Alison!

Journalism has always been political. Even their faux neutrality is a political statement, and one the generally favors the dominant powers that be. The “he said/she said” political journalism that has come to dominate so much of our press is the worst sort of political pandering by never fact checking the statements and giving the advantage to those who are willing to egregiously lie (or are batshit insane).

“She’ll reveal a different side of her than you’ve seen before,” NBC Universal spokeswoman Megan Kopf said of Palin Sunday on the “Today” show’s website.

I haven’t seen a good side of the Boreal Narcissus yet. Think I’ll give it a miss.

How many sides can a unidimensional person have?

The Wisconsin State Journal management speaks BS. Their favoritism is evident. Republican. Maybe old school Republican and not whole-heartedly favoritism for the Walker version, but partisan republican just the same!

Besides a job does not preclude civic responsibility.

All one really need do is go to any msm “news” website and there will always be some breathless headlines teasing about some “reality” show or another and gossipy items that almost always turn out to be tabloid rumors. I have to believe that the focus on the trivial but melodramatic is intentional.

I got the dissertation DrD, thanks. Haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet though.

I don’t think there’s very much that happens in the media that is unintentional.

No, of course not. Good point. They are in business to make money short term and survive long term. Everything is done with that in mind.

Glad you got it. Read it at your leisure. It is really well done and pretty readable, but a bit heavy going in places, owing to the subject matter/content. Only dissertation I ever saw that got committee members choked up (me included).

Bread and circuses, my dear.

Yeah, I can’t wait. Probably won’t find time till this weekend though as long as it is. I look forward to it.

And, from what I gathered hanging around some of the local news folks when my sister was kind of a bigwig at a local NBC station, they think that everyone watches their show and they’re all family and stuff and that because so many people love them and get their news from them that they must be correct.

The television media gave up on journalism decades ago, when they decided each division must be self-supporting. That gave birth to “happy-talk” local coverage and the “if it bleeds, it leads” philosophy. Sarah Palin is the poster child for the whole mess.
The media loved her, made her, and ridiculed her. And she was a willing player in the game.
Now she’s passed her 15 minutes, and just in for the payday.
The media has been browbeaten to accept that there is ALWAYS an equally valid counter argument to anything. They give birthers, tenthers, 9/11 theorists, climate change deniers, creationists, “intelligent design” lulus and anything up to “Flintstoners” who rode dinosaurs and flat earthers, a platform and a serious nod.
We need a child. and that child needs to tell the media,
These people are CRAAAAZZYYY!

I suspect that there will be a lot of things you can relate to in there.

Now she’s passed her 15 minutes…

We can only hope that the media notice sometime soon.

Sure. The ruling caste has controlled it’s crony media for over a generation now. Far from being a check on government power, the media has become it’s chief enabler. Think about how shocked and horrified the late 1970′s public would have been at accusations of torture for example. Now we have main stream media figures and politicians cheering for it.

Now I’m even more intrigued.

“If it bleeds, it leads” has always been the dictum of the press, which is about selling papers or add time. What has changed is corporate/ conglomerate control and increased consolidation of the media. News is expected to make a profit (which was not the case on TV until the 1980s or so). There has always been a lot of shitty press and house organs of the elites, but in the past there was sufficient diversity that stories got out and you could find honest brokers on any issue. When my father was growing up in St. Louis in the 1920s and 1930s, there were half a dozen German language papers alone in the city. Today, there is really only one paper.

The smell should give them a clue.

It is not so much government power, though that is an issue, as it is corporate power. Now that they are mostly owned by large corporations, often conglomerates (do you think maybe NBC has a conflict of interest in reporting on defense stories?).

Trying to stay awake for late night these days, but this is as far as I can make it.
But, nice to see all y’all’s stuff. Such nice and smart folks.
Nighty. :)

Having grown up in Oklahoma, there was a lot I related to and I am not LGBT, but do not really fit the gender stereotypes. A fair number were also in the military.

