I’ve been saying it, others have been saying it, and Southern Beale put it really well:
Sadly, we can no longer rely upon the news media to adequately inform us. The mainstream media has, as was pointed out recently, “become journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage.” Unfortunately, as my local newspaper’s eagerness to publish corporate propaganda demonstrates, local media isn’t much better. So we need to find a better way of communicating the facts without letting the special interest groups do their spin job.
So, how does one get informed in this digital age? After all, there is a huge volume of information out there available digitally, but how much of it is worth paying attention? Online astroturfing is more advanced and more automated than we’d imagined. Corporate media is pretty much in the hands of a few and that spills over into “public” media. US mainstream media is journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage. Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a commercial corporate framework. The US media is pretty much afraid to address anything that hints at the class warfare in fear of scaring away corporate underwriting through actual commercials, or the “underwriting” on US Public Broadcasting.
Sure, there are news sources outside the US, such as the BBC, but that isn’t helpful to the US citizen who needs to understand what exactly is happening in their country. How corporate interests have hijacked public interest through the US government.
The problem is that the war is on: it’s a war against women, workers, anyone who isn’t insanely rich, and those who would speak out about this situation. The problem is that people’s freedom is at stake as they become slaves of the corporate hierarchy that works to keep them silenced and in debt.
I will add a couple of links here for non MSM news:
My Gawd, but you're an insanely far-LeftLibProgg sort of person, aren't you?
ReplyDeleteRead Maureen Dowd's NYT piece today; finally, there is something on NYT that's palatable.
Shorter Maureen: #SCOAMF. That's a Twitter hashtag, if you wondered.
Cheers!
My Gawd, but you're an insanely far-LeftLibProgg sort of person, aren't you?
ReplyDeleteOnly in the USA.
But you live here, right? You do know that our culture and Republic embraced free enterprise - capitalism early on, eschewing dirty socialisms; that's the impetus that gave us successes such as landing a man on the moon on July 12, 1969; something none of the other dirty socialist nations you so obviously admire could even come close to emulating?
ReplyDeleteOnce your sort succeeds in harnessing the free enterprise - capitalist system we enjoy here, you won't like it so much I don't think. Best you live in some place less successful, Italy, Rome maybe, or Greece; France, Great Britain, or even Venezuela. Give 'em a try before you drag US down to their levels of fail.
We won't let you succeed, you know. Not gonna happen.
No, I don't live in the USA. I haven't for the past two years.
ReplyDeleteOf course, your programmes is already producing a failure.
So, don't chortle too hard.
I should also add if you are talking about "their levels of fail" that you might want to checkout some alternative news sources since you are pretty well propagandised.
ReplyDeleteThe US is pretty close to a serious downfall.
And guess who is holding the chips in this high stakes game?
Serr8, there is nothing clean about capitalism, and nothing inherently dirty about socialism. In any case, there are no pure examples of either, and those which mix some degree of social safety nets with firmly and fairly regulated capitalism are far and away the most successful - including some form of national health care. That is in part why we are being left behind.
ReplyDeleteYou clearly promote ideology over fact and reality.
A small thing, but we landed an astronaut on the moon on July 20th, not July 12th 1969. Clearly, history is not your strong suit. You seem to be omitting that the soviet union was in fact far ahead of us for a decade or more, prior to our playing catch up, clearly a socialist nation at the time. You also conveniently omit the soviet space station successes, or how essential it is that we are cooperating with other nations, socialist nations by your definition, because we cannot operate either a space shuttle or a space station on our own, with all the budget cuts to NASA that the right has instituted. Did you conveniently forget that the space advances you tout were achieved under democratic administrations, all of which supported strongly what you consider socialism - social security, and various civil rights initiatives aimed at social equality and social justice? No, YOU omit any aspect of history that doesn't fit your ideology, no matter how much that revisionist history is inaccurate, false, a lie. You live on lies, you embrace lies.
No one succeeds who does that, not individually, not as an ideology.
YOU and YOUR political buddies are the ones who aren't succeeding Serr8d, not even a little bit.
I'd be delighted if we were more like Germany or the Scandinavian countries, all of which are more socialist than this nation, and all of which are more successful by any number of metrics that we would do well to emulate, particularly in education.
Like the kind you could clearl use, Serr8d. You need some serious history remediation.
Of course, people like Serr8d thrive when the flow of information is controlled to prevent dissenting voices from being heard.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like it that there is a healthy public debate--not one based on a lack of information and what information is presented is inaccurate.
Equating commercial success with popularity is a fallacy and one that demonstrates an ignorance of what I said in this post
ReplyDeleteNational public radio is popular, yet few of its listeners are willing to support it.
Corporate interests aren't very interested in promoting messages that run against their interest.
That holds true for Public Broadcasting:
Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a commercial corporate framework. The US media is pretty much afraid to address anything that hints at the class warfare in fear of scaring away corporate underwriting through actual commercials, or the “underwriting” on US Public Broadcasting.
I think a healthy cynicism concerning what we read in the main stream as well as on the internet is a good thing. Always considering that what they say may be tainted by bias or special interests and taking it always with a grain of salt is my way.
ReplyDelete