blaming the media

[Hank Fletcher]

We've all seen or heard them do it, from politicians to corporate spokespeople. Some manner of catastrophe hits the front page, so some form of newsperson tracks down someone from an involved party to explore the cause of the problem. The type of problem might be a decline in a politician's rating, or an unfavourable economic situation for a large business. During the course of the news interview, the politician/spokesperson/etc gets a chance to share their view on what instigated or is perpetuating the problem, and their answer is: "I blame the media."

My question is: do they really think we're that stupid? Or maybe my question ought to be: are they really that stupid? I saw this exact thing happen recently when an Esso representative was discussing an oil production shortage that had left many gas stations in Toronto without gas to sell. He blamed the media for creating paranoia that lead to too many people buying too much gasoline. It was at this point that I realized that blaming the media is the new scapegoat solution for Essoman's type of folk.

Isn't blaming the media exactly like shooting the messenger? If your kid brings home a report card with all Fs, do you blame the kid/teacher/school, or do you blame the medium, that is, the actual paper the report card is written on? Surely folks who blame the media are confusing the cause of a problem with the means to understand it?

 

[HarveyH42]

The media does tend cause panic and blow some things way out of proportion to obtain ratings. We see it here in Florida all the time during huricane season. We usually get a week or so warning about a storm heading our way, and for some reason stores get packed, shelves emptied. This is for every storm during the season. I think its kind of odd myself, I just put two gallon jugs of water in the freezer, and make sure I have some canned goods before the season starts. Everything else I've had for years. How much stuff can you take with you if your house is destroyed or you need to evacuate (never have, or will)? Most of the time, we only need to get by a day or two before there is help availiable. The local news advertises preparation guides and must have items for most of the week before a storm even comes close.

And yes, it causes gas shortages here. I can see topping off your tank, but how much drive do people really do after a storm?

 

[AllVol]

The media does tend cause panic and blow some things way out of proportion to obtain ratings.

When I was in journalism school a half-century ago, we were taught to report the news, not make it. Just the who, what, where, when and why and how, please, and leave the editorial content for the appropriate page.

Today's "journalists" seem to have never learned that lesson, or purposely choose to ignore it.

The recent flap about the radio personality's ill-advised remark was not caused by his listeners, but by someone with access to the media who reported the event, championed the end result, and saw it through.

The power of the press comes not from its sancity, but from the fact it will always have the last word.

 

[Hank Fletcher]

So the media is to blame? I agree that there is a complete lack of ethics when it comes to popular journalism, e.g "If it bleeds, it leads." Protecting freedom of speech is one thing, but shouldn't there be some sort of law saying what you can and can't call "news" or "journalism," along the same lines of what can be called "cheese" and what has to be called "food product?" Professional engineers have rules on what can and can't be called engineering. I'll blame the media. I'll blame them for spending more time pandering to audiences and advertisers than to investigating the facts.

But I guess my original point was that this idea, that the popular news media has reached an all-time low, is so collectively understood that now (let's call it) the ruling class is exploiting this situation to their own advantage. The ruling class isn't even making the effort to lie to us anymore, since it's easier for them to just deflect blame back onto anyone who attempts to critically investigate them. It's pretty twisted considering so often popular media is being owned and run by the ruling class, so when real journalists start to do their job they get an "ahem!" from up above.

Feeling manipulated, anyone? I say let's do it, let's make a law that says what can be called "news," and that everything else has to go by another name, which I invariably find myself calling it on a daily basis anyway.

 

[Optikon]

The media stinks. The news is all garbage. I don't read newspapers nor watch mainstream television for this reason.

 

[HiTech]

Sadly enough there are a good many Americans that live just to hear the bad news of the day. This same lot also prefers to be lied to, rather than hear the bold truth. Those biased media outlets know this well and thrive from it. There is way too much "dumbing down" of the American public taking place between the media's efforts and the federal gov. too. It takes a sharp minded citizen to sift through all the propaganda, hype, scams, spin, etc. any more therse days. I feel sorry for the many innocent seniors in this country who are trying to ease off the throttle of life. They are often the first casualties from misinformation and deception. The New York Times is Public Enemy #1 on my list for intentional misguidance of the public.

 

[ericgibbs]

hi,
I think over the past few years the media in general has sunk to an all time low.

Its all down to program ratings, if a topic is 'red and raw' the media go into feeding frenzy.
I expect anyday now to see BBC outside broadcast vans chasing after ambulances, just in case there's a 'good' photo opportunity!

The point that sickens me the most is the intro and background music on TV news channels.

Sky and the BBC in the UK seem to have no sense of decency when it comes to 'news' reporting.

You get something along the lines of:-- ' While 'pinky and perky' [thats the standard issue pair of male + female presenters]
are telling us that,
"another 6 of our young soldiers were killed today" with the background music and tom/toms are playing away.
Dont they have any respect for the families who have lost their loved ones!.

I gave up reading a daily news paper years ago and I now limit my TV news viewing to Ceefax.

I am not suprised that most children have lost respect for authority when they witness what goes on with the media.

