Today I downloaded an application that Apple was promoting on their downloads section, something called “Livestation” (it’s also available for the PC platform). It’s basically a TV/stream browser and viewer. It’s got some decent features… but one nice thing is that it comes preconfigured to watch BBC, France24, Russia Today, and Al Jazeera news broadcasts.

WOW. What an incredible difference it is to watch news from outside the bubble.

On the subject of the US Presidential Election and the Republican Convention, for instance… Russia Today’s *top story* spends the majority of its time focusing on the protests outside, on the suffering of the “American voters” who “refuse to be silenced,” and even allows three different protesters to voice their opposition to the war, to the abuses of executive power, and other destructive policies. In other words, Russian television views American protests the way American television views Chinese protests… in the Russian portrayal, the protesters are “voters” who have legitimate grievances, and the police are heavy-handed and violent in their repression… If you’ve seen any mention of the protests on American TV, it’s been focused almost exclusively on a few smashed windows, and is heavily biased toward the police perspective. Protesters are seldom portrayed sympathetically. Russia Today showed a middle-aged woman in tears as she recounted her violent treatment at the hands of the police, while the correspondent knelt sympathetically near her, nodding.

Meanwhile, covering John McCain, Al Jazeera’s correspondent actually *goes* to Hanoi. He visits the site where John McCain’s plane was shot down, shows the location of the power plant he was sent to destroy, and, incredibly, *finds* the old man who, as a 17-year-old, pulled McCain from the lake into which he had parachuted! The man says he had no thought of international relations, he just knew that the Vietnamese people had captured an American soldier!

Then, the reporter interviews the man who was the head of the prison where McCain was held! He asks the commissar whether McCain was, as he has claimed, tortured while in prison: “Not only did we not torture him, we treated his wounds!” When the correspondent presses to ask whether McCain was punished, and points out “What one man considers discipline, another considers torture,” the prison administrator denies any punishment more severe than forcing McCain to stand facing the wall. When the correspondent says that McCain claims he can’t raise his arm because of the beatings he suffered in prison, the commissar angrily replies that his arm was injured by the Vietnamese Air Defense Forces when they shot down his plane, and that he did not receive any further injuries while held in prison.

The commissar’s money quote comes at the end of the report: “I wish him success in winning the presidency.”

“News from Outside the Bubble©,” as Harry Shearer puts it.