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the American people, who want the media to rally around officials in times of crisis Bah. Speak for yourself, Atlantic Magazine. (Especially during manufactu

by Vivtek 13y ago

the American people, who want the media to rally around officials in times of crisis Bah. Speak for yourself, Atlantic Magazine. (Especially during manufactured crises...)

RyanMcGreal 13y ago
Of course he doesn't mean every single American - he's making a generalization. But kindly note that in the weeks after 9/11, fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists - even, explicitly, if thousands of innocent civilians of those countries would be killed.
- mercurial 13y ago
  "Think of the children" and "think of the terrorists" are the twin udders of "the end justifies the means" policies.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Of course he doesn't mean every single American" Oh he was so close and yet so far. He means almost no Americans on a percentage basis of the total, not all of them. The linked article was an excellent study of the trees but missed the forest. The root of the problem is narrowcasting aka local maxima seeking. Example. Lets say the country initially boots up with 10 million news consumers. Consumers, you know, like saprophytes, but I digress. Your individual media co. gets 10% of the consumers. Boss decides to boost his quarterly executive bonus by tabloid-ing it up a bit. So the "older" woman anchor gets fired and replaced by a perky college cheerleader, if it bleeds it leads, maybe some top ten lists (the equivalent of internet link bait). Hurray the exec got his bonus because your share increased to 20%. The bad news is the population, repelled by repulsive infotainment, shrunk to 5 million total. Well, no problem, you've got 20% of the consumers, outta 5 million consumers. Well, gotta get a bonus somehow. We can blame the drop in total consumers on the internet or facebook or just guilt trip people or whatever... but we've gotta boost that 20% impact to a higher percentage. Maybe some B-list celebrity interviews, some lasagna recipes, some onsite "news" reporting about the state fair... Woooo Hoooo we're owning the market we went up to 25% of consumers hurray huge bonuses and backslapping for all... well, except for the repellant effect dropping total industry wide audience to only 2 million now. Repeat this cycle a couple times and you end up with worthless American news media that almost no one watches. 95% of the population, literally, won't watch "the news" on TV for free, its such garbage. The other "saw the trees, missed the forest" moment in the article is mass media is huge corporations owned by huge corporations. Total lack of diversity. Only five men in charge of five companies control about 99% of what Americans watch on TV. What a surprise that a big business propaganda conduit is boring and uninformative.
- DougWebb 13y ago
  ...fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists... The problem is that Iraq wasn't one of those countries, but the media mostly supported President Cheney's^h^h^h^h Bush's desire to invade anyway. The American media is also hugely biased when it comes to reporting casualties too... every American soldier's death was and continues to be noted, but the huge number of soldiers with severe injuries is rarely counted, and the enormous number of local civilians and soldiers killed and injured are hardly mentioned at all. Aside from military families who know what's really going on, American warfare is presented to Americans as if it was just another one of our action movies. That's why we seem so ignorant about our impact on the world.
  - Vivtek 13y ago
    "Seem"?
- Vivtek 13y ago
  Don't even get me started. It was a manufactured crisis and the manufactured media response was yellow journalism at its best. There were hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets protesting that travesty of a fake war - which we're still hemorrhaging blood and money for - and yet the media drumbeat was always that the "American people" "want" the "media" to "rally around" authority. Ten years later, I'm still experiencing a spike in blood pressure thinking about it. F*ing American Reichstag.

by Vivtek 13y ago

the American people, who want the media to rally around officials in times of crisis Bah. Speak for yourself, Atlantic Magazine. (Especially during manufactured crises...)

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

Of course he doesn't mean every single American - he's making a generalization. But kindly note that in the weeks after 9/11, fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists - even, explicitly, if thousands of innocent civilians of those countries would be killed.

mercurial 13y ago
"Think of the children" and "think of the terrorists" are the twin udders of "the end justifies the means" policies.
VLM 13y ago
"Of course he doesn't mean every single American" Oh he was so close and yet so far. He means almost no Americans on a percentage basis of the total, not all of them. The linked article was an excellent study of the trees but missed the forest. The root of the problem is narrowcasting aka local maxima seeking. Example. Lets say the country initially boots up with 10 million news consumers. Consumers, you know, like saprophytes, but I digress. Your individual media co. gets 10% of the consumers. Boss decides to boost his quarterly executive bonus by tabloid-ing it up a bit. So the "older" woman anchor gets fired and replaced by a perky college cheerleader, if it bleeds it leads, maybe some top ten lists (the equivalent of internet link bait). Hurray the exec got his bonus because your share increased to 20%. The bad news is the population, repelled by repulsive infotainment, shrunk to 5 million total. Well, no problem, you've got 20% of the consumers, outta 5 million consumers. Well, gotta get a bonus somehow. We can blame the drop in total consumers on the internet or facebook or just guilt trip people or whatever... but we've gotta boost that 20% impact to a higher percentage. Maybe some B-list celebrity interviews, some lasagna recipes, some onsite "news" reporting about the state fair... Woooo Hoooo we're owning the market we went up to 25% of consumers hurray huge bonuses and backslapping for all... well, except for the repellant effect dropping total industry wide audience to only 2 million now. Repeat this cycle a couple times and you end up with worthless American news media that almost no one watches. 95% of the population, literally, won't watch "the news" on TV for free, its such garbage. The other "saw the trees, missed the forest" moment in the article is mass media is huge corporations owned by huge corporations. Total lack of diversity. Only five men in charge of five companies control about 99% of what Americans watch on TV. What a surprise that a big business propaganda conduit is boring and uninformative.
DougWebb 13y ago
...fully three quarters of Americans supported a military engagement against countries that harbored terrorists... The problem is that Iraq wasn't one of those countries, but the media mostly supported President Cheney's^h^h^h^h Bush's desire to invade anyway. The American media is also hugely biased when it comes to reporting casualties too... every American soldier's death was and continues to be noted, but the huge number of soldiers with severe injuries is rarely counted, and the enormous number of local civilians and soldiers killed and injured are hardly mentioned at all. Aside from military families who know what's really going on, American warfare is presented to Americans as if it was just another one of our action movies. That's why we seem so ignorant about our impact on the world.
- Vivtek 13y ago
  "Seem"?
Vivtek 13y ago
Don't even get me started. It was a manufactured crisis and the manufactured media response was yellow journalism at its best. There were hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets protesting that travesty of a fake war - which we're still hemorrhaging blood and money for - and yet the media drumbeat was always that the "American people" "want" the "media" to "rally around" authority. Ten years later, I'm still experiencing a spike in blood pressure thinking about it. F*ing American Reichstag.