 

[HarveyH42]

We get ESPN and CNN in our breakroom at work. One story that seems never-ending, and of very little news-worthy, is the Anna Nicole Smith story. They keep trying to sell it as such a tragic death, and down-playing the drunken party girl, self-destructive lifestyle. She had something like 11 valid prescriptions, and the doctor isn't charge with negligence?

 

[BeeBop]

What a soothing read, guys! It is soothing in that other people feel the same as I do about the media. It disgusts me to see 20 year old pretty faces, with very little life experience, interested only in pumping up the adrenaline level of viewers. There is way too much fear being generated these days!

Sadly enough there are a good many Americans that live just to hear the bad news of the day.

It isn't just you guys who thrive on this; seems to be a universal truth through out the developed world.

We have way too much free time on our hands these days.

 

[Sceadwian]

Blame needs to be placed at the source of the problem not the entrepreneurs of the down side of human nature. The problem is entirely in the people that watch and believe the media, not the media itself. As a statistically normalized set, half of all human beings on this planets are bellow average intelligence, while those that watch and feed the media the most are usually those same people. If you get angry or upset at some perceived fault in the current state of human affairs you're wasting energy better spent doing something to better the life around you rather than blowing a blood vessel or posting on forums about how much everyone else sucks...
In the end we're all part of the human race, which means we're all part of the problem.
Pardon the Zen rant, but the first thing a person needs to do when they find fault in something in the world is to look at themselves in the mirror and find out what part of the problem they are and what they can do with their own behavior that is calm and sane to make some little difference. Otherwise you just end up adding to the sensationalism of pointing out everything that's going bad in the world, like the media that you're defameing is already doing well enough on it's own..

 

[Hank Fletcher]

In the end we're all part of the human race, which means we're all part of the problem.

Yeah, but you're speaking from the perspective of someone in the middle of the normalized set. I'm speaking as someone from the top, who looks in the mirror, likes what he sees, and feels a philanthropic obligation to help others do the same. What worries me is that certain people look in the mirror and like what they see, also, and psychopathically pursue their interests regardless of the interests of the folks around them. As subjective as the notions of good and evil are, I think those with the ability to do so have an obligation to assist the world towards making better, and away from making worse, decisions. Which is why I like to think things like Internet forums work. They work because people look for answers, presuming they will find them due to what they perceive as the overall benevolence and good nature of humanity. That's what separates the view of an optimist from that of someone who is wholly apathetic and feels they don't have right to criticize the world around them or to attempt to decide for themselves what constitutes a better or worse decision.

 

[Sceadwian]

The only perspective is from the middle of the normalized set... Any other perspective is progressively distorted to it's end. Good/evil right/wrong intelligent/stupid sane/insane.
I guess in the grander scheme of things the easiest way to look at it would be you're a synapse in the brain of the world that emphasizes the good or the bad as you perceive it to either extreme based on their own experience. Where I as a synapse of the brain of the world try to relegate any of those extremes over time as a measure of system stability. I am either good or bad as I perceive it necessary to balance the system as a whole over time, as that will make it last the longest. Entropy is a good thing, and in the universe as a whole unavoidable. Then again that was a very zen babble there as every statement I said was effectively a mirror of itself. But this is the ****-chat forum after all =>

 

[Hank Fletcher]

So you're saying there is no right or wrong, yet the perspective that you've chosen to identify with is the only right one? Sounds like you want to have your cake, and eat it, too.

If you want to talk perspectives, this whole philosophy of entropy that's been bouncing around in popular science thinking has run its course. Its a doomed ideology that presumes the nature of things is limited to a very small set of rules. The belief in entropy, that all things will eventually become one, is itself an abstraction of traditional religions based on a single, unifying deity.

Part of my issue with the media, a politician, or CEO of a large company is the megalomania which drives them, psychopathically, with the idea that there can, eventually, be only one. It's such a limited, unsophisticated way of doing things that has lost all its charm to me. No one thing has yet been demonstrated to prevail, and in all instances I can think of where one thing has conquered another, several new things have appeared in the place of the victim. This whole idea that to succeed one has to conquer another, that companies have to beat each other for a victor, that the mightiest of robots must win in a battle of strength and agression, that video games have to be the figurative incarnation of destroying something else, must be surpassed.

There's got to be more to life than that. The thing that gives me hope is that someone will make a castle out of sand, momentarily lending structure and reason to something that was formerly entropic. You have to embrace your mortality, not resign yourself to it, and that's pure Shakespeare. Look at Macbeth - old Billy knew that a finite life in an infinite world mathematically amounts to zero, but you can't deny the importance of that flame that flickers, and somehow the shorter the flicker, the more precious it becomes.

 

[ericgibbs]

Hi Hank,

You have got my vote!.

Talk of entropy and the universe, dosn't amount to a 'hill of beans' in everyday life.
We live in the here and now, not some undeterminate time in the future.

In life, you have to make simple choices,
" am I going to be good or bad", "am I going to try to make a positive contribution or lay back and wait for entropy".

Regards