The sad state of US journalism

[Shawnski]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

In 1928, you might have had a point.

I believe the point still stands; perhaps more so now then ever before in history. Let's go over your post paragraph by paragraph to explain...

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Information comes from everywhere and anywhere these days, including so-called citizen journalists, while varying opinions, moderate to radicalized, are equally unfettered for access for the average news consumer.

The first bolded part actually sounds very similar to centuries ago when "Town Criers" trumpted the "news", but many relied on word of mouth information from travelers and such. The second bolded part should probably read "the average news JUNKIE". There is still a large percentage that gets their news from TV, and although the group of those getting information from the internet is increasing, that traffic is still going to MSM websites. News "junkies" will hunt around more and dig deeper perhaps, but the AVERAGE person will not.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

If you're got something to say, you should have no problem making yourself heard.

Tell that to Ron Paul, the MSMs' "devil in disguise". I have never, EVER, witnessed such a media blockade of information, and worse yet, the perpetuation of DISinformation. Like him or not, his views are definitely different, and especially in debates as important as policy of the US should perpetuate discussions.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

You have no excuse at all in this day and age, even in darkest Africa, for not being connected to the information age and viewing all sorts of interpretations of that information in any form you might want.

Wow, on this one I have to shake my head in utter disappointment in you Cow. It could even be a separate thread....

A whopping 11.4% of Africans "penetrate" the internet. And of those, Nigeria (surprise, surprise... scam e-mailers...) have 44% of that demographic...

Originally Posted by Cowperson

As a result, the point from 1928 has obviously been blown out of the water. Its virtually impossible to contain information in its rawest form.

Au contraire, mon ami. The only thing blown out of the water is the fart I let go in the bathtub as I wrote this. (obligatory fart joke... didn't actually happen.. but I did let one rip that spilled my beer from its shockwave.) Seriously, it takes a lot of time (and more importantly, inclination) to discern the wheat from the chaff nowadays. The average Joe Blow (and/or Mrs Joe Blow) is/are too consumed time wise dealing with our debt based society to have time to delve deeper into the plethora of news stories that might impact them.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The newest trend for news and opinion is websites like The Huffington Post which offer a platform for comment, usually provided for free by those seeking a podium to talk, with profits focussed narrrowly in a few pockets. The electronic, global spanning version of Speakers Corner.

Intellectually Cow, you very well may be the 1%... (OK, let's say "well read" instead...) Care to guess how many Canadians would even KNOW the "Huffington Post" if polled? Let alone participate, let alone actually participate? 0.000...%....

Originally Posted by Cowperson

With virtually no overhead, no worrries about print production, no limit on content, no need to send a reporter out to cover a hurricane, ever-expanding readership and therefore large net profit margins, these money-making media opinion websites have been proliferating like rabbits.

Add to that, no need to be accurate. As much as the MSM can be controlled and manipulated, alternative "commentaries" can also follow this track. Viewers still have to separate the "wheat from the chaff" and all things being equal are STILL most likely to follow the trend, as documented in the "Asch experiment"

Originally Posted by Cowperson

You saw the lucrative nature of these new media sites when The Huffington Post was sold recently for hundreds of millions of dollars.

So a media website sells for "hundreds of millions of dollars" and that doesn't alarm you? Each and every website that allows user feedback has their own way of "moderating" what is, and what is NOT posted. Just look at CBC.ca... EVERY post is pre-screened by someone (who? or is it "something") to determine if it should be allowed.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

On a smaller scale, Calgarypuck, with content provided for free by volunteers, is pretty much the same thing.

And also moderated as to what can, and cannot be said. How would your world look like if the only source (and feedback) of information was this site?

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Journalists, who have been engaging in ceaseless whining about shrinking newsrooms for decades, are gravitating towards these alternative information sources, sometimes as a sanctioned sidebar of their traditional employers.

Good journalists are actually the chaff within the wheat that I seek. But they rarely appear under the employ of those that want to keep control of the message.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

This goes to a very important point - you MUST make a profit in any business, and media is no exception.

Exactly, but not for the intent you imply. And this goes back to the original post by macker. Propaganda. Those companies/entiteies that own the media are the ones that ultimately profit from it, even if the said media itself post losses in the process. The trend to fewer "news" outlets is scary. When will there only be one?

