Posted on 08/06/2005 7:32:28 PM PDT by MNJohnnie
Watching the Dinosaur Media manufacture "news" stories over the last year (i.e. Rathergate, Downing Street Memo Fraud, Joe Wilson and the CIA "Leak" etc etc etc) a thought occurred to me. Journalist try to pass this all off as a "recent" development in Journalism. A product of "Agenda journalism". I am not so sure. I wonder if maybe this sort of thing has been going on all along and it is only the rise of the "New" media that is catching them at it. Makes you wonder what other "Facts" everyone "knows" are nothing more then made up propaganda from a "journalist" with no morals and a perchance for creative writing?
"It is not what people don't know that hurts them, but what they DO KNOW that ain't so." - Mark Twain
"Citizen Kane"
I think the term is "dead cat".
When you have no news to report, you throw a dead cat in front of a politician and report how he reacts.
I've been involved in several (non-political) news events as a witness, and what I actually witnessed was almost completely different from what the TV and papers described, in content and meaning.
What's "news" is, in I'd say 75% of the cases, what the media outlets SAY is news.
It used to be called "Yellow Journalism" and has been around since the first forms of mass news existed.
MSM are becoming irrelevant.
The editor's motto,
"If it bleeds, it leads,"
Unfortunately we have a lot of writers and broadcasters who have very limited knowledge of the subjects they're covering. Therefore, we end up with slants based on their political bias, rather than actual knowledge of the subject.
For instance, as a business person, I see this all the time in my local paper. The business writers don't know what they're talking half of the time. I read their coverage and I respond with "holy crap." They have no ability to read between the lines, to analyze, think critically, etc.
It's an embarrassment to the field of journalism.
My God -- the NYT, the chronicle and publisher of liberal socialist lies, is the master of spin...look at the experience they have. Manufacture news? It is a hallmark day when they print the factual truth...
Whenever there is a "News" story that I have personal knowlegd about, I always find erros.
#1 made-up story for the last 5 years...Pres. Bush's approval rating. It is NOT in the low-40's. I doubt if it's in the low-50's. The media controls the stories and they also control the polls. Thus we get Clinton at 65% during impeachment, and G.W. Bush rarely hits the 50 mark.
Look no further than the last two friday "poll dumps" for the sunday news programs. The MSM dumps a couple of negative polls about GWBush just in time for the dinosaur media to spin a recession.
The media manufactures by omitting stories such as the Air America finance scandal.
Further, what's as important to note is what is NOT reported. One of the reasons for the rise in mega-weather reporting on local news channels is to burn up time not talking about important local issues. Think - how long does it take to report the weather forecast? A couple minutes, tops.
tagline bump
There used to be a station that showed the forecast between two other stories--ten seconds, and out. That's all it deserves. Why do we need all this cold front and high pressure crap no one understands, just tell me the forecast.
Seeing that Congress is not in session for a month, there will be no news.
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