Press sensationalism

Discussion in 'Politics' started by te jen, Jan 8, 2006.

  1. te jen Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    532
    As recently reported on EditorAndPublisher.com, the following papers called for Bill Clinton to resign in 1998 after the sordid details of his sexual escapades became public:

    National:
    USA Today

    Alabama:
    The Mobile Register
    Montgomery Advertiser

    Arizona:
    Tucson Citizen

    California:
    San Jose Mercury News
    The Orange County Register
    The North (San Diego) County Times
    The Record, Stockton

    Colorado:
    The Denver Post

    Connecticut:
    The Day of New London
    Norwich Bulletin

    District of Columbia:
    The Washington Times

    Flordia:
    The Orlando Sentinel
    The Tampa Tribune

    Georgia:
    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
    The Augusta Chronicle

    Illinois:
    Chicago Tribune

    Indiana:
    The Indianapolis Star
    Chronicle-Tribune of Marion
    South Bend Tribune
    The Times of Northwest Indiana

    Iowa:
    The Des Moines Register

    Kansas:
    The Topeka Capital-Journal

    Louisiana:
    The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
    The News-Star, Monroe

    Michigan:
    The Grand Rapids Press
    Detroit Free Press

    Minnesto:
    Post-Bulletin of Rochester

    Mississippi:
    Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo

    Missouri:
    Jefferson City News-Tribune

    Nebraska:
    Lincoln Journal Star

    Nevada:
    Reno Gazette-Journal

    New Jersey
    The Trentonian, Trenton

    New Mexico:
    Albuquerque Journal
    The Santa Fe New Mexican

    New York:
    Sunday Freeman of Kingston
    Utica Observer-Dispatch

    North Carolina:
    The Herald-Sun of Durham
    Winston-Salem Journal

    Ohio:
    The Repository, Canton
    The Cincinnati Enquirer
    The Cincinnati Post

    Oklahoma:
    The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City
    Tulsa World

    Oregon:
    Statesman Journal, Salem

    Pennsylvania:
    The Philadelphia Inquirer
    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

    South Carolina:
    The State, Columbia

    South Dakota:
    Argus Leader, Sioux Falls

    Texas:
    San Antonio Express-News
    El Paso Times

    Utah:
    Standard-Examiner, Ogden
    The Spectrum, St. George
    The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City
    Deseret News, Salt Lake City

    Virginia:
    Daily Press of Newport News

    Washington:
    The Seattle Times

    Wisconsin:
    The Post-Crescent, Appleton
    The Journal Times, Racine

    I wonder what these papers have to say these days about the U.S.' current president? In 1998 they were clearly using prurient interest and moral outrage to declare Clinton unfit for his office. Sensationalism sells, as Baron Max points out. But honestly trying to leave all partisanship aside, it must be said that the current president has shown an equal level of poor judgement and an equal disrespect for the traditional values of the American people. Where is the press on all of this?

    Another example - twelve men die in a West Virginia coal mine. The press fall all over themselves to eulogize these men, interview their families, so on and so forth ad nauseum. There are an average of 6300 work-related fatalities in the U.S. every year. That's seventeen men and women every day. It seems like the national media could profile at least one of these hardworking people each day to remind us how labor keeps the country going and the price that is sometimes paid at the workplace. Twelve guys die in a coal mine - and the next day eleven men are killed in Iraq. Did anybody hear one scrap of information about any of those men? Read any of their last letters home? Learn about their lost aspirations? I didn't think so.

    It's all about entertainment, folks. Keep the masses happy or at least diverted with tales of tragedy and deceit so they won't take a critical look at their own lives. Bread and circuses, bread and circuses, while Rome burns.

    EDIT: While I was writing this, news comes across the wire that a Black Hawk went down (shot down?) in Iraq and killed another twelve soldiers. Let's see if the press gives these people the same kindness tge coal miners got, or if they take the opportunity to comment on the mendacity of the men who sent them into harm's way.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2006
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  3. Happeh Registered Senior Member

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    1,263
    Isn't it weird to realize that the "free" media is controlled by the Israelis and the Republicans?

    You grow up hearing about freedom and democracy. Then one day you wake up and realize your country is no different from the other countries. The ones described as having corrupt politicians and a controlled media.
     
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  5. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    If that's true, then why is it that the media has been denigrating the Republicans for the past four or five years? As I see it, the media has been relentlessly hounding the Republicans, so how can you say that it's controlled by the Republicans???? Please explain.

    Baron Max
     
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  7. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    "It's all about entertainment, folks. Keep the masses happy or at least diverted with tales of tragedy and deceit so they won't take a critical look at their own lives."

    Well, I don't think it's a concerted effort to "keep the masses happy", it's about making money! The news media is no longer about telling us the "news" as it is telling us about the "news" that will keep us entertained and interested ...and thus watching and talking, which converts to money for the media. The media doesn't care if "Rome is burning", they want/need to make money, so they might even start the fires themselves just to have something to show on the "news".

