Much ado about nothing

The way news media operates is that a news-item comes up, is hyped for a day or a week, reaches a peak-hype and then dies off again with people loosing interest. And the whole cycle is repeated with thousands of news-items, all the time. Overwhelmed with information the public sometimes finds it hard to to focus on what would be of substance and importance to mankinds well-being.

The quicker it dies off, the less substantial it must have been - and yet, while it is on the news it is treated as if it were the big thing that everyone should be worried about. A good example would be the swine flu which had Tabloid-ish mass-media and alternative-media/Blogosphere (like this site) jumping around in frenzied Hysteria of how the end is nigh - and yet today it is clear that it was much ado about nothing.

Its too bad that the crowds (of Blogosphere and Alternative-Press) imitate the puppet-masters of the mass-media where it is more important to have sensationalized post-headlines than anything of long-lasting substance and impact to communicate. In these cases, the prime motivator is to get attention and money (mass-media) or to just get attention (Blogosphere), not really to inform, educate or learn.

In other cases, one seeks to project indignant rage rather than discuss, solve, heal, find out, learn, inform. Some people do nothing other than seek evidence of some group being evil and as soon as such evidence is seemingly posted they go straight to that thread to practice their indignant outcry - no matter if the opening-post actually contains evidence or not. Its a pathetically sad sight to behold. And if they cant find a thread to vilify their particular hate-group then they`ll try to turn posts of other topics into their pet topic.

The most annoying trait of the "journalism" of mass-media, which again is parroted by non-journalists on sites like this, is to make a mountain out of a molehill.

The relentless severity with which this is practiced in mass-media and also by the "normal folk" is a detriment to the values of truth, honesty and integrity and in accumulation an attack on the sanity of mankind. Taking something small and overblowing it to mean something big, or taking 0.1% and acting like it represents what things are like in general = hardcore distortion and manipulation. Synonyms and Relatives:

Cherry Picking
Magnification (a cognitive distortion in Psychology)
Catastrophization
Overreaction
Misleading Vividness
Stretching the Truth
Overemphasizing
Overwhelming Exception
Deceptive Inflation
Thought-Terminating-Cliche
Quote mining
Confirmation Bias
Hasty Generalization

From the page on "Misleading Vividness" I love this example because it shows that even while someone is speaking "the truth" and expressing is "valid opinion" that is suppsedly "just as valid as others opinions" he can actually be causing gross distortions of reality:

Anne: "I am giving up extreme sports now that I have children. I think I will take up golf."

Bill: "I wouldn't do that. Do you remember Charles? He was playing golf when he got hit by a golf-cart. It broke his leg, and he fell over, giving himself a concussion. He was in hospital for a week and still walks with a limp. I would stick to paragliding!"

How many pieces of information have you read that, in the grand scheme of your life, turned out to be useless or just a bunch of hot air or even turned out to be hoaxes or temporary hypes? How much of your gullible trust in information was actually orchestrated by the unseen hand of marketing experts? Have you ever exaggerated facts in order to gain attention?

Information can arouse Emotion. Emotion leads to Action. If the Information-Input was false the Action-Output is deterimental. If Information A was "It is Gods will to shoot all members of group X" and counter-Information B was "Look at that - Religious people are murderers" you have two pieces of false information, lots of emotional arousal and eventual Action that will be detrimental to the sanity and survival of mankind.

To which extent news-media and "information-media" is much ado about NOTHING you realize when you go on vacation for a few weeks and there is no TV, no satellite-connection, no Internet, no Newspapers. You are not bombareded by the daily helping of doom and gloom and start feeling better. Then you come back home and in that moment, before re-entering the world of Information, you can see it. Much of it seems laughable. "Whats all the fuss about?"

Life is more than Information and Pixels.

Related Threads

What if the Internet is the Conspiracy

Internet and the Information Crisis

The imbecile and his dumb Generalizations

The attention game

[edit on 9-5-2010 by Skyfloating]

"He hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how."

~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 1.1~

We expect fair and unbiased news when it has never been so, and likely never will be.

"In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 1.1~

Where the media relies mightily on their right to publish, they have endeavored even more mightily to have your rights taken away. What goes around, sadly comes around.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1~

The press has no beard, they are cleanly shaven

"Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1~

If one cares to be entertained, then enjoy the news, if one cares to be informed, they must inform themselves.

"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.3~

Sigh no more humanity, sigh no more, as the press were deceivers ever, - one foot in the yellow sea and one on blood stained shore, to one thing constant never.

"When I do name him, let it by thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit:"

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 3.1~

Oh how they play their part, and praise those who never one did merit.

"Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 3.1~

And lay their traps with words.

"Your daughter here the princes left for dead, Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed"

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1~

"He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day When the New York Times said God is dead And the war's begun..."

Levon by Bernie Taupin

"She dying, as it must be so maintain'd, Upon the instant that she was accus'd, Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd Of every hearer"

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 4.1~

They will vilify until they are dead, then sing their eternal praises.

"O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 4.2~

And what joy anonymity in this day and age of non existent privacy, for surely we are all asses, and best it not be written down.

"I say thou has belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart, And she lies buried with her ancestors-- O! in a tomb where never scandal slept, Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villainy!"

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 5.1~

If you can't speak well of the dead, then slander them, for they can not sue.

"I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light..."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 5.1~

Bless the shallow fools, each and every one.

"One Hero died defil'd, but I do live, And surely as I live, I am a maid."

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 5.4~

The press will not stop until heroes are either defiled properly, or reduced to maids.


[edit on 9-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Skyfloating

The way news media operates is that a news-item comes up, is hyped for a day or a week, reaches a peak-hype and then dies off again with people loosing interest.

Great OP.

I think the the MSM mediums are not the only ones to blame for manufacturing
emotions or opinion in relation to topics. People are now doing it to themselves.

With many MSM sources, usually only the core audiences that participated with a particular source took the opinion or emotional responses manufactured by NEWS media and such, but now they are also reflecting or reacting to online content as well.
Like the millions of you tube videos getting outraged at FOX content for example, when other wise they would never watch that content.
Also, some programs now are being sourced by a new generation of audiences that will get outraged or emotional about a topic purely because it is outrageous or emotive in nature. They are exposed to this by sources like Youtube and Blogs now. Then if it becomes viral, it will be sourced by NEWS mediums due to a popularity.

So we now have MSM or other media sources that are purely contemporary as news content because there content spills outside of their core audiences, its core audience usually accepts this content, but this new audience that is outraged by content it usually does not seek spills into MSM sources purely because it outrages and grabs attention.
The MSM then reports on this outrage making it news, and so exploiting this "outrage" at every opportunity. This fuels more out rage and the cycle continues.

We see this all the time now, News sources reporting on particular entertainment, TV or radio sources that have specific audiences that accept at content, but it get spread virally on the net or blogs and opinion pieces, to outrage an audience that would normally not engage that material in the first instance.

What is alarming to me is that people then try and censor or sanction sources of content that outrages them, content they would not usually subscribe to or engage themselves with. They have only done so in these instances when the "outrage" is manufacture purely by it becoming news worthy to the MSM, popular on youtube etc who have flogged it due to that very fact.

Great Post. S and F

edit to add a bit.





[edit on 9-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
If one cares to be entertained, then enjoy the news, if one cares to be informed, they must inform themselves.

Thanks for taking the time and care to prepare such a well-layed-out post. I have nothing at all to add to it. One good post counter-measures 100 poor posts.

Originally posted by Derised Emanresu
What is alarming to me is that people then try and censor or sanction sources of content that outrages them, content they would not usually subscribe to or engage themselves with. They have only done so in these instances when the "outrage" is manufacture purely by it becoming news worthy to the MSM, popular on youtube etc who have flogged it due to that very fact.