Originally Posted by Cowperson

With the vast proliferation of means and methods by which a news consumer can view content, competition for eyes is ferocious . . . . . and the smart people who understand the psychological and money-making implications of "Confirmation Bias" and "Hostile Media Phenomenon" are those who will end up with dollars in their pockets.

Sorry Cow, I think you vastly overrate the amount of "smart people" on this planet, let alone all the other aspects I have brought forward. "Confirmation Bias" I definitely agree with, which actually goes against your argument in that you indicate we have so many sources of information to gain different points of view, yet we are likely to steer towards the media that one believes are more likely to perpetuate ones own perspective. On the "Hostile Meda Phenomenon", I can again reference Ron Paul. When a guy like Jon Stewart (who is probably the anti-Ron Paul type) has a segment on this, you know something is up.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

It's all about how you can make a buck on the media web these days and, more importantly, finding the right formula. The New York Times is back to charging for content. You can view 20 stories from your IP in a month but go over that and you have to pay for content. The first time they tried something like that, they bombed horribly. If I'm not mistaken, this second attempt has netted about three times as many subscribers as they were expecting. They finally found the right way to do it and you can expect their example to proliferate in varying forms.

Let them charge all they want for "news". The last thing I will EVER do is to pay for a "source" of information that is ultimately just a huge game of "snakes and ladders" of disinformation propagated by those that benefit the most on the backs of those that can afford it the least.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

If you're a normal human being, American or otherwise, you will likely engage in the "comfort food" practice of finding a few sources of information that surround you in a warm blanket, that being a source that tells you your opinion is right versus challenging yourself in the darkest, scariest places you can find.

Yup, I definitely agree. But that contrasts significantly from your previous message of having a vast amount of resources to choose from, and I discussed this two paragraphs above.

(cont'd in next post)

[Shawnski]

(cont'd)

Originally Posted by Cowperson

That is not confined to America. In fact, you could easily argue Americans might be the most likely to see contrary opinions versus, say, the average Pakistani.

Argue it then. And how it ISN'T information manipulation by the powers that be in that market.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The way I see it, media are simply reacting to the demands of consumers, reshaping themselves to a new age and reacting to enhanced competition for eyeballs that are increasingly demanding "confirmation bias."

So, what I am reading is "playing to the crowd". Hey, as a DJ, I can totally understand that. If anything, your statement goes towards the "Asch experiment" I noted above.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

But that only means you have a rapidly expanding base of sources from which to get your information and the interpretations of that information.

YES!! IF you are so inclined. But there is more crap to sift through and unless you are willing to participate without the factor of the "Asch experiment" as noted above, you are contributing to the propaganda.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Its up to you to decide if you want to be informed but don't say you can't be informed.

And you have to deduce truths from fallacies. I fear there are more fallacies than truths promoted by the MSM than ever before.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Its a golden age for a news junky.

LOL.. now the "junky" label is stated...

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Its kind of instructive these days to go to "normal" news sites and see what the top ten "most viewed" or "most e-mailed" or "most popular" stories might be on any given day.

Again, this is all about the conformity that Asch researched. Crowds.. sheep.. bah bah bah... Views for a crappy song on YouTube will hit millions or even hundreds of millions, but discussions about what "money" is barely register.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Today the most viewed story in Canada's Globe & Mail is "My Gynecologist Pushed Plastic Surgery On Me" while the most viewed stories in the Washington Post, LA Times and NY Times are decidedly more serious.

Glad the headline wasn't "My Plastic Surgeon Pushed Gynecology On Me"... seriously, WTF? Personally, I couldn't care less about what garbage media like the Globe and Mail, the CBC, the Sun and the National Post contrive as "top stories". It's all Three Card Monty to me. I might read and even agree with some articles on each of these, but the populous generally gravitates to the garbage...

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Does that make Canadians dummies? No, it just means we're voyeurs and curiousity hounds and that's a helluva headline.

No, it does reflect that Canadians are also media dummies. I see it here on CP as well. Heck, I argued vehemountly how CP was becoming dumber after their cup run in '04. That is a huge part of why I left. And Cow, just as an FYI, seeing YOU back was a part of why I have recently returned.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

The beauty of our society is that we're free to be as stupid and ill-informed as we personally want to be . . . . or the opposite. No pressure. My experience is that people are experts in their daily lives and when outside events impinge on their lives, like a global recession, they start to expand their horizons a bit to take that information in. Otherwise, don't bother them because they're trying to make ends meet.