    Baron Max
     
  8. Light Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,258
    Pure bunk. That's all you ever get from Happeh.

    He hasn't bothered to notice that the newspapers and TV networks will just a gleefully tattle on and rake over the coals any Republican just ans much as any Democrat. (Evidently he's never heard of, or paid no attention - because it didn't suit his theory - all the news about Cheney, Karl Rove, Powell (in connection with Iraq/WMD) and several others while it was hot and heavy. (He may not even know they are Republicans!)

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    Like it or not, your theory is garbage, Happeh. The news media is HAPPY to jump on ANY politician they can.
     
  9. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,061
    Our media is not controlled by shadowy zionist or Republican conspiracists. It is instead controlled by market forces. Editors follow unwritten formulas to "give the people what they want", "don't rock the boat" and more than anything, keep the corporate ad-dollars flowing.

    So they work to titillate. To make us "feel good". To stir up nationalism. To inspire hero-worship. Draw a tear for the American victim (and not the outsider). They work to encourage unquestioning fealty to the powers and socioeconomic structures that be. We are in a sense being (and allowing ourselves to be) fed on artificial, manufactured collective emotions. These sugar-coated substitutes are displacing what's real, and displacing what a society needs in order to long thrive.

    In recognition of our heartland Bible-belt culture, those of us who look above herd-level can witness our media serving up juicy kudos for the "Chosen Ones". Ariel Sharon is now being accoladed like a Martin Luther King or a Nelson Mandela. They dole out grey mush concerning the Arabs and Persians, conflating them as inscrutible, uncivilized religious nuts so that we Americans may feel splendid in our own new zealous raimants. Our media must generously dish out our desperately-held superiority by demonizing others, because Americans have not just an appetite but a dependency on this formula. If we were given something more real today, the American public would surely spit it back in the face of journalists and reporters- Yechh! What's That?!

    But our palatable, poisonous diet is obviously bad for our national health. We Americans really have noone to blame but ourselves for this information diet of junk, and for our resultantly atrophied minds. Our once vast national fortune is beint frittered away in ignorance, while we are fed on comforting lies.

    By progressively downgrading America's awareness at our own request, the newscorps are rendering the entire Aerican gravy-train unsustainable. As the fattest, most belligerent brat of a nation inevitably gets put in her place by the rest of the world, there will come a day when the media can't deny reality any longer: Too many victims, and too much anger at us to deny. By then, I expect most Americans will be considerably poorer, but more aware- consuming a far more healthy and varied information diet.

    Right now, and for those who see beyond major American media, I think it would be most advantageous, that it would most cushion the fall, for us to see and proclaim that the enemy is us, and not some secret cabal.
     
  10. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    Then why do most of the news stories actually make us feel bad? ...anger us? ...upset us?

    Then why are the news stories constantly pointing out the problems and errors of our national government and officials? If they're trying to stir up nationalism, they're sure going about it in the wrong fuckin' way!!

    Then why are they continually showing stories that reflect badly for the Americans ...like the Iraqi War? Like the Katrina Hurricane and FEMA problems? ...and there are many such stories which put the Americans in a poor light as compared to others of the world.

    Then why are "whistle-blower" stories always right on top of the agenda in the news? Why are crooked politicians always favorite "meat" of the media? Why are things like the recent "wiretapping" major issues in the media? If that's their way of encouraging fealty, then they sure have a lot to learn, don't they?!

    I'm not sure what news media you see, watch, listen to or read, Hype, but it sure isn't anything that I do ...nor, apparently, is it anything that most here at the forums watch, either. Practically every post here is some news story meant to tear down the Americans and American government officials in the most horrendous way. What do you watch/read, for god's sake?

    Baron Max
     
  11. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,061
    As you've pointed out, Baron, it's slowly turning. Criticism of this administration in the media is gaining traction, and I think that too is market-driven. By the next Presidential election, I expect there to be a widespread "throw the bastards out" mentality, even in the coming mid-terms to some extent. But I have doubts that the commercially-minded mainstream will provide the in-depth coverage necessary for Americans limited to those mainstream sources to gain a reasonable understanding of what is happening to our position on the global stage, and why.
     
  12. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,061
    "What do you watch/read, for god's sake?"

    All I can. I even regularly listen/read/watch the right-wing cheerleaders for the "New American Century" both for the content and the irony. For Mideast affairs, two of my favorite journalistic/blog sources are Robert Fisk and Juan Cole.
     
  13. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    Well, I think the media provides us exactly what we want, not what we need. We, the people, have only ourselves to blame.

    However, that being said, I'm not so sure that even a small percentage of Americans (or any people, for that matter) could gain any reasonable understanding of world politics, world economies and world interaction.

    Most people have a difficult time figuring out what to have for dinner!! Not to mention that most don't give one single, solitary turd about what happens ...OTHER THAN... the stuff the DIRECTLY affects them. As I've said before, the entire European continent could sink into the ocean and if the media didn't make a big issue out of it, most Americans couldn't care less because it just doesn't affect them directly. "Europe? Where the fuck is that?" .... "Oh, hell, you know! It's just a little east of Texas." .... "Oh, okay ...thanks."

