, famine, war etc and has been published in many magazines. In that documentary he also highlighted a growing issue of concern, whereby advertisers were increasingly pressuring publications to not put their adverts next to such harrowing pictures, because it would affect the buying mood of the readers. As a result, Natchway has felt that this has contributed to a large decline in coverage of such issues, making way for less controversial issues of entertainment, celebrities and fashion.
As globalization becomes ever more prominent, the role of media and advertising and consumerism also increases. This is ideal for the large multinationals that can take best advantage of globalization as they see an even larger market to which products can be sold.
However, diverse cultures could sometimes be an obstacle to easy selling. From the multi-national’s perspective, the more that people have similar attitudes and consumption habits the easier it is to sell en masse. Quite some time ago, the United Nations Development Program’s 1998 Human Development Report summarized this quite well:
Globalization is integrating not just trade, investment and financial markets. It is also integrating consumer markets. … [Economically, ] there is fierce competition to sell to consumers worldwide, with increasingly aggressive advertising.
On the social side local and national boundaries are breaking down in the setting of social standards and aspirations in consumption. Market research identifies global elites and global middle classes who follow the same consumption styles, showing preferences for global brands. There are the global teens — some 270 million 15—to 18-year-olds in 40 countries — inhabiting a global space, a single pop-culture world, soaking up the same videos and music and providing a huge market for designer running shoes, t-shirts and jeans.
… At the same time the consumer receives a flood of information through commercial advertising. An average American, it is estimated, sees 150,000 advertisements on television in his or her lifetime. And advertising is increasing worldwide, faster than population or incomes. Global advertising spending, by the most conservative reckoning, is now $435 billion.
Also worth quoting at some length is part of a paper looking at democracy and transnational media, labeled promotion of consumerism at all costs:
The leading transnational media giants are often American or at least Western corporations. To expand markets they must continue to look for new regions for expansion. Southeast Asia, for example, may be one of the last major regions to be affected by international satellites.
It really was not until the 1990s, for example, that Southeast Asia saw Western television enter on a massive scale. Advances in technology plus market liberalization were reasons. Asia, of course, is the largest worldwide market (2.8 billion) and has one-third of the world’s television sets. While Asia has been known to foster a distinct culture and linguistic heritage, this specialty is now in jeopardy. We see MTV, Western news and movie channels, and other Western media influences spreading across Asia. The cultural heritage of these countries is being threatened by trans border data flow, media images moving across national borders thanks to new electronic forms of media delivery. People are told they need products they never realized they required. They are told via media that Western styles and habits may be better or more desirable than their own traditions and customs. Young people in particular now grow up with stronger ties to New York and Los Angeles than their own capitals and families.
Then there is the danger that comes when making money is more important than quality of information flow. China’s 1.2 billion people are a very desirable audience. Consider what happened when News Corporation purchased STAR TV in 1993. A controversial program on the Chinese government on BBC Work Television News lead to PRC official complaints. Murdock simply pulled the plug. Note that he also was an investor in the Beijing People’s Daily. Similar pressures caused him to pressure Harper Collins of London to cancel a book contract with a former ambassador to China because it too was critical of the regime.
The problem goes beyond economic concentrations. Because the product of media industries is cultural programming, the concern centers on the very fabric of life.
As stated earlier, the movement is toward grabbing attention and creating a desire for things that people never knew was needed. It also is about using the media to homogenize culture. It involves the world’s children, even in the most communication-savvy communities where children below the age of ten are targeted with clever media campaigns. Yet these children are incapable of cognitively understanding what media does. Hence we have animated television programs as those developed several years ago, He-Man and She Ra, where the programs primarily were introduced to market massive lines of toys for the Christmas season. We are submitting innocent children to strategies of a mega-million dollar advertising industry and most parents are incapable of responding to sales campaigns of this magnitude. MTV is another example. Here we have entertainment programming which doubles as a continuous commercial for music CDs, clothing lines, talk shows involving music personalities, and a variety of other marketing ploys.
In this web site’s look at media in the United States, there is further discussion on how the market imposes its desires on the media. In the next section though, we see how this power to influence consumers also affects the perspectives and ideologies portrayed in the mainstream when it comes to international political and economic issues.
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