TV. Media. Treason.

[Randomness]

The media is guilty of high treason against the general public. Bear with me for a bit before you go ranting and flaming. (Maybe have a look at the rules for the section)

I'll begin with current evidence. The economy. Any recovery necessarily requires the public to have confidence. The media is deliberately undermining confidence. Think on it. If a news source reports that the economy is recovering, and it doesn't, they lose audience. They look bad. If they report that it isn't going to recover anytime soon, then they appear sagacious. But they appear that way because, in predicting it won't recover, they cause the public to believe that, thereby undermining the recovery in the first place! This form of self-fulfilling prophecy is more likely to lengthen this recession than any other single factor.

To relate this on a more general scale, the media, particularly television, has evolved into a parasite. It feeds on war and controversy. There is an apt axiom of television news: "If it bleeds, it leads". The media has learned that the surest way to draw an audience is to appeal to people's darker nature. They offer an endless buffet of crime, scandal, and warfare to the public. The biggest issue here is in the former two. In the case of crime, it doesn't attract attention to say someone might have done it, but to strongly imply that they did do it, and that their defense is a sham, et cetera. In the case of scandal, the great issue here is the bloodthirstiness of it. This thirst in turn taints the political system, by providing an easy outlet for mudslinging. It costs nothing to accuse your opponent in front of a ready camera, but to praise yourself always costs money from your own pocket.

To recap, the media is guilty of treason on grounds of deliberately worsening the public situation for private profit. It has betrayed the public trust, and turned away from serving the public interest. The news is no longer news, but gladiatorial bloodsport.

That is all.

[Nitro Vordex]

Protip: Don't watch the news.

Actually, don't even turn on your TV, unless you're playing vidja games. :wacko:

IT'S ALL GARBAGE.

[Kylie]

CNN was my bff during the 2008 election, but we've grown apart. I guess it has something to do with what you've brought up. I got tired of people talking about the economy and everything else that sucks about today.

[R3volver]

I agree with you to an extent. If the news covered crime all day every day it wouldn't even be able to cover it all. They had it confined in certain segments like on Nancey Grace (among other annoying shows). They usually only dwell on it all day when it's either REALLY serious or out of the ordinary because even if it's a slow day they cover other BS as filler. The amount of murders due to the economy (which is not going to get better any time soon) is a good thing I think. I am glad that they are covering it because I'm actually going to be talking to my family today about moving because I think it's going to get really bad and I'm glad that they are at least covering this because they can't really cover it up anymore.

[Kent]

While it's true that the media is currently fear-mongering people about the economic situation... It does have very real impacts on the daily lives of people.

I for one, happened to graduate college and run face-first into thejob market scare - and I'm still trying to get hired somewhere, even for jobs that I'm disgustingly overqualified for, and no luck. :/ It sucks, and hard... I miss my job at the school. Best job ever.

[hyperacute]

The mainstream media has been like that for a very long time. Bad news sells and lazy soundbites are more digestable than properly reseached journalism.

The problem with reporting (particularly) economic news is that it tends to be a lot more nuanced than can be put into an easily digested news report (case in point, consumer confidence is a small piece of the current downturn). The easiest way to deal with this is to oversimplify it to the point of meaningless generalisation and sum this up with a GOOD/BAD headline.

I tend to view most news programs as a sort of 30 minute precis as to what is considered important today (taking into account that all news channels have their own pet biases). Anything I want to know more about (economics fascinates me, and thankfully, I jumped ship from the finance sector before all this hit), I tend to read about from various sources and filter out as much of the opinion as possible. There are very few outlets free from editorial slant, even on the internet, but you get good at filtering it out. /tangent

[Aisha_Clan-Clan]

I just have the news on so I don't miss Wheel of Fortune. =~.^=

Ok, some good stuff in the news, but not much.

[Leviathan]

Yellow Journalism?
Yeah, that's old.

[Puppet_Papaya]

I just have the news on so I don't miss Wheel of Fortune. =~.^=

Ok, some good stuff in the news, but not much.

Wheel of Fortune is all you need to know anyway. I thought it WAS the news.

[Sinue_v2]

Yellow Journalism?
Yeah, that's old.

Agree'd. This has been a problem for a very long time now. I just take offense at the media talking down to people - reporting news for the absolute dumbest segments of America and expecting everyone else to be just as dumb - often aligning themselves with political ideologies and towing the line.

Pundits are the worst. They don't report the news, and they generally don't know what the hell they're talking about in the first place. They're not analysts. They're not experts. They're generally not even well informed. They're just some asshole on TV giving their opinion -ON- the news. If I wanted to hear someone's opinion on the news, I could go to a hundred different sources and at least get the decency of a conversation - a chance to talk back. Yet pundit shows flourish, because they are incredibly cheap to produce. You don't need a huge staff of writers, reporters in the field, expenditures for on-site reporting, etc. Just a desk, camera, some video effects, and a personality. John Stewart and Colbert get a reprieve only in that they're shows are understood to be comedy and FOR entertainment - without the pretense of being news.

The most disturbing trend about pundits, however, is the "dittohead" factor - which isn't just confined to Rush Limbaugh and his cronies anymore. Olbermann, Dobbs, Beck, Savage, and others all boast their own substantial flock of lackeys. To a degree, I can sympathize. Following world events and understanding them enough to allow you to form your own opinion - let alone a defensible opinion in a conversation - is difficult. It requires effort. Many people get sucked into a trap of listening to one of these windbags initially because they share some common viewpoints. Eventually, the listener begins to align their own views with their pundit of choice - and soon their mind just shuts down and they mindlessly parrot whatever their favorite talking head spouts out - regardless of accuracy or rationality. When people shut off their minds and allow others to think for them - that's a real problem.

Insofar as where I get my news, outside of what I stumble across on the net, it's usually from three sources. BBC, NHK, and NPR.

[CrimsomWolf]

The first thing to do after you take over the world: Make all of the god-dammned "journalists" disappear. Permanently, with families if needed to.

Ekhm.

Most of hype caused by majority of crises these days are partially because of all that over-colored media coverage. Also, news of today are also incredibly biased or told in a a manner suiting the benefactor of the news station. Of course, there still a few whose opinions are still objective, but I have a feeling that they're being pushed into minority.

Not to mention the topic of pundits, whom Sinue explained above. And all manner of god-dammned "experts" who can't even put a sentence into logical order or presenters who ask really stupid questions.

Which is why, news are mostly time-fillers for me. It's much better to find raw news on internet and draw your own opinion.

[Sinue_v2]

The amount of murders due to the economy (which is not going to get better any time soon) is a good thing I think.

Wat?

You might want to clarify that a bit. Do you mean that you support the act of murder as a response to economic attrition? If so, why would you want to move away from it? If you think that the murder of another's family member is a good thing, then it must also be a good thing for your own family members to be murdered. Why would you want to run from something you see as a good thing?

Hopefully you just made a flub or had a random derailment of your train of thought.

[R3volver]

Wat?

You might want to clarify that a bit. Do you mean that you support the act of murder as a response to economic attrition? If so, why would you want to move away from it? If you think that the murder of another's family member is a good thing, then it must also be a good thing for your own family members to be murdered. Why would you want to run from something you see as a good thing?

Hopefully you just made a flub or had a random derailment of your train of thought.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVaz8ZZxoxo