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 ....”
Kewl! I enjoyed it very much, Billy.
Very good. Very very good.
What's really bizarre is the leftwing media's belief that the only reason people are conservative is because they are uneducated or possess low IQ's.
Surprisingly, their basic premise falls fat in the face of the fact that the major portion of the Democrat support base consists of poor, inner-city folk; blue-collar workers; public school progeny; undergraduates enrolled in public universities; and high-school-educated-only Hollywood types.
How is it, then, that all of these less educated folks know how great the Democrat Party is?
Oh, I don't know if the MSM is dying. They are becoming more hideous and transparent, but let's face it; Americans are, well, naive let us say. Many Americans think that Brokjaw and crew actually have their interests at heart, and they will watch their Orwellian news collages every night. The more sapient will move on to the Internet and talk radio, filtering out the absurd, insane and unspeakable as they move along. Let us just say that the MSM is anemic. Where they will find the needed B12, I don't know. Maybe they will mongrelize their shows with "conservative" guests ...
Congressman,
What You've described is a Montra Output New Society Transfering Educational Repeater, or MONSTER.
Great stuff.
Good piece, and you're right on the money. "Dave... Dave... What are you doing, Dave?"
Lord, please don't change the Main Stream Media. They are screwing it up just fine thank you.
See also: Why We Post...
Ping
Thanks, CB !!..... 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!”
I bless my Daddy, Memory Eternal, who early in my life installed a BS detector in me, regarding what we now call the MSM. More elegantly expressed, he taught me to "think critically and to examine the presuppositions of everything I heard or read.
For all his foibles, I think this is the most valuable service that Rush Limbaugh provides to his audience.
And, I do believe that the toothpaste is out of the tube for the Democrat Party. From Kerry the Flipper to Rathergate to the storied new voters; nothing worked as they thought it would, and they got a good ol' fashioned trip to the woodshed; and it's going to sting for a long time.
Great post as always.
haha! You beat me to it! :^D
Just what do you think you're doing, Congressman?
Good job. I like it!
Great minds think along parallel tracks and in basically the same time sequence.
Thanks for your graphic arts skills in updating the MSM tombstone.
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