Im always overjoyed to meet people who can see this.

Because overall people still widely think that they are damaging someone by giving them negative press or stirring up controversy, when that is what actually gets that someone fame and fortune in the first place.

Outrage sells but in the end, nothing is solved by it, nothing at all. If anything it perpetuates the issue.

This is how the game has been played since thousands of years and continues to be played, to this day and even right here at this site that was probably originally meant to expose the game.

lol Let's dictate so much behaviour method that everyone is put on eggshells! These are only the traditions and rules of man, put into a dictatorial format, drawing on endless psycology, formatted to suit the pride of the effete intellectual and bolster divisive measures which promise, over time, to tear rifts across this community.

Under your zenith, Leave a little room to breath please. You seem to expect all people here to adopt the over-pleasing capacities you describe, and no eggagerations required, you will eventually cause only problems with such strictured standards. Eventually, the cliques that are left will have half the population on ignore, and many important points of information will be lost on their ears.

Even if you see some problems, be more tolerant. People change and grow; it's called living. People have bad days and good days, it's an easy matter to pre-judge. The criteria listed in the OP is so far overblown, that I suddenly feel like I'm posting on an office building bulletin board. Should I put memo in my title, and desk number too?!

We're already under 600,000 rules in society, and three-quarters of them should be considered as red tape wrapping overblown litigation. Hopefully people will consider how many regulations they want to add to their fellow members. After that OP, I seriously question how speech is here.

[edit on 9-5-2010 by Northwarden]

reply to post by Skyfloating


True.
I suppose its whats called speculative press.
News gets old, and the papers want to exchange their glossy rags for some of that green paper.. Money.
Hence todays media celebrity press constantly one-up'ing each other.
Good reporting goes right out the window at the first mention of "Paris Hiltons new shoes."

Yet these storys can be recycled over and over again whilst, as an arguement and good point - benifiting the clothing industry etc.

But is that really news?
If anything its elaborate marketing.

Real news in my oppinion concerns current events.
As said, last years Swine- flu polarization did get tedious but like any common flu, it waned.

The media metacentre mentions news as it see's fit. And its down to the editors decisions on what is news.
I think this creates so many holes in world-wide issues, its hard to believe what is of severe importance.

For instance, the resent passing of the president of Nigeria.
On the internet, one page on BBC's website.
In news papers, a small paragraph on one of the later pages.

Another example, the Death of the Polish president, who was killed along with the mature members of their goverment in a plane crash.
Fair enougth, it was coverd extensively.
But now he's been buried, what about the aftermath in Poland?
Whats the closure to the story?

Instead of closure, the Majority of the main stream media moves on.

Were left in the dark unless we choose to persue a story ourselfs.
While the press report on the next termoil they think relevant, that'll sell papers.

On ATS, there is that esculating void that molds into the current established topic, thats then pulled in the direction of the thoughts of the writer, where simple facts may be lost or even incorporated to other storys, cherry picking whats of relevance to their viwes.

When the media makes a mountin out of a molehill, the public perceive that as the ''Everest'' of all mountins.
Then when time has passed we look back on what we were told and think...

"How stupid was I to believe that."

S + F!

Originally posted by Skyfloating


Im always overjoyed to meet people who can see this.

Me too.

Because overall people still widely think that they are damaging someone by giving them negative press or stirring up controversy, when that is what actually gets that someone fame and fortune in the first place.

You raise one of the biggest issues that drives the problems pointed out in your OP. This is that profit( you use the examples of fame and fortune) is seen as one of the fundamental driving forces generated by MSM or exposure to it or from it. Even more alarmingly is that it is seen as the only way that MSM can ensure its own independence.

Unfortunately, it has the exact opposite effect. Instead of the NEWS being determined by significance or importance, it is linked to profit. So the NEWS is never independent because the fundamental principle behind most non-state sponsored MSM organizations, is profit.

And you hit it on the head here:

Outrage sells but in the end, nothing is solved by it, nothing at all. If anything it perpetuates the issue.

Nothing is solved because the issues addresses are non-events. What is solved by a celebrity divorce being discussed by news anchors on the 6p.m. bulletin?

This is how the game has been played since thousands of years and continues to be played, to this day and even right here at this site that was probably originally meant to expose the game.

The problems we didn't have a few decades ago, was the massive MSM corps. The model that profit drives media independence has destroyed independent media to the point that the Net looked like it would maintain a last frontier for true independent journalism, thought and opinion in news and media sources.
I think I read a thread where the sites owner vented frustrations at the politics of lobbyists and the MSM trying to prevent sites like ATS from generating revenue from advertisers. Profit drives competing sources to destroy other competitors for market share, by proxy this destroys independence by destroying diversity of news sources and opinion. This also destroys the consumers choices and options.

Here is a link to James Murdoch' (son of Media Giant Rupert) who gave the Mctaggart Speech in the U.K last year. There are some interesting quotes that I think relate to some of the issues you raise in the OP.

You don’t need to scratch the surface very hard to see that opportunities for media businesses are limited, investment and innovation are constrained, and creativity is reduced.

Which is why we have the same old same old. Especially so when profit as independence is the mantra.

The right path is all about trusting and empowering consumers.

People want to trust their news sources. That is why it needs to be impartial. How this is achieved independently via a philosophy of profit, seems absurd. If this was the case, we would see news and information simply delivered as is, but instead we get it presented intertwined with opinion or commentary along with emotional responses or reactions from caricatures, personalities or stereotypes that represent a mainstream view on nearly all topics. It is also why we get crap reality shows, contests and the cult of celebrity. None of which empowers individual's IMHO.

It is about embracing private enterprise and profit as a driver of investment, innovation and independence. And the dramatic reduction of the activities of the state in our sector.

We see how good that works in the examples pointed to in your OP.

Often the unique position that the business of ideas enjoys in a free society is used as a justification for greater intrusion and control. On the contrary, its very specialness demands an unusual and vigorous… stillness.

What James is referring to here and in the last quote , in my humble opinion, is self regulation. But like all other profit driven mechanism, self regulation is not independent from the very foundations of its philosophy, which is to make a profit. This encourages, dare I say drives the source to maintain a partial view on topics in order to attract or maintain its audience to maintain, protect or increase a profit. When a winning formula is found, it is rehashed, recycled.
We can see the failings in the above beliefs in the problems you mention in the OP.

Murdoch' opinion is an insight into the free marketeers that formulate a package and repackage limited information to capitalize on a market share in order to profit regardless, all at the expense of the consumers they claim to empower with more choices of the same old things.

Thanks for the reply Sky.



[edit on 9-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

Originally posted by Northwarden

Even if you see some problems, be more tolerant. People change and grow; it's called living. People have bad days and good days, it's an easy matter to pre-judge. The criteria listed in the OP is so far overblown, that I suddenly feel like I'm posting on an office building bulletin board. Should I put memo in my title, and desk number too?!

We're already under 600,000 rules in society, and three-quarters of them should be considered as red tape wrapping overblown litigation. Hopefully people will consider how many regulations they want to add to their fellow members. After that OP, I seriously question how speech is here.

You`ll be surprised to learn that I have no objection to your suggestions. Devising rules and regulations on how to post is the furthest thing from my mind.

Originally posted by Esrom Escutcheon Esquire
For instance, the resent passing of the president of Nigeria.
On the internet, one page on BBC's website.
In news papers, a small paragraph on one of the later pages.

Another example, the Death of the Polish president, who was killed along with the mature members of their goverment in a plane crash.
Fair enougth, it was coverd extensively.
But now he's been buried, what about the aftermath in Poland?
Whats the closure to the story?

I didnt even know the President of Nigerias name not to mention that he died.

I did keep up with the aftermath in Poland. The Polish are traumatized like Americans were after 9/11 - but especially in America Poland is long forgotten.