So people are sheep until the SHTF? The slave nature of our current monetary structure hits home and then BOOM, TEA party and/or Occupy situations result? (both, BTW, have a "croni-capitalist" theme commonality.)

Originally Posted by Cowperson

And I have no problem with people being more interested in Kim Kardashian's flopped wedding scam than Congress spinning its wheels, simply because they actually DO see both, but they might read the Kardashian headline and story first.

Hogwash. They do NOT see BOTH. There is a vast difference between the two types of stories, and YouTube view counts can clearly show that. "Informative" videos like US Politics draw some hits, but entertainment videos are off the chart hit wise in comparison.

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Cowperson

Yes, yes you are. And I am sure a vast majority on CalgaryPuck like myself love you for your incredible input. Do you remember many moons ago when I penned a "Salt Block" story in rebuttal to a certain MSM writer (BD - Ballistic Diarrhea) while ghost writing for you? Funny how lawyers apparently became involved and CP had to completely eradicate my post, even though it was composed well (in no time at all), and received much applause from this community. That post was the ONLY copy of my transcript... and was lost forever. In reference to your paragraph three, I have personally been "violated" in this matter. Sure, I was "heard" as you say, but my voice was silenced by the powers that be.

Bottom line is that propaganda in the media is HUGE at this moment, and I haven't even scratched the surface as to why that is.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I actually watch Stewart more than O'Reilly but, niether regularly. I'm too lazy to look up the segment but, Jon didn't deny his bias.

It's pretty clear that Stewart is a leftie. Nobody's arguing that.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Also, those t-shirts and trinkets O'Reilly sells goes to charity. It's not a bad idea to use your fame to help others.

Perhaps, but it is a bad idea if you expect to be taken seriously one minute and then spend the next minute selling jingoist t-shirts and coffee mugs to halfwits.

[missdpuck]

If you get a chance, check out the documentary "Media Malpractice".
I'm not a Republican, but when they show how Sarah Palin's comments were taken out of context (many of them were meant to be sarcastic), I couldn't help feeling a little sick.
It's on Netflix here.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

It's pretty clear that Stewart is a leftie. Nobody's arguing that.



Perhaps, but it is a bad idea if you expect to be taken seriously one minute and then spend the next minute selling jingoist t-shirts and coffee mugs to halfwits.

Obamaniacs don't like O'Reilly. Was going to say the OWS crowd but they need to obtain a wit first. As always, you end your 3 sentence posts being a turd.

Ooops that was rude! But then I am following great leftie examples of replying to others.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by shawnski

great points, well put.

THANK YOU!

Re: (damn caps block...)

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

(cont'd)


Yes, yes you are. And I am sure a vast majority on CalgaryPuck like myself love you for your incredible input. Do you remember many moons ago when I penned a "Salt Block" story in rebuttal to a certain MSM writer (BD - Ballistic Diarrhea) while ghost writing for you? Funny how lawyers apparently became involved and CP had to completely eradicate my post, even though it was composed well (in no time at all), and received much applause from this community. That post was the ONLY copy of my transcript... and was lost forever. In reference to your paragraph three, I have personally been "violated" in this matter. Sure, I was "heard" as you say, but my voice was silenced by the powers that be.

Bottom line is that propaganda in the media is HUGE at this moment, and I haven't even scratched the surface as to why that is.

The top five most viewed stories in the Hindustan Times this morning are, in order:

"Why Women In Their 20's Rush Into Marriage
Kolarveri Di is Now Part Of Music Album
Kolarveri Di is Absolute Nonsense: Dhanush
Is Sunny Leone The Nicest Girl In Bigg Boss 5
Think Twice Before Getting Tatooed.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Your anti-American paranoia is ignoring one basic fact . . . . . that humans, at their most fundamental level, are the same the world over.

And God Bless 'Em for that.

Secondly, as I said, they are experts in their own lives and free to allow the influences of the outside world into those lives as they might see fit.

I hope we never try to take away the freedom to be a shallow dolt.

As to the rest of your reply, you kind of blow yourself out of the water with the emphasis on a bolded "powers that be," inference, which is essentially a claim of conspiracy by a narrow group working in collaboration.

