Media Spin

Ok, here’s the deal:

Mainstream media (owned by the rich and powerful, and paid by large corporations via advertising) caters to their ‘customers’ by providing data that is erroneous and scary, through ‘filters’ that we cannot see on the tube. Spin Alley is a witches brew of cunning. Twist the truth enough, change the rhetoric, and the meaning takes on new forms.

Create a ‘catalyst of consumption’ and people will consume. The ignorant person, full of fear, will run every which way. Buy parachutes to jump out of buildings when the ‘terrorists attack’!

The fact is, you turn on the t.v and you see Michael Jackson in his pajamas when thousands upon thousands are dying in the Sudan. North Korea is building nukes. I could name a dozen other ‘evil empires’. But it’s Martha Stewart, MJ, and Iraq–a nation which never posed a real threat.

Turn on the Comedy Channel on cable or HBO and you find the guys who have been thrown off the major networks for telling the truth, and what do you hear? The real news.

I guess what I mean is that the only way to get ‘true news’ in the US now is to turn the glass to HBO or Comedy Central and listen to the real voice. That of Jon Stewart (who recently got Crossfire cancelled due to his brilliancy) or Bill Maher (who reveals more about the issues than any news network).

The fact that you have to go to HBO in order to get true facts is disturbing…and it’s only a matter of time before the administration shuts that down too, or puts a bullet in his back.

I wonder if Bill Maher’s car is bulletproof.

I hope so, because without people like him, Ralf Nader, M Moore, and others… there would be no dialogue. There would be no truth. It would become a grey zone of ignorance and blind obedience. It would become diametrically opposed to what America stands for. Freedom, and the right to speak.

Meaning that the media has become a tool for the corporations. The politicians in their pockets.

[quote=“tokki1”]Ok, here’s the deal:

Mainstream media (owned by the rich and powerful, and paid by large corporations via advertising) caters to their ‘customers’ by providing data that is erroneous and scary, through ‘filters’ that we cannot see on the tube. Spin Alley is a witches brew of cunning. Twist the truth enough, change the rhetoric, and the meaning takes on new forms.[/quote]

Hi Tokki1. I think you will find this article right up your alley:

A Very Short History of Neoconservatism
by Eric Alterman, for MediaTransparency.org
mediatransparency.org/neocons.php

Actually, you’ll find a lot of good stuff at mediatransparency.org, but my favorite is cursor.org (heaps of useful links).

More relevant to your topic (of news media manipulation), there’s this:

Fake news networks
When news organizations peddle government propaganda
news-journalonline.com/NewsJ … 040505.htm

cheers,
DB

I watched that episode of Crossfire when Jon Stewart was on it. His points were correct and it was so funny to see other major news people agree with him or talk about it. I used to like that show and watch all the time, same with alot of other news shows. But its become the same thing. No one ever takes blame for something. They all spin it, rather than just stand up and bite the bullet they blame something or someone else. Watching Rummy discuss Iraq is hilarious, he never answers the question (most are simple) instead he distracts to something else. When the soldiers questioned him about the armor plating, he blamed the makers of the vehicles. Yet they came out and said they could increase production but werent given the go ahead. Why couldnt he have just said, “we made an error in judgement and thought we had enough, we will order more”. These are the people he is supposed to be in charge of and he cant even give them a straight answer. There are no tough questions at any press conference because the reporters are hand picked, and dont ask anything that makes the administration look bad. Its a joke.

Even worse than all of the above is when the right wing attack the few brave journalists who are doing their job:

Reality bites: The right-wing smear on photojournalists
pnionline.com/dnblog/attytoo … 01686.html

Another little gem of a web site:
Big Media Hall of Shame
freepress.net/hallofshame/

Tokki –

The fascinating thing about Bush is that he got such a free ride during the initial stages of his presidency, contrary to all the moaning and whining that there might possibly be a “media bias.” If there was a media bias, Bush would never have gotten the benefit of the doubt essential to allowing him to use the post 9-11 world for partisan political advantage. Sure, everybody was willing to give him a bit of trust in those early days… despite the radical fiscal policy (spendlikeacrackwhorinomics), despite the utter lack of adequate equipment going to our troops, despite the complete lack of a reasonable connection between invading Iraq and U.S. security interests. WMDs anybody?

The media simply didn’t bother asking the tough questions in those days because they thought that when America has its back against a wall and when the chips are down, we should cut the president a lot of slack. Well, we can see where that got us. Lots of softball questions later, and the White House felt it was free to insert Gannon/Guckert into the White House press pool.