Amazing. We are presented with so much noise that keeping up with both Poland and Nigeria seems too much - not to mention any behind-the-scenes action that may have occured.

Even today when everything is public you can pull a fast one without the world noticing, because attention-spans are short.

I always enjoy when really well-written but old threads get pulled back up here, honoring the fact that we do not know all there is to know on a particular issue.

reply to post by Derised Emanresu




[edit on 9-5-2010 by Skyfloating]

This whole notion that people should be able to trust their news sources is perhaps the single greatest problem with news media and its readers/viewers. The problem is not that a news source can't be trusted, the problem is that those who turn to that news source thinks it should be trusted. Because of this unreasonable demand, some sort of impossible standard is placed upon news sources, where the personal view point of the journalist is somehow supposed to stay out of the news story. A news story that presents just the facts, and nothing but the facts, but even more is the expectation that news is expected to operate without any concern for profits.

The irony of blaming all that is considered wrong with news on profits, is that those making such a complaint expect "impartial" news, even though their own arguments against profit driven news is hardly impartial, and certainly rife with opinion. So, where those who would impose these impossibly rigid standards on news are entitled to their opinions, the news apparently is not. What makes this particular bent even more frustrating is the perpetual canard thrust upon us, that just a few decades ago, the news actually did adhere to these impossible standards. Never mind the fact that Walter Conkrite, "the most trusted man in America", used his own bias to declare the Vietnam conflict lost after the Tet offensive, or that the military found as strong, if not stronger, adversary in the U.S. media, than it did in the Viet Cong, those were the golden days of news, that followed a fabled gold standard that just never existed.

The fairy tale of the unbiased journalist is largely told by those who agreed with the left wing bent the U.S. media had at that time. While today, they bemoan the "profit motive", they seemingly have no problem at all that news was profitable back then, it just didn't fairly represent anyone who disagreed with that bent. Staying with the Vietnam conflict, a U.S. military action I firmly believe should have never happened, but that it did should be of no doubt, and because it did, this meant American men were drafted and sent overseas to fight and die in this undeclared war. That they had to not only fight the Viet Cong, but a hostile media back home, is only made worse by the fact that their military efforts were grossly misrepresented. Consider Cronkite's own words following the Tet Offensive:

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could

After this scathing editorial, President Lyndon Johnson supposedly said:

"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Now consider Conkrite's own words in an interview with the U.S. Naval Institute Magazine in July of 2009:

Naval History: You said “show people what war is.” Is that the reason Braestrup criticized broadcast over print coverage? As a print journalist himself, he says they got it right, and you guys got it wrong, essentially.

Cronkite: Well, I disagree with that.

Naval History: He referred to you and Frank Magee of NBC, in particular.

Cronkite: He was talking mostly about my summary after Tet. That is the only editorial I’ve ever done on the air, other than those in defense of freedom of the press itself. No, I don’t think I had it wrong. Admittedly, it would appear that later evidence contained in North Vietnam – now that the North Vietnamese generals have talked about the war – shows that they had suffered severely and were not capable of mounting another offensive of that nature. While that would seem to indicate that Braestrup and other critics have it right, that I was signing off a little early, it ignores the fact that General Westmoreland was asking for something over 300,000 more men in order to put a finish to the war.

Well, we’d been hearing about this escalation of forces from the time we first sent troops under President Kennedy to help instruct the South Vietnamese Army. Our people were there only for purposes of instruction, originally. From that we’d escalated into this terrible mauling that the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army planned for us. I can’t see that we were wrong in reporting about that. If Westmoreland needed that many men to build his forces for an all-out attack on the enemy, then we were promised only another massive escalation in the face of crumbling support from an increasingly divided home front.

An increasingly divided home front that was facilitated, in a large part, by an increasingly hostile main stream media towards that military effort, that was by all historical accounts, winning, not loosing, nor facing a stalemate, but winning, that conflict. Again, I can't stress that my own personal opinion is that we should have never been mired in that conflict to begin with, and certainly not under the pretense of an undeclared war, I offer this information in an attempt to provide some balance to the fairy tale told that the media back than was unbiased, and can only do so from my personal point of view.

The media just never has been unbiased, and the fable told of time when they were noble, that bright and shining time when the Kennedy administration was dubbed Camelot by Jaqueline after his assassination and a willing media that ran with this inappropriate and completely un-American portrayal of a President who would be king, and oh how they lamented there would never be another Camelot again, and lament it still.

Indeed, the U.S. mainstream media smugly refers to itself as "The Fourth Estate", a distinctly European phrase where the First Estate would be the divine right of kings and queens, the Second Estate an aristocracy, the Third Estate the common people, and the Fourth Estate, separate from it all, the coolly observant reporters of the media. This insistence on using insidious terms such as Fourth Estate only contribute to this nonsensical class warfare, and certainly has given rise to the belief that main stream media has a distinct agenda, and it seemingly leans left. So, as long as that media leans left, then whatever profit they make apparently is fair enough to those who agree with that bent, but God forbid a news outlet that swings in the opposite direction make a profit, then the whole damn media is guilty of trying to make a profit and no one can be trusted anymore, as if they ever could.

When William Randolph Hearst, and others of his ilk were publishing newspapers, the term yellow journalism made its way into the lexicon, and before the advent of "official news" there were the pamphleteer's who clearly pushed an agenda, whether it be The Federalist Papers, or the Anti-Federalist Papers, to the earliest days when Vox Populii attacked the Spanish Marriage, and Mercurius Aulicus that was purely royalist propaganda, the news has always come with a bent, and the tooth fairy just doesn't exist.

There is NPR and PBS, which are not "profit driven" and while those stations may provide a valuable alternative to news, it is government sponsored news and should be no more trusted than anything owned by the Murdoch family today. People are free to believe in unicorns, and Shrek, and mystical times called Camelot if they wish, but this is also the time when news was considered to be unbiased, and even the hard hitting undercover news reporting of "WoodStein" came with a mysterious unnamed source called "Deep Throat" that years later turned out to be a high ranking FBI agent, who instead of doing what law enforcement officials are supposed to do and build a case for prosecution, let two reporters do his job for him, setting the dubious precedent of unnamed sources for trusted news.

Running a news organization costs money, and if it is to told by professionals, they deserve to be paid, and frankly I would like to choose my news propaganda in a free market, rather than be taxed to death to have that propaganda shoved down my throat as "trusted". The media has a right to profit just the same as anyone.

Hi Jean Paul.

I think your post is very interesting and you raise some great points in relation to the Media. I feel that you may have responded to some issues that I raise so I would like to discuss these with you.
I would like to preface my reply with the opinion that you seem to generalize some of your issues but I have used certain issues to explain specific points relating to the OP and the examples the OP uses. I actually refer to the OP, I related my responses to the issues the OP raises.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
This whole notion that people should be able to .........those who turn to that news source thinks it should be trusted.

I disagree JPZ (I hope you don't mind the initialism). How is it unreasonable to trust a service. This is a basic structure of society and creating consumer trust for any service provider is one of the key components, if not the most important relationship a service provider has with a consumer. This happens across the entire spectrum of services. I would like to know how you differentiate a NEWS or Media service with most other services. There is an expectation of trust and integrity in the delivery of any service. Just as we choose our news or media services for information etc, so too do we choose doctors or dentists for the information and expertise specific to their service. Trust carries uncertainty and vulnerability. So individuals don't just "trust" media or news service, they do so uncertainly. That is the nature of trust. It is that uncertainty that inspires a post like the OP's and replies like mine.

Why is it that the failing standard or poor quality, that the OP points out, is the fault of the consumer?
Especially given that the mantra of most media is that of its quality, honesty, that it is trustworthy and reliable, impartial and founded in integrity.
It is not a problem of unreasonable trust or expectation to ask that this mantra be lived up too.

