Theyâve been selling fear for decades.
Theyâve been selling mistrust for years, too
So⌠In order to report truth âŚ
We just need to pay you guys more than youâre already getting âŚ
Got it ! â
And when we pay more⌠the liars will counter with more ⌠and weâll end up in an endless cycle geared to make the media rich â
Nice to know the truth has become a commodity ---- But⌠we already knew that â
Wasnât his point that news has become a commodity? For years we had newspapers â who were for profit of course but where mostly local and with little competition â and the three networks. The networks operated their news divisions as public services from which they did not expect to make profits. The local affiliates, again usually only 3, operated a lot like the local newspapers.
But this all changed with the 24 hour news channels and the desire to wring profitâs from all divisions. Fox News saw a niche to fill feeding propaganda to a reliably culpable audience, started taking viewers and suddenly news was a commodity and very competitive. This brought about the âif it bleeds, it leadsâ mentality and here we are.
I was attempting some specificity ⌠oh well ⌠
Look, once the news became a commodity, which it did with the advent of television, which held the line for awhile when we were just using the public airways, then the news no longer was as interested in telling the truth as it was in a compelling narrative. Weâve moved all the way over into everything being unreal, now, because it is straight up entertainment. Thatâs how Trump happened - heâs unreal; heâs the product of TV and he is so far being a reality show president and I expect that wonât change. And reality show is a lie, because itâs not real.
Heâs not real, our journalism isnât real and nothing is about reality - itâs about created reality and a very shallow one.
and frankly that has become true of most of our institutions and thatâs because everything became valued only in terms of money and when that happens all real value leaves a society. Thatâs what is wrong with all of it - our medical system - itâs a a sham based on profit; our legal system - once those sponsors names started showing up everywhere in the 80s and we started wearing labels on the outside of our clothes we were fucking doomed to this. Thank you Ronald Reagan. All roads leading to our ruin lead right back to Reagan.
Reaganâs the one who put the most of this into policy âŚ
But the seeds of it started earlier ---- IMHO â
No doubt they did - thereâs rarely one clear path from a beginning to a disaster.
Yeah, the problem is that most journalists arenât allowed to be activists even if they want to be. Most of the editors and publishers in the main stream media outlets will either kill or severely weaken any report that might get them into any trouble with their corporate sponsors. Also, any story that doesnât have enough âclick baitâ potential will likely get killed as well. How are journalists supposed to be activists when any legitimate story they try to write just gets killed or watered down to the point of being irrelevant?
I agree - itâs obviously not necessarily the journalists so much as it is the broadcasters and publishers.
This leader of business said, most infamously, âIt may not be good for America, but itâs damn good for CBS.â
BINGO!
News media, especially the broadcasting kind, has been restructured as infotainment, and hired the sort of people who fit with that programming. I donât think we can expect much form that crop of âjournalistsâ. They just donât have it inâem.
Yeah all form no substance. hahahahaha
I can no longer trust or watch the news once CNNâs far right CEO Jeff Zucker hired and defended hiring Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski is crook and flat out liar (agent) working for Trump and white nationalism movement. Zucker, a Jew, should obviously know better. Instead, Zucker fired Donna Brazile for sharing one possible debate question. Meanwhile, Lewandowski gave Trump all the CNN debate questions in advance.
The big 5 Media conglomerates are all run by very conservative Republicans like Zucker and Rupert Murdoch. Shame on these Jews for supporting white nationalism.
Once Hispanics, Blacks, and Muslim
are neutralized by Trump and his goons,
Zucker and his people will be next!
Jeff Zucker needs to spend some time at Aushwitz and contemplate US white nationalism under Trump, Bannon, Manafort, and Lewandowski - they hate Jews too!
Activists for media literacy, the foundation of which is critical thinking.
Music to my ears. I think this is the nut of why Trump won and to oversimplify it, Democrats have failed at media literacy and understanding how to speak to the people and the people have lost the ability or want to think critically about their future and the options open to them. At the nut of both of course, is a failed media who feels the first amendment gives them a right to profit, rather than a responsibility to inform the citizenry.
The points made in the comments essentially cover the central problem with
the communication structure for Public Discourse: news as a commodity, profit, corporate control.
I have yet to come upon any workable ideas how to change this road block to Democracy.
Neil Postman, a communications Professor at NYU, wrote a book in the 1980âs, during Reaganâs reign,
entitled: âAmusing Ourselves to DeathâPublic Discourse in the Age of Show
Businessâ. Postman argued that TV has a bias toward entertainment. He goes on to describe itâs impact on Public Discourse. Here we are todayâfrom a movie star to a TV entertainment starâstill amusing ourselves as a culture.
It might be reasonable to argue that TWITTER, as its end use in political discourse, has a bias toward the insult
and that FACEBOOK has a bias toward fake newsâanything that entertains. Any ideas how to get out of this
entertainment prison which infects our political Public Discourse?
I personally donât think much will change it short of a cataclysm. The structure of how we get news and what the people who are giving it to us want in return for that has to change.
Same as our medical system - itâs a huge con for profit and until the profit motive is either destroyed or at least reined in, it wonât change either.
How sad it is that, staying with thuglican tradition, that herr drumpf may be the best of the known three alternatives.
The terms of succession are drumpf, pence and ryan
A sociopath, an christianist ideolog, or an Ayn Rand disciple.
It is sad when the socioapath (psychopath lines get blurry) egomaniac beyond question is the best of three alternatives.
Requiem en Pacem
Obvious stuff.
like what an earthquake?
anyone who cant find out âthe newsâ by using the internet and avoiding the MSMâŚjust isnt trying very hardâŚsince you claim to know where and why the news happensâŚwhy not enlighten the peasants?
especially regarding those places who dont PROFIT from itâŚoff hand i can think of ZERO such placesâŚlol
Journalists ??? Where are they to be found ??? There wonât be many of those claiming to be journalists that donât have the odor of right-wing propaganda on them and the guilt of misleading millions of citizens.
Now, they are and should be worried that the new administration will come for them. You havenât been able to believe much of what these âjournalistsâ passed along to the masses for the last sixteen or seventeen months but you know âTrump said or tweeted itâ so it must be newsworthy. You know he is Mister Trump and not that lyinâ untrustworthy Hillary. Everybody is sayinâ itâŚjust everybody.
Now the greatest obvious secret of the campaign is being made public. Mister Trump didnât really mean any of the things he said. Now we know that all of those promises werenât promises at allâŚthey were just suggestions or random thoughts or yoofan-isms (whatever those are). People should not have taken his diatribes literally or seriously. All of those comments came out of his ass in the moment and were lies never to be considered real.
Those comments were projected by ALL of the media as reality at the same time saying they were not responsible for fact checking. A pretty sweet money-making setup they had at least until either Trump or the masses come for a reckoning. I hope they televise that.