Wow, this last post of yours causes me to genuflect now, and I appreciate the words you've typed here and after I was so snarky.
You really are trying to help, and that is cool. Thanks.
Originally posted by jdub297
When you post (i.e., "publish"), you are in effect dealing in information. If an art dealer or rug dealer is shown to be selling fakes, how
long will he stay in business, and how would that affect the value of his "inventory?" A legitimate "dealer" of anything valuable will ALWAYS
verify its provenance. Fail or cut corners and you risk dealing in (posting) fakes.
This is a good point. I am wondering how your words relate to a non-Wiki/YT source, say, The Boston Globe in 2004:
In 2004, the Globe apologized for printing graphic photographs that purportedly showed U.S.
soldiers raping Iraqi women during the Iraq war. A week earlier the pictures had been shown by World Net Daily to be fantasies from an internet
pornography site.
Here I am posting to ATS, by quoting Wikipedia, to reminded ATS members of a seriously historically embarrassing moment for a major New York-owned
media channel called The Boston Globe. I'm guessing that in this case, Wiki trumps the Globe and the New York presses that run it? That is to ask:
"Who watches the watchmen?" Do you agree with my answer in that these powerful news-titans (now falling and dying) are sometimes kept honest or in
check by YT and Wikipedia?
Followup: Do you support that loss of credibility/status for a journalist who doesn't check his YT or Wiki links?
Only if the result is misinformation. Since it's easily avoided, there is no excuse for 'dealing in fakes' unless you intend to
deceive.
Then, hopefully, you get what you deserve.
This also applies to the events above of 2004, where a major newspaper seriously screwed up as quoted above. What was the cause of that disastrous
error? ...And perhaps they WERE trying to "deal in fakes" because they wanted to show the troops in a bad light.
That seems pretty egregious, I'd say. Where can Wikipedia or YT screw up on such a global scale as did the Globe?
Also it seems that YT and Wiki are maybe .01% as powerful as the unions which control the New York and Boston presses and news behemoths. Also, these
press giants serve as obstacles to grassroots politics, wouldn't you agree?
Editorial page
At the Boston Globe, as is customary in the news industry, the editorial pages are separate from the news operation. Editorials represent the
official view of the Boston Globe as a community institution. The publisher P. Steven Ainsley reserves the right to veto an editorial and
usually determines political endorsements for high office.
Describing the political position of the Globe in 2001, editorial-page editor Renee Loth told the Boston University alumni magazine:
The Globe has a long and proud tradition of being a progressive institution, especially on social issues. We are pro-choice; we're against the death
penalty; we're for gay rights. But if people read us carefully, they will find that on a whole series of other issues, we are not knee-jerk. We're
for charter schools; we're for any number of business-backed tax breaks. We are a lot more nuanced and subtle than that liberal stereotype does
justice to.
I am wondering where YT or Wiki will ever obtain the political and financial clout/power equal to this single American paper and the money behind it.
I think recently they asked their union for a 5% pay cut and this was a problem? Forgive me while I laugh uproariously.
Just look at the state of the "mass media" or MSM. They are dying and terrified. They are looking for tax-exempt status and bailouts. Government
is trying to crack dowm; just Google what the UK, Canada, China and Australia have done in the past year. Even in the U.S., people like Rockefeller
and Immelt are fearful of the internet generally and bloggers/uploaders specifically.
If the FCC re-adopts the "(un-)Fairness Doctrine", it will not be long before those threatened by free speech and open-minded thinking will call for
similar regulation of the Internet.
Big Brother IS watching. And scared by what he sees.
I see, and hear.
I do not fear the FCC, and I believe all newspapers in the US could shut down with little to no loss of actual truth. They are smokescreens, and yes,
you are right to have called me paranoid earlier. Having general citizens print news off their inkjet printers would be a better way to actually get
truth out there, imo. To borrow your analogy, where news is compared to works of art? Well, TRUTH is a work of art, and I think it comes from
individuals, through small efforts, and NOT through corporations.
Perhaps we are at different poles on this subject, but I feel the newspapers are diversionary FIRST and informative second. So this is where you'd
need to give me some hope that the powers which control the MSM actually do want to provide news to us. I guess I'd need you to convince me that
there is a newspaper in America worth reading. And I started reading the newspaper daily at age 5, cover to cover. For years it was my news source
because I was in an American church that was scared of "alternative info" and their members are kept in mental prisons. Of course, they do allow
newspapers to be read by their members, but this church would see YT and Wiki as being much more dangerous than The Globe, for example. Oh and this
church I was raised in also produced Dwight Eisenhower though he had left that church at age 20 or so, to join the Army. It's an American
institution of religious propaganda, this church of which I speak. They wrote and globally published (in hundreds of languages no less) a book called
"The Truth That Leads to Everlasting Life". I'm not sure if they checked their sources.
If YT spreads lies, they are in direct competition with MSM, no?
In a perverse way, MSM sees YT as taking away their 'soapbox.' Wouldn't you agree that before YT, the MSM had a monopoly on spreading lies to the
public?
[...]
In my jaded opinion, the larger the potential audience, the greater the temptation to push an agenda. Authors in narrow fora (trade magazines,
professional journals, educational webinars, seminars, lectures) have little motive to fudge, and not much chance of starting a wave. On the other
hand, a national audience almost guarantees word-of-mouth and third-party coverage so that a message, true or not, is more likely to become "common
knowledge."
This makes sense. I see now that you know the MSM does lie to us at times. I am understanding your point better now, thanks.
p.s.: Your last post reveals a 'statement-question' style that indicates interview expeience. You write and publish. School paper? Newsletter?
E-zine?
My experience came at the doorsteps of thousands of Americans whom it was my duty to offer "hope" to, through the aforementioned propagandic efforts
of a church which converted my parents and raised me.
When one is raised to militantly hand propaganda and to believe that one is involved with "truth", it is quite a revelation to accept the collapse
of that worldview. After I left to find my own way, I stopped preaching to anybody an started learning everything I could. My learning path was
drastically altered by the events of the morning of 9/11.
Since 9/11/2001, ATS has been the only place I've posted my thoughts for the past 8 years. I've not written anywhere else nor have I tried to coin
money from my words. I work with computers for a living as an IT dude.
I only respect alternative media. I have no respect for any channels except those that are person-to-person. I suppose I could see myself as a paid
blogger like the types which the MSM is trying to raise up now, these paid bloggers and such. But I don't see myself selling out to a paycheck
because then I'd have to deal with an editor, which means submitting to the political bridle as The Globe describes on their Wikipedia page. Why
would I allow an editor to wrangle me?
I would say the best journalist I've seen recently was the guy who killed himself,
Gary Webb. Now
if we are going to go into a discussion of relevance, I'd say it's a damn shame this particular reporter, is dead. That guy was probably the only
journalist of my lifetime, that I really read about and liked.
On December 10, 2004, he was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head.[19] Sacramento County coroner Robert Lyons determined that it was
suicide. Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, said that Webb had been depressed for some time over his inability to get a job at another major
newspaper.
So if I were to become a MSM writer, I'd take his same path and do the sort of death-risk reporting he did. He died with integrity, and was a better
human than 95% of the people in the news game. Could I keep from getting as severely depressed? Maybe not, but either way, this man stands head and
shoulders above everyone in that trade, begging for their dollars. He got shut out and killed. There's your battle-lines.
This is a war, but only the people at the top, know that.
Thanks jw for your efforts to get through to me, and your thread here is fleshing out nicely thanks to your post here. I understand better now, and I
thank you for that.
[edit on 10-5-2009 by smallpeeps]