Maybe the problem is that the Ideals or standards that we associate with the professional media is something that we also do with most other professions or industries in our community.
I don't think I will find you arguing that people should not expect to trust a doctor or an architect, and that they should get medical degrees themselves or build their own homes? Like you argue for with the issues of trust and expectation with the media.
I hope you don't find my comparisons unfair, I use them to point out the reason we have ideals or expect a standard in any industry as well as the media. Because we engage with it daily across the spectrum, the idea that we can or should trust media seems even more important.

The idea that we shouldhave a trust for any service is a reflection of a standard or an ideal that what we try to achieve. That the best quality of that service in any field will attract any consumer because it is a superior choice to any other competitor. Murdoch stresses that this is his purpose. What I point out in my reply to the OP is that the quality of the News or Media product cannot be achieved independently as a service itself because of a philosophy that this can only be achieved by profit. I clearly state that. This means the actual news service and content is partial to profit. The OP, again, is the evidence I use to show that this is not the case, and the OP sums it up concisely like this: "Outrage sells but in the end, nothing is solved by it, nothing at all. If anything it perpetuates the issue".

Because of this unreasonable demand, some sort of impossible standard is placed upon news sources, where the personal view point of the journalist is somehow supposed to stay out of the news story.

It is not news then is it. It is opinion.
Most news services are up to their eyeballs in editorials or opinion pieces already. Can we not have the facts first? Why is this an impossible standard?

On the "impossible standard" and "unreasonable demand". This expectation is generated by the media and news services themselves. They didn't just turn up and then say, "well all we have is opinion so don't go getting all fancy with your demands and expectations".

“The core of journalism is unbiased news coverage. If there is a crisis in this country, it is that this core is shrinking and it’s shrinking pretty rapidly. There’s not a lot of money in unbiased journalism -advertisers tend not to like that as an advertising environment - so there is less money that is supporting that. So this country is seeing less and less unbiased journalism and it is an impending crisis.”

- Former President of CBS News, Andrew Hayward, speaking at a Gotham Media seminar on July 10 2009.

The FOX News Channel is looking for experienced media professionals, journalists and support staff who understand what people want from today's news: More information, presented in a fair and balanced format.

careers.foxnews.com...

A news story that presents just the facts, and nothing but the facts, but even more is the expectation that news is expected to operate without any concern for profits.

Who said that on this thread?
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
- Mark Twain From Sea to Shining Sea

When the concern for profit drives the content, then we can get what the OP points out. My concern, which I clearly state, is that sections of the Media thinks it can only be independent via profit.
I have no problem with news services making money.

The irony of blaming all that is considered wrong with news on profits, is that those making such a complaint expect "impartial" news, even though their own arguments against profit driven news is hardly impartial,

You seem to be inventing an argument unrelated to the OP to make a point JPZ.
The irony of your opinion is that you have created a scenario in order to provide your opinion and bias, that is exactly what the OP criticizes.

or taking 0.1% and acting like it represents what things are like in general

post by Skyfloating

So, were those who would impose these impossibly rigid standards on news are entitled to their opinions, the news apparently is not.

Whoa! JPZ. Who has said that in this thread. The OP raises the issues of the type of content and its quality.

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

What makes this particular bent even more frustrating is the perpetual canard thrust upon us, that just a few decades ago, the news actually did adhere to these impossible standards.

I guess that must be frustrating. But why is that frustration being vented on a thread where no one actually makes that claim?

Never mind the fact that Walter Conkrite..... if not stronger, adversary in the U.S. media, than it did in the Viet Cong, those were the golden days of news, that followed a fabled gold standard that just never existed.

Really? I guess juxtaposed against a contemporary Media that failed in its duty to questions its administration when it lied to justify a war, this adversarial media of yesteryear does seem like a fable.
I disagree with your opinion that the Media was so adversarial while the Vietnam war was on. It was the Public and the anti-war movements that were given credibility by the large numbers of returned veterans that turned the media's opinion skeptical of the administration. Not to mention this public had a specific War Tax and a National Draft that added a direct effect( unlike Iraq which just adds on to the national debt).
I can site numerous examples of the MSM media being slack on events only to have small independent media breaking news events, like the My Lai massacre broken by Journalists like Seymour Hersh.
I read Prof. Daniel Hallin's The Uncensored War:The Media and Vietnam to get a different perspective on the media and these times.

While today, they bemoan the "profit motive", they seemingly have no problem at all that news was profitable back then, it just didn't fairly represent anyone who disagreed with that bent.

I would say that the motive that News can only be independent by profit is reflected in bad content and results in the examples the OP has offered and not that making a profit from a news service is bad. The fundamentals should be to provide a news service, IMHO, and not to simply generate content as "news" in order to profit. Again, I think the OP reflects traits of MSM news generating or manufacturing content purely because it translates into profit.

Staying with the Vietnam conflict....... but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could

Editorial pieces have that effect, don't they. Did Cronkite invent the issue? It was a contemporary and topical situation worthy of debate, was it not? This was an issue of national, and global significance. Was Crokites opinion piece making a mountain out of a mole hill? Did Cronkite take an insignificant issue or part thereof or manufacture that it was general to the overall issue to manufacture the national discontent or outrage that did not exist before hand?

After this scathing editorial, President Lyndon Johnson supposedly said:

"If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

I am glad you said supposedly, because that quote is a media myth, it is well reported as being a myth.

An increasingly divided home front that was facilitated, in a large part, by an increasingly hostile main stream media towards that military effort, that was by all historical accounts, winning, not loosing, nor facing a stalemate, but winning, that conflict.

Are you ignoring all the other aspects of the War. Cronkite is clear on his assessment of the situation. Why did you leave te introduction to Cronkites editorial out? This is what the OP refers to as Cherry picking, in his OP.

Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective.

But any way. I guess this is going off topic.

Again, ...... told that the media back than was unbiased, and can only do so from my personal point of view.

Who said they were unbiased? Who injected the fairy tale you keep referring?

Indeed, the U.S. mainstream media smugly refers to itself as "The Fourth Estate",

I refer to this in my post when I say that what is significant now is the massive MSM corporations that exist. I use Murdoch as the example. These are the MSM sources that are Profit first.

So, as long as that media leans left, then whatever profit they make apparently is fair enough to those who agree with that bent, but God forbid a news outlet that swings in the opposite direction make a profit, then the whole damn media is guilty of trying to make a profit and no one can be trusted anymore, as if they ever could.

My concern is the perception that independence in news is reliant on profit making. That this encourages content that makes a profit or creates a news service that cannot divorce the significance or relevance or the quality of its content from that very contents ability to be a mechanism that generates profit. The significance or relevance can become that of profit. I think the OP points this out. I don't care what side of the political fence you are on.

When William Randolph Hearst, .......attacked the Spanish Marriage, and Mercurius Aulicus that was purely royalist propaganda, the news has always come with a bent, and the tooth fairy just doesn't exist.

Yes. IMHO, Now it is worse and driven by a need to profit. But there are many great examples of pure investigative journalism created independently purely to inform the public as well. Come on JPZ, you know that. Lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.

There is NPR and PBS, which are not "profit driven" and while those stations may provide a valuable alternative to news, it is government sponsored news and should be no more trusted than anything owned by the Murdoch family today.

I think that we can see clear differences in the types of content and the issues addressed in the examples you uses when compared to the MSM sources that Murdoch operates. Are the NPR or PBS typical of the OP? Is that driven by profit? Are NPR and PBS only able to maintain the independence of their news service via profit making?

Running a news organization costs money, and if it is to told by professionals, they deserve to be paid,

Really? And that means we cannot expect or ask for a standard or expect professional journalism, not what the OP points out?

