[DerelictOverlord]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... _time_dc_1

As I grow more and more weary of the current administration, things like this really grab my attention. Maybe I'm just hyper sensitive, but for some reason I can't shake the feeling that we are being spoon fed, and media organizations that step a little out of line will have to deal with some type of trumped up BS. The article doesn't really say much so I hope one of the news editors can set me striaght.

[jdmartin]

Well there's no doubt most of the news media is the same regurgitated garbage we're expected to hear. A guy who works for me did an experiment a few months back. He wrote down every news story on CBS, then watched NBC did the same, ABC did the same, etc. Not only did he find that all the stories were the same (just switched around in order), almost all the information was exactly the same. He found this to be true for weeks (all the further he experimented). Now of course you'd expect, for example, all of the networks to carry Hurricane Rita stuff for example. But even on the days when there was little "news" so to speak, the stories were all the same.

Thank god for the opportunity to seek out your own news on the Internet, public radio, etc. as well as the networks.

[SmokinJuan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '
')Thank god for the opportunity to seek out your own news on the Internet, public radio, etc. as well as the networks.

[richardmmm]

the media is not under the thumb, the media is the thumb...

...and the general population are the ones under it.

if you get a Reuters news feed, and check the credits in the news papers, you'll see that 95% of stories are all from Reuters or AP, and come over their newsfeed first. Sometimes they are rehased by inhouse journalists who never leave their desks but they wouldn't know a real reporter if he came into their office and bit them in the ass.

There is precious little independant investigation going on. Real Journalism if it ever existed, died out around the time that the Washington Post busted Watergate open.

check all the credits even on massive websites like bbc.co.uk that feign indepenance, their pics are always from AP or Getty Images.

the only thing that passes as being outside of Reuters or AP is a few massive conglomerates like FOX or MSNBC and we all know how accurate they are.

if you want an example of what a strangle hold there is on journalism and investigation, consider that most independant publications go bankrupt after a few years, and that most heavy advertisers shun independant publications, hence no revenue for them.

a friend of mine bought a small newpaper in southern australia, and ramped it up, i mean it was a harmless local free rag, with a tiny circulation. he was throttled by vicious tactics of the local newspaper barons, to the point where they left his entire issue stranded at the printing press over a petty billing issue. the issue wasn't the bill, the issue was holding back the printing and stopping his issue getting out so he'd have to refund his adverterisers and go under which he basically did.

[bobcousins]

Ah the myth of the media exposed. There is a quaint notion that the media have a hall of reporters chatting to shoe shines, but the reality is that they get fed news via the wires then reformat it. The bigger papers may have a reporter who adds some stuff. Hollywood provides the myth of investigative reporter, the reality is more like a sausage factory. Like everything else, news is a bought in commodity, packaged and branded.

[fossilnut2]

I don't have any issue with the media. The Internet has opened up whole new avenues of information.

Why do you equate television networks with journalism and reporting?

First thing I do in the morning is click on BBC and scan the news...then Le monde and CBC. I'll flip on CNN headline news. Then check what's on various non-media sites that impact my work or topics I have an interest in.

American television networks aren't 'the thumb'. They chase ratings and are under the thumb of Joe and Mary sixpack and their remote control. For 3 of the weeks this summer CNN Headline News spent more minutes covering that missing teen in Aruba than the Iraq war.

[BabyPeanut]

Movie about the media

http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/

http://www.outfoxed.org/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114512/

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SmokinJuan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '
')Thank god for the opportunity to seek out your own news on the Internet, public radio, etc. as well as the networks.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fossilnut2', 'I') don't have any issue with the media. The Internet has opened up whole new avenues of information.

Why do you equate television networks with journalism and reporting?

First thing I do in the morning is click on BBC and scan the news...then Le monde and CBC. I'll flip on CNN headline news. Then check what's on various non-media sites that impact my work or topics I have an interest in.

American television networks aren't 'the thumb'. They chase ratings and are under the thumb of Joe and Mary sixpack and their remote control. For 3 of the weeks this summer CNN Headline News spent more minutes covering that missing teen in Aruba than the Iraq war.

[fossilnut2]

I don't expect to get 'the News' from any one source...whether BBC, CBC, The Times of London, Die Welt, etc. I'll even keep tabs on what's happening on the extremist sites such as Al-jazeera and Foxnews. Even if heavely slanted it's good to know what 'they' think, whether they are the fundamentalists in the USA or Arab fundamentalists in the Middle East

I agree that BBC seemed gun shy in the last year or so but is slowly regaining some credibility. BBC has been quite poor in its war coverage. I'm not sure that journalists in Iraq of any stripe have much first hand contact outside of safe zones and what the military feeds them. After two and a half years of occupation I still don't know what the average Iraqi thinks. What the average Iraqi thinks seems to depend on who is telling the story and more about an agenda than reporting.

[skiwi]

One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread.
You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)

[DerelictOverlord]

Get a thumb on this guy RIGHT FKIN NOW!

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywa ... c_com.html

"Both plans seem to live behind a veil of extraordinary secrecy because military forces operating under them have already been given a series of ''special authorities'' by the President and the secretary of defense. These special authorities include, presumably, military roles in civilian law enforcement and abrogation of State's powers in a declared or perceived emergency."

[richardmmm]

the biggest joke of all is not that these things are going on, because really they are only to be expected.

the joke is that just about any member of the general public would nod in agreement and resignation to the manipulation of the press, oil prices and military power to name just a few and yet do nothing, prefering to seek his/her own personal comforts above everything else.

the best we seem to be able to offer is a lot of pontificating and gossip, with an "I'm all right jack" caveat.

where are the people ready to brandish AK47s and march on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave no matter what ?

the only ones I can think of seem to live in remote Afganistan, have already been branded terrorists whilst seemingly being controled by the CIA and MI5.

it certainly is a mad world.

maybe in the end we all feel safer being controlled, even though we know it's going on.