    Baron Max
     
  14. QuarkMoon I Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    773
    Everyone should just watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. No commercial time to sell to make the corporates happy, just pure news. It's the only television news I watch.
     
  15. te jen Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    532
    There's no such thing. Some news sources are more fair and balanced than others, and Jim Lehrer is one of the best, but it is impossible to produce a source of pure news. All sources are influenced to some degree by the producers' political, social, cultural and economic outlook. The key to being well-informed is to partake from as many sources as possible. It's hard to do this, since we tend to want to read the sources that say the things we already agree with.

    Baron Max clearly feels that the media as a whole is critical of government, oversensational and anti-American. Hypewaders seems to believe that the media is entirely market-driven, not independent. A point of contention was the purpose of much sensational news - to tittilate? It's my experience that many people don't watch bad news to feel bad, but as a form of entertainment. If my neighbor gets killed, I can be glad that it didn't happen to me, I can find affirmation of my worldview that people do stupid things or that crime is rampant or that he got what he deserved or whatever. It makes the world comprehensible to the ignorant. It's easier to pay attention to than the much more difficult subjects of law, history, macroeconomics and world politics that really drive our daily lives.

    This is why Clinton's impeachment was popular and Bush's will not be. Popular in the sense of easy to understand and be outraged at.

    Baron, Hype - we should find studies that reflect a fair sampling of media output, the subjects covered and the moral positions taken on those subjects. That would be a reasonable resource for discussion.


    The famous UCLA study: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

    Criticism of the methodology of the UCLA study: http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220003
    http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10808
     

  16. the media is controlled by money. the will sell out any interest they might have in order to get a hot story and draw viewers/readers/listeners. they sensationalize relatively mundane issues in order to fill up time slots in an era of 24 hour cable news networks and 24 hour internet news sites. they make every single murder and kidnapping into a national crisis as long as the victim or the family has some small amount of star quality. they attack any politician who exhibits less than superhuman amounts of honesty, integrity, and strength. its a circus, people eat up drama and they know it so thats what they give us. you can throw all the conspiracy theories at it that you want, but the truth is that its just greed and profit motive that determines what we see and how we see it.
     
  17. te jen Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    532
    This is the really critical issue. By inflating the importance of so many trivial events, the people eventually begin to regard every story as of equal importance. Which is to say, of little importance.

    I think it's possible to say, without fear of contradiction, that we live in a critical time for the health of democracy. Regardless of your position, you should agree with that. The times, they are a-changing, and the media is of damned little help in sorting it all out.
     

  18. thats definitely true. in the past, i think people were a little more engaged in politics because when an election came along, it was a special event and elections/campaigns only happened every few years. now however, we live in a state of constant election campaigns. within six months of a congressman or president winning an election they begin planning their next campaing and posturing/pandering to the votes that they missed and hope to capture over the course of the next 2-6 years. there is little meaningful action being taken by elected officials because of the fact that in order to gain the most votes you have to anger the least amount of people. in order to do that, elsected officials have mastered the art of saying a lot and doing almost nothing at all. official postitions on issues become watered down to the point of almost zero effectiveness.
    because of this, people are beginning to tune out the whole process. being constantly bombarded with meaningless sound bytes, scandals, and trash politics is creating a sense of helplessness and apathy that is invading the american psyche. every event you see on the news is portrayed as some earth shattering moment for the nation, and as a result, no one cares anymore because no matter how important the nightly news may make it seem, we can all see that not a goddamn thing is actually changing. the war is far away from us, new orleans is far away from most of us, we can all tell ourselves that we arent the ones being spied on, and 9/11 was years ago. why worry as long as we can hold onto the status quo?
     
  19. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,061
    "why worry as long as we can hold onto the status quo?"

    Which comes back to the point I tried to make: We must because we can't. Baron Max could not be more wrong when he asserts that Europe could fall into the sea etc. and not affect the courses of each of our individual lives profoundly. Nor can truly momentous events fail to deeply influence our personal thoughts.

    Every individual on this planet is becoming ever more economically and culturally connected. A nascient communications revolution dwarfing the introduction of printing is affecting us all. The end of the petroleum age is affecting us all. Climate change is affecting us all. These seemingly nebulous issues will as a result be on the minds of all.

    Infotainment may desensitize to some extent, but simultaneously we are broadening our consciousnesses. Baron Max is enthusiastically broadening his global consciousness right here before our eyes, even as he feigns nihilism. Even as we attempt overtly or subconsciously to categorize information-givers as liberal-conservative, familiar-weird or what have you, we are all becoming more aware of each other, because we are all affecting each other on a globalizing scale, and we are continually augmenting our ability to observe this megatrend on a global scale.

    So is press sensationalism deadening our senses? I think not, because the greatest dramas ahead will rock our worlds and make us think with rationality about our changing physical and sociological environments. That's very simply how our species survives.
     

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