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

and frankly I would like to choose my news propaganda in a free market, rather than be taxed to death to have that propaganda shoved down my throat as "trusted". The media has a right to profit just the same as anyone.

Who has died from Taxes to pay for media JPZ? I think the OP refers to exaggerating issues.
Of course they are free to make a profit. Again, who is against that on this thread JPZ?
I prefer a mix of sources, free market MSM, small collectives of Independent Journalists, Government sponsored or subsidized media, Small websites or Independent Investigative Journalists who blog from political events or War Zones.
I don't believe any of these News or Media should be reliant only on profitability as the only means of being news, because it destroys that very independence. If we take the Free market as an example, it is concentrated and so are the issues and content, so is any bias, so are the range of opinions or researchers or journalists that they will use, and so is the philosophy that the driving concept that it is fundamental to that news service and anyone or thing associated with it is that it must sell, or profit.

This also has an effect on competing media, the accessibility or availability of alternatives, the quality and content and range of information, issues and opinions. And so the pool of media and news sources dwindles.

I think the OP points out the failings of this philosophy. Profit also relegates the editorial process to the advertisers or companies that subsidies shows that account for its profitability. That is why we have content rejected or deemed too controversial for publication or independent issues or opinions ignored or unrepresented. Which is why we see more of what the OP refers to. Which is why I believe news cannot be independent due to, or from profit nor should it be the only way media exists.





[edit on 10-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

reply to post by Skyfloating


I find thing old paranoid axiom to be the most significant when relating to information dissemination-TRUST NO ONE.

I will preface this as an analogy to a court room.

Let us say that in most courts, any evidence or statement made that is not argued, is to be presumed factual. One of the first things asked in any court case is the judge asking the defendant if they are guilty or not guilty.

Now, ask yourself in the context of my preface, is not arguing against this very question of guilt, an assertion by the court? Of course it is. The court is asserting it's very jurisdiction over the defendant, thanks JPZ. The next step would be for the court to ask if the prosecution (State) is ready for the trial.

Again, one must ask the truth of this very evidence that is being introduced as factual. Is the prosecutor the representative of the State or if the State is even a legal entity that can bring the very case against the defendant. In other words, is the defendant even liable for the jurisdictional statement that the State exists?

Now, that my preface has been forwarded, I ask this VERY important question.

The media presented as news, is it even news? I am not being philosophic here. I am being VERY strict in my assertion of the actual meaning of our media enforced vision of the world.

I have been researching law, legislation, history, etc over the last few years. Every time I peel back another layer there is another layer. What if you ask yourself, what if it is all a facade, predicated on one missive that nothing is the truth unless you believe that it is or that you do not question the evidence presented?

Our government, our media, our currency, our very existence is predicated on one thing and one thing only; our belief that it is what has been presented.

One thing I have come to realize, I am me and I am fallible. Therefore my very perceptions can be manipulated by what is presented.

Trust no one? Hell, trust nothing without proving to yourself that it is real!

reply to post by Skyfloating


I'm seeing the scope is directed towards the mass media from another perspective, and appreciate that direction. Good intents here too

reply to post by Derised Emanresu


Hello Derised,

Thank you for your considered reply. Let me begin by saying that I never said it was unreasonable to trust a news service, and indeed, you butchered my own statement in quoting it, in order to come to that conclusion. What I did say is that it is unreasonable to expect that a news source be trustworthy, and there is a great difference between the two. If you choose to trust a news service, this is your problem. When that expectation becomes some sort standard imposed upon the entire medium, and such a standard then becomes the clarion call, and empty rhetorical platitude of the media itself, it should be clear to anyone paying attention, that no matter how loud and for how long they might claim this standard, it still remains a fantasy, and has nothing at all to do with reality.

However, you take this impossible standard and take it even further with this statement:

This is a basic structure of society and creating consumer trust for any service provider is one of the key components, if not the most important relationship a service provider has with a consumer.

It is ironic that you tell me that I seem to generalize and yet it takes you less than two sentences to do the same yourself. The term consumer is a gross generalization of the primary principle between buyer and seller. The primary principle in this relationship is the one on one situation derived from it. A consumer is a some sort of collectivist beast who remains faceless and anonymous, whereas the customer can have a reasonable expectation of being known by that business they patronize. That expectation is less likely when a customer is turning to a news source rather than visiting a doctor or hiring an architect, but just because it is difficult for a news source to identify its customer base doesn't mean the customer himself must acquiesce to this wholly demeaning and inhuman term "consumer".

I would like to know how you differentiate a NEWS or Media service with most other services.

I don't, this is your presumption.

There is an expectation of trust and integrity in the delivery of any service. Just as we choose our news or media services for information etc, so too do we choose doctors or dentists for the information and expertise specific to their service.

This expectation you refer to is foolish, and has been the source of many problems for the "consumer" and even for the customer who has blindly trusted a professional simply because they lay claim to professionalism. It is interesting you bring up the medical profession. There is a medical term known as iatrogenic which describes the illness or death caused by a doctor. This term is not one you will see used very often by the main stream media, as if some sort of professional courtesy has been extended to doctors by journalists, and death by doctor remains a dirty little secret. However, there is increasing evidence that suggests that iatrogenics is the third leading cause of death in The United States alone.

There are many alternative websites that all seem to reference the same source when reporting on these disturbing numbers that implicate death by doctor as the third leading cause of death in the U.S., however you would be hard pressed to find any main stream media article that references this article at all. I could spend half the day and maybe longer attempting to find some other reference to support this, but I am not a journalist, and this thread is not about iatrogenics, and to make this attempt would only be a futile attempt to live up to your impossible standards. Is death by doctor truly the third leading cause of death in the U.S. or is it just alternative media hype based upon one cited source?

There are many problems with the American medical field, and the AMA is one of those problems in many ways. Indeed, go to any doctor that is a member of the AMA and attempt engaging in conversation about "alternative medicine" and see how far that gets you. In fact, the main stream medical field has done much to either dismiss or flat out demonize vitamins, and only until recently, and due to the pressure put upon them by "alternative news sources", has the AMA reversed its longstanding anti-vitamin propaganda and begun to advocate vitamins. This reluctant nature of the AMA goes well beyond vitamins, and they were far too slow to admit that diabetes can be reversed through a strict and regimented diet, instead insisting on advocating insulin as the only answer, and when the AMA finally did begrudgingly admit that some forms of diabetes can be reversed, when the main stream media reported this, it was a slight news story buried in, at the very least, The Los Angeles Times, years ago.

I have not bothered to find that L.A. Times article, nor the AMA's own admission because frankly, what I am advocating is that you make the time, and by you I mean all of us, to get that information for yourself. It is out there for you to find if you are willing to do so, or you can just blindly trust that the services you rely upon will do this work for you. Good luck with that.

Trust carries uncertainty and vulnerability.

I respectfully disagree, and would suggest you are confusing giving someone the benefit of the doubt with trust. I do believe all people deserve the benefit of the doubt until all doubt has been removed, but once that doubt has been removed, you can trust that. Trust is something that is earned, and should never be cavalierly given in some religious manner where such trust is based upon faith. Those I trust, I do so because they have earned my trust, and while it is human to err, and certainly that humans will err can be trusted, when someone has earned your trust, it is usually due to their consistent ethical behavior.

Yet, in today's society where people are reduced to consumer, or taxpayer, or citizen, terms such as ethics have been so ridiculously specialized that ethics itself has become a philosophy of convenience where ethics are malleable and the rules change depending upon which field these so called ethics are being employed, seemingly ignoring Aristotle's simple definition of ethics which would be the greatest good to the greatest amount. Uncertainty and vulnerability are symptoms of a helpless soul who must necessarily believe they are incapable of personal power and certainty. One of the greatest detriments to any individual is doubt. Indeed, the O.P. has used a title that references Shakespeare, and I would suggest to you that the great Bard himself wrote an entire play on the problems with doubt. That play is Hamlet.