Not sure how the Asch Experiment helps you since, among other things, it also demonstrated that even a small, dissenting minority could create confusion and doubt in a herd . . . . . and there's no doubt at all in today's world there's no shortage of availability of dissenting opinions. In America, the political landscape is deeply partisan with the middle ground a vacant wasteland. This narrowly defined bunch herding us into one corner seem to have lost control because conformity doesn't seem to be the norm.

Media catering to a particular point of view, as I noted, is looking to be increasingly good business. But individuals still have to make the choice as to which side of the street they want to walk. The Huffington Post as a business model was an example, as I stated.

Again, there isn't a single thing you claimed that refutes the obvious . . . . . that the average news consumer has never in history had as wide a variety of information sources to freely access nor as great a variety of opinions or interpretations of that information. Or that you can source information or offer information, beyond borders, almost instantaneously. Here is a list of roughly 10,000 newspapers online. http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/

Want to see what Pakistani's are thinking this morning? How is someone stopping you from reading The Dawn here http://www.dawn.com/ which puts a face to one Pakistani soldier killed by Americans on the border: http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/29/anoth...her-widow.html

I'm not saying you have to - with your hard-earned freedom to be a dolt if you wish - just saying that's quite a leap from what you might have been able to do 15 years ago.

To somehow claim that this grand and ever-expanding mess is somehow "controlled" - implying a conspiracy - by the powers that be is quite laughable.

And again, as stated, I have no problem at all if people want to put Kim Kardashian at the top of their to-do list at the start of the day and if they glance at Congressional politics once a week. As above, the average person in India appears little different than the average American in that regard.

Lastly, I was trekking up Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania a few years ago, at the height of the financial crisis, and the average porter on the trip, with excellent cellphone reception up through 19,340 feet, was far more in touch about catastrophic day to day events than I was. I could have carried a satellite phone but I wanted to get away from it all. Meanwhile, all these third worlders were yacking away with their buddies. Our head porter had a rooster crow cellphone ring.

In 2009, there were already 5.6 million cellphones in Kenya, a country where only 200,000 people had electricity. Africa is the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. Another huge trend in the third world is the bypassing of standard brick and mortar banks in exchange for zipping money all over the place by mobile phone using a registered agent.

Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola, said this in late 2010: " I can't imagine anything since the invention of the spinning jenny that will so profoundly change the lives of people in the deepest, rural parts of the emerging market. This is the knowledge revolution coming to them, finally."

Imagine that, all the knowledge of the world, all of its conflicting opinions along with it, suddenly dropping into your lap.

That's the trend.

On the other hand, I will grant you that going 10 km west of Millarville will see your cell reception drop to zero. There are people living there who can't get satellite or radio tower internet either and are essentially condemned to dial-up.

It may be that we will agree to disagree but I'll let my earlier responses stand.

PS: I don't remember anything about ghost stories or claims of being silenced at Calgarypuck. Sounds exciting though.

Cowperson

[Azure]

PS: I don't remember anything about ghost stories or claims of being silenced at Calgarypuck. Sounds exciting though.

I would like to know more about this as well.

[Itse]

I know it's very popular to piss on the US media, both in and out of that country, and in part it's for good reason. The TV news outlets seem to be pretty terrible from what little I've seen. However, TV news seem to be pretty crappy in most countries, and in Britain for example even "newspapers" can be absolutely horrible in their level of journalism.

The US also has the some of the best media anywhere, or at least that's my opinion after following news from many countries for quite some time.

Basicly it comes down the same old fact: big countries have a lot of things in them, good and bad.

I would love to hear such indepth analysis of Finnish politics that you can get from the US. The amount and quality of coverage is a big part of why so many foreigners follow US politics. Everything is so available.

(EDIT: although I think the US media seems pretty poor in digging into specific differences in politics between candidates in various elections. But I imagine that's mostly because with the two-party system, it's often a race between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum...)

[Cowperson]

Considering the context of the conversation, this is deliciously ironic . . . . .

http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/29/pakis...-news-ban.html

Also today . . . . http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11...gypt-election/

Cowperson

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by HOZ

Obamaniacs don't like O'Reilly. Was going to say the OWS crowd but they need to obtain a wit first. As always, you end your 3 sentence posts being a turd.

Ooops that was rude! But then I am following great leftie examples of replying to others.

Maybe that .333 is a number you can aspire too. You've been hitting a perfect 1.0 for months.