Click through this link for a first-rate primer on the job that insider campaign spinners and the official media do on John Q. and Mary S. Public every day there is a presidential primary election in the United States. Gullible "political junkies" who get their juice from the likes of Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Cokie Roberts need to consider the possibility that their chosen narrators of life are unreliable with the facts and untrustworthy in their motives.
Concurrent update: Apologies for filing this link after the Tuesday primaries, but it really pertains to the political media-industrial complex in perpetuity.
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like the risk of herpes or gonnorhea from having sex, putting up with the Tweeties and pumpkin heads is just a risk of hearing the results from Olbermann and Rachel. Just scratch and forget about whatever they say.
ReplyDeleteIf it bleeds it leads. Controversy puts bums on seats, sells newspapers, and various products in the sea of TV commercials containing the islands and transitory atolls of analysis of which you speak. La Media will milk this cow for more than it's worth. Then, with udder disdain (so to speak) and trembling hands latch the Milk-Master 5000 onto the next walking pile of future hamburger. The cravers of news are fed by the consolidated pride of cravees. A mass search for wider meaning in a vacuum of non-purpose is amply fed by greed sprinkled with the meth-like spice of power. Where forth art the fourth estate? Why hath thy forsaken us? Or, hath we instead forsaken ourselves?
ReplyDeleteL.M.
Anon1: what I meant to put across more strongly was that the process is sick and sinister independent of personalities. I mentioned three names because to me they exemplify the problem well: individuals capable of doing real journalism, but who prefer to imagine that they're actually players in the drama by helping to craft the story line. They would have more influence by deconstructing the narrative instead of playing along.
ReplyDeleteAnon2: I think this situation is different than the conventional idea that the media generate sensationalism to sell papers or eyeballs. They're not selling papers and they're losing eyeballs. So I wonder what the purpose of the narrative is, then, and on whose behalf it is spun. Elaborate conspiracy theories aren't necessary to explain it: mundane conspiracy theories work fine.