Catch a zot, troll.
We've got your back, Billybob.
Posted on 11/20/2004 9:40:16 AM PST by Congressman Billybob
Like Confederate General Jubal T. Early, I make occasional raids into Washington, D.C. The raid this week included a visit with some of my children and grandchildren, meeting Judge Robert Bork, and assorted other pleasures. But the most telling moment of the trip came in a deserted corridor of Reagan National Airport on Sunday morning. Then and there I understood the mechanical voices of the MSM (Mainstream Media).
It was a politico-religious experience, a secular epiphany, if you will.
I took a wrong turn and wound up in an empty hallway. There were moving walkways on both sides, but they were out of service and marked off with orange cones. Still, every five seconds a female mechanical voice said urgently, “Caution! Moving walkways are ending!”
In that moment I suddenly understood a talk show I’d seen an hour before, starring Chris Matthews, Andrew Sullivan and Sam Donaldson, among others. (I’m not picking on these gentlemen. Most other talking heads – with or without bad hairpieces – would have filled the bill.)
I realized there is no significant difference between these “live” talkers on the MSM, and that disembodied voice in that empty airport hallway. Before the election the MSM thought the Democrats might win. After the election, when the Republicans had won, the underlying message did not change. In thousands of words the talking heads of the MSM are repeating, ad nauseam, the same seven word message. It is:
“Caution! Republicans are bad! Democrats are good!”
Try this experiment for yourselves. Pick any talking head show. Choose any MSM print outlet; the New York Times will do nicely, thank you. Take whatever apparent story they’re talking about, and boil it down like Vermont maple syrup in the fall. When you reduce the story to its essence, beneath the level of the apparent facts of the day, see whether any political story in the MSM has any core message other than the “Caution!...”?
Bias is usually subtle. Pay attention to the verbs. I read a story right after the election on the thousands of state legislative races. The article consistently referred to seats “won” by Democrats, but seats “claimed” by Republicans. Is it any surprise that the reporters writing that were primarily Democrats? Or, pay attention to the adjectives. Others have researched to a fare-thee-well the respective use of “left-wing” and “right-wing.” Republicans often get the second label; Democrats seldom get the first one.
Are there more right-wingers than left-wingers in American politics? Check out the websites of the Congressional Black Caucus, or of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or of almost any union (but especially the National Education Association). See if you conclude that the left wing is alive and well. Its label disappears because the MSM reporters don’t perceive the left as being “left-wing.”
When the MSM had a monopoly, facts they chose not to report simply did not exist. The monopoly has ended. Facts get reported in the alternative media. The MSM no longer controls the agenda; it can only embarrass itself by pretending that it still does.
TV requires, of course, more than just words. There has to be something to point a camera at, the apparently live and sentient pundits sitting in their chairs. But is that any more than window dressing? Does that make the content of the political shows any more substantial than that mechanical voice in the airport?
The MSM are dying by degrees in the quarterly Arbitron reports on audience shares. The MSM are dying because they insist on producing vacuous bias in their political coverage. This task will be unsettling, but I recommend it. Read the MSM, listen to them, watch them with more care than they think “dumb” Americans can bring to the task. See if you reach the same conclusion, that you’re hearing repetitive, mechanical voices from the MSM.
When the voices are clearly mechanical, they may be annoying but they seem less threatening. The true menace comes from voices which present the illusion of being real. Think of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and the Hal 9000. Don’t the first three need the same cure as Hal got in the movie, 2001? Don’t they need to be deprogrammed, back to a time before they learned to lie, or worse, learned to believe their own lies?
Don’t they all need to go back to Urbana, Illinois, in 1992? Shouldn’t they all be asked to sing us a song before they fall silent? “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true ....”
Granted, the "news" is still generated mostly by "news" people. There are notable exceptions however that I'm sure you're familiar with. The prism you refer to give us a chance to deconstruct the "news". That in itself is a worthy cause. The subtleties the MSM uses are not lost on most of us on FR. WE have their number.
Convinving your average couch patatoe of that simple fact is a trick. They honestly don't want to hear it. Their cozy little world becomes less cozy; they would actually have to think about this problem; then might actually, in good conscience, have to do something about it. Like I've told others, who might accept this idea, when they ask what to do with this newfound information, "Spread the word". We're being lied to and it gives me a case of the red a$$.
And like the rest of the points in the article, it has been claimed to be dead or dying for years.
I submit they're dying. Most of what I've heard and read over the last few years doesn't bode well for the MSM. You disagree?
FGS
JimGod?? You have stepped way over the line. Knock it off. Your sarcastic, egotistical, holier-than-thou attitude has really made you some enemies here. Back off and think about it.
Do you call this one? FOAD. Guys like you said it to them.
No one is finding entertainment in gang-banging you. Whatever your previous posts sound like, your posts on this thread sounded mean. You used inflammatory language, such as when you accused BillyBob of lying and making stuff up. You could have offered your corrections in a gentler way, and you could have given BB credit for having reasons to think he was right. Instead, you accused him of lying. Perhaps now your temper is too inflamed for you to just back off and let it go. I for one am going to bed. I hope the next time I post to you it will be in a happier light.
It was a typo. Get a freaking grip.
I'm not going to post any more to this thread. Go sniff for another drop of blood in the water.
But please feel free to ping me when BB produces his citations. LOL.
Your crime was calling us Nazis for looking at signup dates.
Look up the "admin moderator"'s profile page (I'm SURE that you can find it without my help).
Read all about ZOT.
Trolls track crap on their shoes in here all the time.
Something stinks on this thread.
Maybe if you had been nicer to begin with, you might not have had such a hostile welcoming committee.
Where were you prior to the election?
That's what we're talking about. You just don't get it. You goad people, and when you get an irritated response, you throw up your hands and say, "Gee? What did I do?"
Catch a zot, troll.
We've got your back, Billybob.
Uphill both ways and in the snow
"MSM" is morely properly translated as "Muddlestream Media"
Best regards,
FGS
FGS
As no Bork info is really the issue, this T&A discussion is WORSE than watching TV.
Indeed. How have you been?
Best regards,
FGS
For the record you've "been following FR since 1997".
Catch a clue. 
Bump!
The entire premise of the FCC is that the government should help we-the-people to know what is going on. That premise is, however, exactly the reverse of the import of the First Amendment. You could undoubtedly, if you strained at enough gnats and swallowed enough camels, construct a rationale under which the governent should help the print media just like they empower the broadcasters by censoring their competition. But it would be patently unconstitutional - and the government's licensing of the few to be able to transmit to the many conflicts with constitutional principle just as much as that would.There are many reasons why Republicans should sue the socks off the FCC and its licensees; I submit that the broadcasting of the false signal that Gore had won Florida, transmitted before the polls were all closed in Florida and also in most all states in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones - constituted a major tort.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Good to hear it. I would get involved with Jehngis Kahn food fight but I am afraid I could not do justice to the intensity of emotion the poor fellow seems have aroused.
I traced it back to post #26 where he merely responded to the good Congressman's request to "let me know what you think" with an observation of documentable fact after which, for reasons unknown a Freeper Flying Monkey Squad formed around him.
I do not suppose this would be a good time to reiterate my observation of the need for a closer study of Robert's Rules of Order or some similar system of organized debate?
Best regards,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.