Why is it that the failing standard or poor quality, that the OP points out, is the fault of the consumer?

I would suggest that the blind trust you define as uncertain vulnerability would be a good place to start.

Especially given that the mantra of most media is that of its quality, honesty, that it is trustworthy and reliable, impartial and founded in integrity.

But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.

~"War Propaganda", in volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925), by Adolf Hitler~

It is not a problem of unreasonable trust or expectation to ask that this mantra be lived up too.

If you wish to call uncertain trust that leaves you vulnerable reasonable, this is your choice to make. I would urge you to reconsider, and demand that those who expect your trust earn it. Of course, to some degree, I suppose this is what you are saying, yet the difference between us, is that I will not go into agreement with uncertainty and vulnerability as a constant inevitability.

I don't think I will find you arguing that people should not expect to trust a doctor or an architect, and that they should get medical degrees themselves or build their own homes?

I think you just have found me arguing the point, and I will take it further. If we are to trust a professional simply due to their education, it would be prudent to be far less impressed with the framed certificate on the wall, than the school transcripts which tell a much more detailed history of the person you would want to trust. Of course, try to get a doctor, architect or lawyer to show you their school transcripts, but if we were all demanding such documentation as a matter of course, of course, it would be far easier to get these professionals to comply. Yet, too many are more interested in advocating blind trust where we are all doomed to uncertainty and vulnerability.

Because we engage with it daily across the spectrum, the idea that we can or should trust media seems even more important.

Media is a general term used to describe many different fields of both news and entertainment, and since you began this post by taking me to task for generalizations, allow me to return the favor. To trust any collective is to blindly trust, and if you want to trust, then trust that individuals are far more capable of earning that trust than are collectives.

Continued...

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Derised Emanresu

The idea that we shouldhave a trust for any service is a reflection of a standard or an ideal that what we try to achieve.

This is the collectivist mentality I am referring to. Trust is not some blind action one takes that leaves them in a state of uncertainty and vulnerability, unless, of course, it is to trust a collective. Trust is measurable and anyone who has children learns fairly quickly how to measure that trust. As our children grow, we give them the benefit of the doubt and grant them a chance to earn our increased trust in them, but if, and usually when, they remove all doubt, then as a parent we are forced to impose controls upon them until they can earn our trust.

That the best quality of that service in any field will attract any consumer because it is a superior choice to any other competitor.

This quality of trust you are referring to remains with a one on one relationship between buyer and seller. Outside of that one on one relationship, trust should not be given away simply because the entire industry is claiming trustworthiness.

What I point out in my reply to the OP is that the quality of the News or Media product cannot be achieved independently as a service itself because of a philosophy that this can only be achieved by profit.

Quality of anything is not at all predicated on profit, and profit is merely the end result. There are two competing philosophies, one being the Machiavellian principle that the end justifies the means, and the other that states that the means always justify the end. Consider the recent rhetoric thrust upon us by a willing media; "too big to fail". Never mind the fact that there are anti-trust laws in place intended to prevent anyone company from becoming "too big to fail", people insisted on blindly trusting a government to regulate those businesses, and now are paying plenty for it. Whatever end comes from this, it will be by means.

"Outrage sells but in the end, nothing is solved by it, nothing at all. If anything it perpetuates the issue".

You offer this as some form of evidence that it is the profit motive that has created this, but allow me to remind you that you asked me how this is the customer's fault. The adage is; "If it bleeds it leads", and it does so because this is what sells news, and it does so for the same reason people slow down when driving to take a peek at the accident on the road, looking morbidly for some form of catastrophe, sometimes to the point of nearly, or even worse, causing an accident themselves. If you are to place rigid standards why not begin there? It is a publishers, or broadcasters job to sell the product they are producing. Whether it be through subscription, or through advertising, without this revenue, the likelihood of that publisher or broadcaster continuing to provide this service is anywhere from highly unlikely to nil.

It is not news then is it. It is opinion.

I would urge you to find the time to audit or even take a course in history, then take that same course offered by another professor providing a different history book and you tell me how the two classes teaching the same history class compare. Like the news, history is regarded as some sort of trustworthy source, where the historian is regarded as some sort of scientist who adheres to a scientific method. It is a foolish belief and one in spite of the age old adage; "history is told by the victors". So, based upon your standard, I would suggest that much of history is not history, and merely opinion.

Most news services are up to their eyeballs in editorials or opinion pieces already. Can we not have the facts first? Why is this an impossible standard?

The Los Angeles Times used to offer far more editorials and opinion pieces than they do today, and while that paper has always, in my humble opinion, leaned way left, while I tend to lean right of center, there was a time this left wing paper was so well written, it was a joy to read, even if irritatingly so. Not so today, and while that paper still leans left, the quality and size of that paper has been reduced dramatically. Up to their eyeballs in editorials and opinion pieces? I think this is just more generalization from the poster who has deigned it necessary to take me to task for generalization.

On the "impossible standard" and "unreasonable demand". This expectation is generated by the media and news services themselves. They didn't just turn up and then say, "well all we have is opinion so don't go getting all fancy with your demands and expectations".

In your original post you made a generalization of some mystical time when journalism could be trusted. I could not know when this mystical time was since you offered no evidence of it, and merely made the assertion, but I have heard this assertion made about a time I spoke to in my last post. I did my best to offer some evidence to dispel this notion. It is ironic indeed, that where Conkrite claims the scathing editorial he gave on the Tet Offensive was the only editorial he ever made outside of 1st Amendment issues, but Conkrite is not being honest with himself, and this is the man who cried in front of the camera upon reporting the death of JFK. I do not wish to take him to task for doing this, merely to suggest that those tears he shed were evident of an opinion, and he did more than just simply report the facts, and in fact, it was this sort of humanity that made that man so dearly loved.

When the concern for profit drives the content, then we can get what the OP points out. My concern, which I clearly state, is that sections of the Media thinks it can only be independent via profit. I have no problem with news services making money.

You quote Mark Twain to suggest that I have distorted facts, and indeed, distorted facts I didn't have, but read, and read carefully what I just quoted from you. You have no problem with the news services making money, but you certainly seem to have a problem with them making a profit. A business not profitable will make money, just not enough to make it worth while. That is the difference between making money and profitability. The profit is what the owners of a business get to keep at the end of the day. That is a fact. Suggesting that such a thing as an owner having concerns with the ability to pay themselves, i.e. profit, is part of the problem, and then benignly declaring you have no problem with them making money seems to be a distortion of facts.

You seem to be inventing an argument unrelated to the OP to make a point JPZ. The irony of your opinion is that you have created a scenario in order to provide your opinion and bias, that is exactly what the OP criticizes.

First of all, my argument was not at all intended for the O.P., and your willingness to reply to that argument implies strongly you know full well why I made my argument. Secondly, I have provided my bias and opinion to counter yours and nothing has been invented, and you have even gone as far as to provide several more posts to support my argument that it is your opinion that news sources shouldn't be concerned with profits. You demure and claim otherwise, but anyone reading these posts are capable of seeing that you clearly have a problem with profits being a concern. It is rather smug of you to suggest that your opinions are more valid than mine. It matters not to me whom the O.P. agrees with on this issue, you offered opinion and I spoke to that opinion with my own is the issue. Your attempt to somehow be above the criticism of the O.P.'s concerns is fairly arrogant, and where I have no problems with opinions, yours included, you clearly have a problem with any opinions not your own.

I guess that must be frustrating. But why is that frustration being vented on a thread where no one actually makes that claim?

