Posted on 12/06/2004 12:45:36 PM PST by CHARLITE
According to Sunday's S.F.Chronicle, House Democrats meet tomorrow with UC Berkeley linguistic prof George Lakoff in hopes the wordwright can correct their spin. Watch this one!!!!
Lakoff is expected to advise the politician on what terminology to use. The big question is this: will the mass media follow? My money says it will. I have 40 years experience in the news media to back my bet.
Need proof? The media was powerful enough to limit "choice" to one subject. That alone should be cause for watching the "watchdog." Remember when the press was called "the running dog" of the establishment? Why don't we hear that anymore. Perhaps the running dog is dancing on its hindlegs, leaving little doubt who is playing the tune.
More timely, Lakoff suggests "right to marry" over "same-sex marriage." Does that mean the national debate should, in the interest of "equality," be expanded to include polygamy? We almost went to war over polygamy and thousands must live in that relationship. Will "kissin' cousin" take on a new meaning? These questions should have been asked a long time ago, but the press failed. Was it cowed, unthinking, biased or all of the above and more?
UC media high priest Todd Gitlin recently opined in Mother Jones that reporters are afraid of being accused of "liberal bias." He should know better than most that the mainstream media has a lot of little rivers now, thanks to the Internet and this kind of e-mail. The bully pulpit is gone, Mr. Gitlin.
I wonder if there was a media backlash in the last election, which was divided between "fly over" and "bookend states." How's that for terminology, professor? Flyover means "ignore them, they aren't worth looking at." It is a term of contempt from the bookends, New York and California, the media centers that keep the rest of the nation in line by telling it what to think. We are now split between those who say media "is" and those who say media "are." The gut says "is." It's defenders of the media who use "are."
It took a war to make "the United States" is common. Maybe we are in a kind of civil war now.
The loonatics are in charge of the RAT party. The only civil war going to happen is when demoRATS get tired of losing elections and throw the whackos out of the party.
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Some say monogamy is the same.
The "mass media" took an astounding hit today. Fox News is moving to radio, with top-of-the-hour news summaries. Fox will now be taking over as news provider for a zillion Clear Channel radio stations. The takeover will happen as current contracts for ABC, CBS, etc., run out.
Do you have any idea how many people get the totality of their news on the car radio druing the drive to and from work? The importance of this announcement by Fox News and Clear Channel cannot be overstated.
Charlite: thank you for posting. Fascinating.
The guy is a linguist, but what he's talking about is spin and not addressing the real issues.
I dont know but I always thought it would be nice to have another woman or two around here to help out. As long as I am TOP wife!
I don't think "flyover country" was a smart PR term. I think it was effete liberal snobbery at work, talking among themselves. Now it's coming back to bite them in the *ss, because the phrase illustrates for all to see how these people look down on the rest of us ordinary folks.
As unfit as John Kerry was for the White House, John Edwards in no way was capable of holding the office of the Presidency which is quite a possibility in our current war against terrorists.
Without the media help, lies, and distortions, it never would have been that close. Not even.
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