Night. Sleep well.

Enabling the conflation of opinion with science is nothing short of criminal on the part of the media. Anthropogenic climate change for example is no more “partisan” than gravity, just like evolution vs creationism but the media inflate and then market these absurd “controversies” as if they are the least bit relevant to reality.

Night sweetie!

Part of the problem is that a lot of reporters really do not understand science or how it works.

Sure DrD but the corporations’ interests are to put and keep politicians friendly to their interests in power. It’s an incestuous relationship as well as a parasitic one.

I’m hep. A pretty strong indictment of our entire society in my opinion.

:) and zzzzzz.
You’re angels, you three are.

Again, it goes back to corporate power. As I consistently say to glibertarians who whine about “crony capitalism” corrupting their perfect system, that is the only kind there has ever been since the first thing a successful businessman buys is the politicians.

And the second thing that is done is to hire someone to distract from that. One way is to turn it into a big joke and justify it with the old “everybody does it”, next thing you know, you have apathetic and/or misinformed voters and the people in charge stay in charge.

The media purvey gossip and are public relations outlets. They derive income from commercial advertising. They aren’t obliged to be honest, truthful, or correct. It’s pathetic that intelligent people hope for something else from news organizations.

Anyway, it’s getting let for me too folks. Oya!

Nighters!

Oyasumi nasai.

As my dear, recently departed, mother used to say, “Oh for godsakes!”

Nighters, demi!

Sleep well Margaret!

Chris!
(really going now. Just had to say.)

I suspect one of the reasons we still have vestigial ‘free speech’ in this country is because it, and the truth, don’t matter with all that background noise.

so sadly true.

Many a month has come and gone….

I have felt for a long time that a journalism degree should be allowed only as a minor, with a major in some actual field of knowledge. You should have a business degree to be a business reporter and so on, otherwise you are an easy mark for any lier who gets in front of the camera

I heard a TV weatherman being interviewed once. According to him, at most local TV stations the weatherman is the only person around that knows much of anything about science. Seeing the quality of reporting, I can believe it.

MadMen was crazy last night — the Rolling Stones bit was fabulous!

Katie Couric called herself “America’s Sweetheart” (in mocking fashion) a number of times. Her final Today Show was billed, time and time again, as, “Say goodbye to America’s Sweetheart.” Sarah Palin’s whole “Hockey Mom” thing was her trademark. So I see no sexism in the article — maybe in the advertising for Today calling Couric America’s Sweetheart, but none in the article itself.

As to your other point? Yes — the Conservative bias is quite apparent. Remember, NBC is supposedly our “Liberal” news outlet. What will be on tomorrow morning? Conservative nutter Morning Joe on MSNBC and Conservative nutter Sarah Palin on NBC. Neither fair or balanced. If a Sarah Palin is going to be on, then where is a Michael Moore as guest host? I can’t believe people still claim the media is “Liberal” — one of those people is, ironically, guest hosting the Today Show this morning.

Time is on my side…

And now that I’m back from my trip, I expect to read it next week!

Very impressed so far with her work, DrD.

There are still something like 55 Chinese daily newspapers in SF.

Question for a late night thread:

Why are the majority of Liberals early birds, rather than night owls? Being a night owl, myself — it makes for lonely evenings online. This is just at FDL — it’s at every Liberal blog I visit. While moderate blogs keep going strong, movie blogs, video game blogs, all are having active conversations deep into the night/morning … it’s basically “lights out” at Liberal blogs by midnight, at the latest.

I know many of you (or the few of you still awake), are ready to pounce in with, “Liberals have jobs.” But so do the people at the other blogs I named. And so do I. What I worry about is that the population of Liberal blogs is waaaaaay older than that of the other blogs described. And that makes me worry that Liberalism itself is disappearing in younger generations.

Well FMR….That’s “fuck me runnin ” if anyone wants to know.