Oh really? Then what precisely did you mean by this remark?:

The problems we didn't have a few decades ago, was the massive MSM corps. The model that profit drives media independence has destroyed independent media to the point that the Net looked like it would maintain a last frontier for true independent journalism, thought and opinion in news and media sources.

Prior to the advent of cable and Rupert Murdoch's gambit with FOX, there were only three private national broadcasters, and one public. This was just a few decades ago. Those three private broadcasters were all about profits, and it is naive to think they weren't. You have spent several posts lamenting two things, that the media can't be trusted, and that it is profit that has been the source of this. You put out the idea that I just quoted that a few decades ago we didn't have this problem. Much like Conkrite, you no doubt are in disagreement with your detractors, and much like Conkrite the best you can do is back pedal.

Really? I guess juxtaposed against a contemporary Media that failed in its duty to questions its administration when it lied to justify a war, this adversarial media of yesteryear does seem like a fable.

More fables from the poster who likes to generalize while taking others to task for generalizing. The Los Angeles Times was extremely critical of Bush's ill conceived war in Iraq, and even fairly critical of the one in Afghanistan. I remember clearly reading Joseph C. Wilson's op-ed piece in the L.A. Times, insisting Iraq had no WMD's, and I followed closely the whole Valerie Plame, (Wilson's wife), situation with great interest, as just one example, and did not have to scour the internet to do so, and at that time, relied heavily upon the L.A. Times.

Continued...

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Derised Emanresu

I disagree with your opinion that the Media was so adversarial while the Vietnam war was on.

It is not just my opinion you are disagreeing with:

www.warbirdforum.com...

www.opinionjournal.com...

books.google.com... PvX_yieCJo078aaXc&hl=en&ei=J27oS7PkMYK2sgPamJmSCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=was%20the%20media%20adversarial %20to%20the%20vietnam%20war&f=false

www.koreatimes.co.kr...

webcache.googleusercontent.com...:4PnB8n3Y_IUJ:www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/media-laf.doc+was+the+media+adversarial+to+the +vietnam+war&cd=21&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=gmail

www.alternet.org...:_watchdog_or_lap_dog/

www.acjournal.org...

And on and on and on...there are, of course, those who have attempted to dispel the notion of an adversarial media with a left wing bent, most notably Daniel Hallin, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, but this is precisely my point. You are most welcome to disagree with me, and I encourage it, for this is what communication is all about, agreement and disagreement, and attempting to understand each other. If the news is not about communication, then what is it about. Again, while I encourage your disagreement, that you seem all too willing to dismiss those you disagree with as not having a valid point of view, and disingenuously doing so by pretending you present facts as opposed to those you disagree with who present opinion, only adds more fuel to the fire you seemingly want to put out.

My point is that it is all opinion in some form or another, and while facts will be intertwined with these opinions, some offering more facts than others, it remains facts presented by someone with an opinion. Where you seem to want to vilify opinions other than your own, I am suggesting that acceptance of the fact that we will be offered some form of opinion regardless of how trustworthy that journalist may be, is the more prudent choice, as it is far more empowering to each individual, encouraging each one of us to discover the truth for ourselves rather than be spoon fed truth from someone else.

I can site numerous examples of the MSM media being slack on events only to have small independent media breaking news events, like the My Lai massacre broken by Journalists like Seymour Hersh.

And yet, you only cite two, the one I quoted and Hallin's book. Sigh.

I would say that the motive that News can only be independent by profit is reflected in bad content and results in the examples the OP has offered and not that making a profit from a news service is bad.

Unlike Chomsky, a linguist of the highest order, who can play games of semantics like few others can, you are not he, and your game of semantics is easy to see through.

The fundamentals should be to provide a news service, IMHO, and not to simply generate content as "news" in order to profit. Again, I think the OP reflects traits of MSM news generating or manufacturing content purely because it translates into profit.

It is precisely this naive pretense that news can be anything other than manufactured that I am speaking to. All news is manufactured, even that news you regard as significant or important has been manufactured.

Editorial pieces have that effect, don't they. Did Cronkite invent the issue? It was a contemporary and topical situation worthy of debate, was it not? This was an issue of national, and global significance. Was Crokites opinion piece making a mountain out of a mole hill? Did Cronkite take an insignificant issue or part thereof or manufacture that it was general to the overall issue to manufacture the national discontent or outrage that did not exist before hand?

What is your point with these questions? I have all ready made my stance clear regarding the Viet Nam conflict, and that stance is the U.S. had no business being there to begin with. I provided the Conkrite example, first because he was heralded as "the most trusted man in America" and secondly because he got it wrong. If I, someone who believes that conflict was a useless waste of resources and humanity, can see that, why can't you? I am willing to accept the historical accounts that suggest the U.S. military was winning that conflict, in part at least, as having some grain of truth to it. It does not change my stance one iota on that conflict, nor does the apparent adversarial stance the media had towards that war, change my stance that the media has a right to profit, and certainly has the right to their opinions, so again I ask you, what is your point here?

I am glad you said supposedly, because that quote is a media myth, it is well reported as being a myth.

I said supposedly because I do not blindly trust the media and I pay close attention to the words they use to tell their stories. Just as I am paying close attention to your choice of words, and it is no coincidence that the poster appealing for a collective news media worthy of trust uses the word; myth, not once but twice in the same sentence. Of course, by myth it is fairly assumed that you don't mean a universal tale containing certain truisms that speaks to the human soul, either through origin stories, or the hero's journey, and tales that have been told since time immemorial. What is fairly assumed by your usage of the word is that you mean falsehood, but rather than use that word, or the more blunt word; lie, you fall prey to the insidious usage of a word that should have only one meaning, and that would be the tales told of origins, or heroes, told to inspire humanity, and speak of universal truths well accepted by that humanity. That myth has become equated with falsehood is far more tragic than this idea that the news media isn't trustworthy enough.

Are you ignoring all the other aspects of the War.

No, I am not. I have explained why I used Conkrite as an example, you take it or leave it, that is your choice. I was, and this should be clear by my unwillingness to reply to you directly in my post, attempting to offer a balance to the data both you and the O.P. have offered. Nothing more. I am not interested in debating the Vietnam conflict in this thread, and took Conkrite to task for his mistaken assessment because of his moniker as being "the most trusted man in America".

This is what the OP refers to as Cherry picking, in his OP.

Uh-huh, how ironic then that this is precisely what you have been doing with my words, and so horribly that you actually quoted me and Conkrite in the same quotation box with nothing more than an ellipsis to separate them, making that quote incomprehensible, and even so, clear and present cherry picking. Again, this is part of what I am saying. You are quite willing to hold others to a much higher standard than you yourself are willing to live by.

Who said they were unbiased? Who injected the fairy tale you keep referring?

This is the fairy tale I am referring to:

People want to trust their news sources. That is why it needs to be impartial.

and this:

If this was the case, we would see news and information simply delivered as is, but instead we get it presented intertwined with opinion or commentary along with emotional responses or reactions from caricatures, personalities or stereotypes that represent a mainstream view on nearly all topics.

And most importantly this:

It is also why we get crap reality shows, contests and the cult of celebrity. None of which empowers individual's IMHO.

Where you seem to think your own personal empowerment comes from others, I am attempting quite the opposite, and that if you want empowerment then you go girl! (having no idea of your gender, I am merely playing with words, and mean no offense by that last remark) Empower yourself!

I refer to this in my post when I say that what is significant now is the massive MSM corporations that exist. I use Murdoch as the example. These are the MSM sources that are Profit first.

