How bad is the American media?

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Okay, I have to admit I never had sympathy for Slick Hillie's excuse for voting in favour of invading Iraq. She claimed that the Bush administration had "misinformed her" and "tricked her" into doing it with false info. But, as someone who followed Canadian news networks (CBC, CTV) coupled with some BBC website info, it was unbelievably obviously apparent weapons inspectors had found ZERO pieces of evidence indicating Iraq had WMDS.

Now, what that showed was that either Slick Hillie didn't watch foreign news (was parochial), didn't trust foreign news outlets, or just didn't care. (And yes, to all you Democrats with buyers remorse over Obama, slick Hillie is as bad if not worse than Obama. I remember the neo-con sabre-rattling she did in 2008. It was disgraceful.)

Now, given that it was pretty obvious that Iraq didn't have WMDs in 2003, I find it even more ridiculous that 70% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9/11 attacks. How f*cking incompetent is the US media?


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF-NL8fzsJI[/youtube]

You know, I couldn't really tell you; I haven't watched broadcast television in years and get all my news off the internet. That in and of itself might be a pretty good comment on the state of the American media.

Yeah, Americans were very stupid about that war. It was actually popular at the beginning. Over 70% iirc. Maybe higher. They didnt even have a casus belli. lol. Nobody cared. I think you can always lead the American people to war. We're conditioned for it.

The Democrats were very funny. In 91 they were against it. But 91 was a good idea as far as I'm concerned. Then in 2003 they loved it. lol. That's a hell of a track record. If they'd just guessed they had a better chance of being right on Iraq. The Republicans loved it both times. They only hate war when Democrats start them. Some magical force changes everything.

I wanted to see what my local news was saying about the executive privilege fiasco going on yesterday and all 3 of the stations never mentioned a word about it. It was all about Jerry Sandusky.

As the polls show, it's a major problem with the GOP today. They have a serious cultural problem with rejecting information that they don't want to hear. Anything that's uncomfortable to hear is a liberal conspiracy. They will not hear it. The base of the party is rural low information voters and their rw media panders to exactly that.

The GOP base has a serious problem and that's nothing that many Republicans and former Republicans havent been pointing out for years now.

Last edited by simon_says on 22 Jun 2012, 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Sandusky scandal story is a prime example of how backwards the media is. The pick random local stories and blow them up into nation stories they can sensationalize to keep viewers and ratings.

Strangely I find the business networks slightly better at their jobs. They're job is to report on business, the stock market, and the economy. For the most part they do stick to their niche journalism area.

Almost makes me wish News could be further divided into specialized channels.

Also, I really wanted to see the News Networks have a try at running the Primary Debates on the topic of the economy. I think it would have been more insightful and analytical.

When Sandusky was all over the news, and nothing about the Fast and Furious was mentioned, I was thinking "I got rid of cable so I wouldn't have to hear about this Nancy Grace crap."

Not only would I like to hear more about F&F, but the Trans Pacific Partnership. I give the media an F at the moment.

Epistemic Closure knows no politics.

This is why shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report exist. Say what you will about the man's political leanings and his consistent defense that it doesn't really matter because he's a comedian-- Jon Stewart's commentary on the problems inherent with 24-hour cable news networks cuts to the core of the systemic shortcomings of American media as effectively as I've ever seen anyone discuss the subject. He has consistently made the claim that 24-hour news, while appropriate for stories like 9/11, is excessive and overwrought on your typical slow news day, and I think that's a valid statement. The format of these channels practically guarantees sensationalism, banality, misinformation and partisan politicking, because they have so much time to fill, and they're competing for their audience's attention with reality shows and sitcoms and the big NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL/ETC. game. It isn't that they are lacking for material of substance-- it's that, generally, the deep, substantive stories and discussions are seen as lacking the immediacy and entertainment value of gossip and partisan showdowns. A frank, earnest discussion of the merits of this policy or that one may attract a few geeks who really enjoy that kind of thing, but it's not going to draw a crowd. That is what most of these news personalities don't understand about Stewart and Colbert, and why they underestimate those two at their own peril-- not despite, but because they are comedians, they're in a unique position to draw in audiences and offer insight into how absurd things have gotten. The title of "comedian" doesn't diminish them in the eyes of the average viewer, at least, not as much as the journalists think it does. Stewart and Colbert can speak and act as ludicrously as the news personalities they lampoon-- the difference is, people expect it from them. And the real shocker is, Stewart (and Colbert, to a lesser degree, because he's always in-character) actually has some rational, meaningful, mature conversations with some of his guests, which is more than you can ask from a lot of the pundits who regularly appear on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC.

The television media in Britain is just as bad (most of it anyway)

Our media here in Canada is not great either. The poor coverage of the student protests here in Montreal and the truthy games the media has been playing irt them have made me very disappointed in at least this city's mainstream journalistic integrity

The only news show that I watch is The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert is a conservative, but still very witty and intelligent, which is very unusual for a conservative.

When I was living in the U.S. during 2003 and 2004, the media coverage was utterly terribly. Everything was incredibly sensationalistic, and you could see it was blatantly being used as a mouthpiece for the government agenda. There was very little in that time period that the news wasn't like that.

I turned to internet access rather than watch it, it was the only was to get something with a halfway basis in fact.

Most of our media (like in the US) is concentrated in the the hands of a few corporations. Bell owns CTV et al., Shaw owns Global et al., in some regions all of the major newspapers are owned by the same company... It's not healthy and doesn't lend itself to hearing a diversity of different viewpoints. The CBC is independent, but unfortunately they can be intimidated by the threat of more funding cuts, so they don't want to be too critical of whoever's in power.

Media news reporters are merely paid actors, who read their lines as if they understand what they're saying.

Secondly, people, please pay attention as to what advertisements are shown. Remember that cliche -- don't bite the hand that feeds you.

The funny bit of that link is the obvious Dunning-Kruger link. Republicans are woefully misinformed on foreign policy but 40% (almost twice the dem number) think they they know a lot about it.