PROPAGANDA 101: THE 50-50 LIE

This classic disinformation technique is used to inflate the opinion the corporate media wants to promote, while minimizing any dissent against that opinion. To add an even more egregious dimension of cynical fraud to this crime, it is billed by the perpetrators as "unbiased news."
In the 50-50 lie, instead of reporting the actual fact that the number of people moved to take to the streets to protest the war totally overwhelms those willing to protest in favor, the networks or newspapers report that "protests both for and against the war are being staged." Conspicuously absent from such reports is any mention of comparative numbers of protests and protestors involved. The implication is everything, the truth nothing. Here's a classic example: At the height of this week's international protests involving millions, one headline on AOL's mainpage (AOL is the FOX of the Internet), described this historic situation as a "Mixed reaction to war around the world." Mixed reaction? That's like calling Vermont, which has the fewest non-white residents of all the states, a melting pot. This isn't unbiased reporting, this is lying by implication and it is a crime.

The reality is, the number of anti-war protestors outnumbers the number of pro-war protestors by, at the LEAST, about 100,000 to 100. The largest protest the pro-war people have mustered is about 6,000, near Valley Forge in PA. And, it was recently revealed that these protests had been funded by the corporate media giant, CLEAR CHANNEL I.e, they were a rightwing corporate sham and hardly a grassroots movement.

On 3/22 as FOX TV showed the hundreds of thousands of protestors in NYC that that filled all of Broadway south of Times Square, across the bottom, the banner headline said "protests for and against the war across the country." On NBC (Nazi Broadcasting Corporation) 3/22 nightly news, the footage was so slanted it was stomach-turning. The New York protests - over 200,000 people of all ages, colors, and backbrounds, was juxtaposed in a 50-50 way with a tiny protest in an ultra-rightwing, very white community in California. Then the protest in London - over 500,000 strong! - was (can you believe it?!) downplayed as being not as big as expected...HUH? Then heavily edited clips (edited to slant) of protests elsewhere were shown. A Beirut anti-war protest was billed as "Pro-Saddam Hussein" by the NBC commentator - even though the signs shown in the sea of protestors all read "NO WAR."

Then, at the close of this farce, Tom Brokaw says what proof this is of a "world deeply divided." Since when is 6 billion people in several hundred nations united against a few million rightwingers in, essentially, two countries, a "DIVIDED WORLD." It isn't - and that is the truth Brokaw and his pals in the Bush Corporate Empire do not want people to see.

Another 50-50 technique is to present an equal number of pro and con statements on an issue - even if the cons (or pros, depending on the case) represent a tiny minority. In truly unbiased, accurate reporting, the number of statements presented reflect the reality of your sample. If your sampling of "men on the street" includes 10 pros and one con, then you present several pros and one con, without spin or judgement. That accurately reflects reality. You do not select the weakest or flakiest pro statement and pair it with the only con - which is what the media now does.