While I am no advocate of corporatism and despise the practice, you are not at all making the same point I am making when I take the U.S. media to task for smugly referring to themselves as the Fourth Estate. Further, Murdoch was not even born when the U.S. media first adopted that phrase, and the phrase itself, and its getting late and I've spent too much time working on these posts so I am going to risk being mistaken myself and attribute the coining of the term Fourth Estate to Oscar Wilde, only to give some context to the phrase. It is a distinct European phrase, and it refers to Estates that are not at all in common usage here in America, and because of this, that term has often been synonymous with the Forth Branch of government, which is another arrogant presumption of our U.S. media who declare themselves necessary to facilitate democracy.

My concern is the perception that independence in news is reliant on profit making. That this encourages content that makes a profit or creates a news service that cannot divorce the significance or relevance or the quality of its content from that very contents ability to be a mechanism that generates profit. The significance or relevance can become that of profit. I think the OP points this out. I don't care what side of the political fence you are on.

Continuing...

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Derised Emanresu

My concern is the perception that independence in news is reliant on profit making. That this encourages content that makes a profit or creates a news service that cannot divorce the significance or relevance or the quality of its content from that very contents ability to be a mechanism that generates profit. The significance or relevance can become that of profit. I think the OP points this out. I don't care what side of the political fence you are on.

This perception you are speaking of I have never heard of before, and not even the O.P. has made this case. Although Sky did assert that both attention and money were factors in why sensationalism exists, I did not get from the O.P. that there is a common perception that news is reliant on profit making in order to be independent. This seems to be your invention. You may not care what side of the political fence I am on, but that you are on a different side of that fence should be clear, and your railing against profits is decidedly Marxist in its intent.

Publishers and broadcasters will print what sells. This is the simple truth of the matter, and if it bleeds it leads is what sells, than what bleeds will lead. This is the basic adherence to supply and demand, and it is pointless to take the supply to task without acknowledging the demand for that supply. Sensationalism is not supply side economics, it is in demand, and publishers and broadcaster's respond to that demand.

Frankly, I am with you about the content, but until we as humanity stop demanding sensationalism it just won't go away. Further, I would suggest to you that both yours and mine considered and lengthy replies to each other is the surest way to kill this thread, as too many people don't care to read lengthy replies, and many, seemingly won't even bother to glance at our posts due to our stubborn refusals to apply avatars to our user names. Indeed, I have seen one of the owners praise another posters thread that actually spoke to the cold gray user names of certain members, and what was spoke to was offered as harsh criticism of that. You may not be stubborn in your lack of avatar, I don't know, I know I am, and believe that it should be the content of my posts that matter and not my choice of avatar.

I firmly believe both you and I, and the O.P. as well, have made admirable efforts at presenting our case, but take a look at what is succeeding as threads in this site and compare that to this thread. In fact, it is my prediction, that if you and I insist on further lengthy debates with each other, this thread will not get the attention it deserves. I am grateful others, including my good friend endisnighe, with their avatars have chosen to post in this thread, and hopefully my prediction is off base. We shall see.

Yes. IMHO, Now it is worse and driven by a need to profit.

This remark is in response to my assertions that the so called news has always been sensationalistic and even driven by profit, and my example of William Randolph Hearst should be evidence of that. You claim it is worse now, either ignorant to the fact of, or ignoring how ridiculously rich Hearst was, and that his riches were gained through sensationalistic news.

But there are many great examples of pure investigative journalism created independently purely to inform the public as well. Come on JPZ, you know that. Lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.

There are many great examples of pure investigative journalism that came from profit driven news, not so many examples of a publicly funded pure investigative journalism, and the private sector consistently outdoes the public sector in this regard. I have not even advocated throwing out the bath water, let alone the baby, and would suggest it is you who wants to throw out the baby, as the bathwater is not the profit, that would be the baby, and the bathwater is the ink grime or white noise that comes with bathing that baby.

I think that we can see clear differences in the types of content and the issues addressed in the examples you uses when compared to the MSM sources that Murdoch operates.

I have not seen enough of FOX news to know. I don't care for FOX news anymore than I care for PBS, NPR, or CNN or MSNBC. If given the opportunity, I will watch these programs for as long as I can stand it, but frankly every time I do, I see clear bias, regardless of who is reporting it. I do not avoid these programs because of that bias, it is just that I prefer to read the news at my leisure rather than listening to too loud talking heads yammer on and on and on, but what they report is done ever so briefly, while they yammer on and on and on. There is plenty of bias in the newspapers I read, so bias is not my problem with the news, this is your problem and to some degrees the O.P.'s problem.

I will admit that FOX irritates me more than say, NPR or CNN, but only because FOX pretends to be more conservative, but what they hell they are conserving is beyond me, it sure as hell ain't the Constitution, unless it is an issue of their own Inalienable Right to broadcast, as to everyone else and their rights, that station is no better about presenting facts than CNN, NPR, MSNBC, or the big three commercial stations. I am more tolerant of the bias from those who lean left than those who pretend to lean right, but I see little difference between them other than their pretenses.

Are the NPR or PBS typical of the OP? Is that driven by profit? Are NPR and PBS only able to maintain the independence of their news service via profit making?

I am not exactly what you are driving at with this point, but I am assuming that you are implying, or I am inferring from this that you mean to say that NPR and PBS, and the O.P. have all offered independence from their news sources, and it is hard to understand what you mean by this phrase you keep relying upon; "independent from its news source". It may be an attempt at appearing erudite, or maybe just a struggle to communicate an idea you have not fully fleshed out, I can't be sure, but if by independent from its news source, you mean to say not beholden to a bottom line, I wold suggest that if funding through taxation was withheld from both NPR and PBS, they would fold quite soon afterward, and I have never seen or heard either news program offer any investigative efforts into dubious taxation, so I am not buying that either one of these news programs are "independent from their news sources".

Really? And that means we cannot expect or ask for a standard or expect professional journalism, not what the OP points out?

What I am suggesting is that if an individual use a standard in regards to choice of news programs, or publications, that standard should be caveat emptor. With or without regulation it is naive to think the buyer should not beware.

Who has died from Taxes to pay for media JPZ? I think the OP refers to exaggerating issues.

I am a writer and rather fond of hyperbole, but what is amusing is that you seem to think your not at all hyperbolic, and it is frustrating that the silly little emoticons that tend to add to such hyperbole don't transfer when quoting so that the full force of your own exaggerations could be better illustrated.

Of course they are free to make a profit. Again, who is against that on this thread JPZ?

I would say you are, your effete protestations notwithstanding.

I prefer a mix of sources, free market MSM, small collectives of Independent Journalists, Government sponsored or subsidized media, Small websites or Independent Investigative Journalists who blog from political events or War Zones.

This is precisely what we have, but it is not I complaining about this mix, it is you, and your consistent complaint is the profit motive.

I don't believe any of these News or Media should be reliant only on profitability as the only means of being news, because it destroys that very independence.

How is it you can't recognize this from your own words. You clearly have a problem with news companies making a profit.

If we take the Free market as an example, it is concentrated and so are the issues and content, so is any bias, so are the range of opinions or researchers or journalists that they will use, and so is the philosophy that the driving concept that it is fundamental to that news service and anyone or thing associated with it is that it must sell, or profit.

A free market is the exact opposite of what you just described. I am assuming you mean to use the corporatist model as an example of the free market, but what is so free about that heavily regulated market place where corporations view competition as a sin? True to Marxist ideology, you ignore the tenets and principles advocated by free marketeers and hope to use corporatism as an example of the free market so that you may vilify it. A free market is predicated on a free and unregulated market place where competition is massive, not slight, not medium, but massive.

The O.P. made no mention at all of profits, and to the best of my recollection only mentioned money once. It is you who are endeavoring to demonize profits, and because of this, and because I am a free market advocate, I make my replies. I do so today at my own expense, and no profit has been made posting here, I assure you. Even so, you will no doubt continue to accuse me of being part and parcel of what the O.P. has complained about. If that can't convince you that you are off base about the profit motive, then likely nothing will.

[edit on 10-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]