I was just wondering about television news (not that I watch much of the drivel). With the recent shark attacks, I'm guessing that there's been pictures of bloody legs etc on our tv screens. Certainly I've seen enough pictures of crime scenes with bodies under sheets, pools of blood, etc. Yet our news does not show pictures of bloody dead american soldiers or Iraqi civilians (just saddam's kids). Interesting. We don't have the stomach for seeing our soldiers bleed - but we do have the stomach to see some kids leg all bloody?
I refuse to watch the news casts on Sacramento stations. It the ********ing Inquirer around here. 'Senior Citizens Mugged in Downtown Sacramento Shopping Mall!!!!!!!!!' Ugh.
Princess Di is wearing a new dress The thread title should read "If it distracts the sheeple from the cluster******** the Bushies have made of the supposed search for bin Laden, our occupation of Iraq and the U.S. job market, it leads".
I tend to agree with you. They should also show in vivid detail what is happening daily at the local abortion clinic. (Sarcasm added)
The last time there was such a media focus on shark attacks it was the summer before 9/11. Maybe Chertoff should raise the terrorist threat level a couple notches. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/28/opinion/smith/main704896.shtml
Well, I for one think this media focus on bad sharks is biased, absolutely unamerican, and close to treasonous. Thousands of people swim in the ocean every day and don't get eaten. You never see a story on the television about all the sand castles that get built, nor the nice things fish do - no - its always focus on a few bad carcharhiniformes. And its hurting america and our beach effort. Think of the people who won't take their families to the beach, or won't go swimming now. Now there's honest american small businessowners who are bleeding customers and hemoraghing money. They have a 3-4 month window to make money, and nobody is showing up at the restaurants and surf shops at our beaches. And this whole negative focus on our beaches will undoubtably have a negative effect on recruitment for our professional surf camps. Less kids will want to surf, and then our proud surfing tradition will be lost and our waves will be ruled by g'daying Australians. The media really out to think twice before running stories like this... otherwise we may need to censor them for their own good, and for the future of this country.
Tragic. It's not about your stomach, it's about your brain and the mass-manipulation of a collective consciousness.
Re: Princess Di is wearing a new dress Call the THREAD HIJACK Police...ratdog is guilty of stretching a shark story to something completely unrelated!
Re: Princess Di is wearing a new dress Wow. An attempted threadjacking that uses an incorrect accusation of threadjacking as its Trojan horse. Cue Allanys. ----------- Anyway, the mainstream corporate owned media systems here in the US and elsewhere attempt to operate in the best interests of those who control the media systems, namely the corporate executives of the media companies' parent business and the advertisers. Our media system does not operate in the public interest. Hence the weapons of mass distraction like the Michael Jackson trial, shark attack stories, Bennifer, etc. It's a brilliant system, really, because it is self-policing. No odious and unflattering government censorship is needed, although the companies themselves may censor the news (see "Monsanto"), known as "killing stories". Everyone involved knows what time it is and if a reporter or editor is dumb enough to imagine he acts in the public interests and runs a story that is deemed not in the best interests of the media company's parent or its advertisers, that person won't last too long in the media.
This thread demands an avatar change. Self policing indeed. More efficient than the Koran in a roomful of women, even. It's secret WMD is subtle but can be found. You just have to know where to look, and how to really see. But yes, Corporate Media Indoctrination is indeed America's greatest challenge right now.
Heh. To answer the serious question, dog bites man vs man bites dog. Shark attacks are so rare that anytime it happens, it's newsworthy (man bites dog). Soldiers killed in Iraq? That happens every week, therefore not newsworthy (dog bites man), at least doesn't warrant a lead story. Maybe if so many soliders weren't getting killed in Iraq, we'd hear about it more. Or something.
Canada's is much the same, really. And a strange lack of a national identity does not help. Hockey, beer, and anti-americanism doesn't serve us well. And the same issues plague us in terms of distraction from real issues, but the political culture is much different relative to what I see as a mass brainwashing (indoctrination). And of course, with less globally penetrating results.
Well, living in Canada helps to avoid the special American brand of indoctrination... But I was not at all immune and it took a close friend, a pile of reading and research, and almost a sledgehammer to really get it. Which is why it is so damn difficult to be understood by those that don't get it. Kinda like you.
You mean my copy of The Economist is sending evil brain waves to me that tell me Bush is god and we should invade Zimbabwe next ? Did you ever stop to consider that perhaps you yourself have been brainwashed into thinking the way that you do for an evil purpose ?
The concept that television news, especially local news, does not actually cover news doesn't qualify as a "current event". TV news has been bad for years. Possibly decades. I was thinking of starting a cable "news" channel that specifically only covers Missing Pretty Young (Preferably Blonde) White Women, but then I realized the CNN already exists.
Wonderful concept. I have a great idea for the name of the channel - WATWWA - "where all the white women at?"
Yup, I most certainly did which is why I researched in depth, and talked and read a variety of perspectives over the span of months.
The name that I came up with was The Damsel Network. It came to me in Ikea over the weekend while waiting for a pickup, and CNN was on the overhead TVs in the waiting area, sending a couple dozen reporters via missile to Idaho to cover another missing white girl story. Really, this could be huge. It combines all of the most pandering elements of Dateline NBC, E!, Court TV, CNN, and Lifetime into one hideously exploitative channel. As an aside, you know what's really interesting / disgusting about that Idaho story? They find the girl alive, and every network covers every second of the press conference live and whatnot and splashes it as the #1 story of the weekend on every cable news website. Then, they find remains of what appears to be the little girl's equally-cute brother yesterday, and that part of the story gets buried. It's like #5 or #6 on the CNN front page, and not even mentioned once on the super-expanded MSNBC front page. When it comes to missing children in the media, only white girls matter.
Fox is listing this as a main (lead) story: Dylan Feared Dead http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161538,00.html While I am not accepting your allegations of "only white girls matter" as I have not seen a breakdown of stories covered my national media; I seem to recall several alert notices of missing children of minorities... Are you alleging bias breakdown by race?