Pressident
(by way of Hullabaloo)
Frank Rich, New York Times, puts some interesting pieces together. Think about it in the context of your nation.
"By applying constant pressure, in ways seen and unseen, the leaders of the government have attempted to shape the news to resemble the images seen through the prism of their own power." [1973]
"Today [2005], that dream of control is fully realized. Republicans routinely bully any reporter or organization that doesn't play ball while they feed lots of juicy propaganda to their bought and paid for media like FOX, Rush, Drudge and The NY Post knowing that the story will work its way into the mainstream anyway. They created an entertainment model for news in which entertainment values superceded civic values and it attracted a different kind of person to the field. Over time, fewer and fewer reporters wouldn't play ball because those that refused were weeded out in a form of (un)natural selection. In the end, the survivors don't even know they are biased. They are so enmeshed in this system of celebrity punishment and rewards that their own self esteem is now drawn from their acceptability to the (Republican) establishment. And each and every day the partisan right wing media pushes the discourse a few inches further to the right."
(emphasis added, as if needed)
Frank Rich, New York Times, puts some interesting pieces together. Think about it in the context of your nation.
"By applying constant pressure, in ways seen and unseen, the leaders of the government have attempted to shape the news to resemble the images seen through the prism of their own power." [1973]
"Today [2005], that dream of control is fully realized. Republicans routinely bully any reporter or organization that doesn't play ball while they feed lots of juicy propaganda to their bought and paid for media like FOX, Rush, Drudge and The NY Post knowing that the story will work its way into the mainstream anyway. They created an entertainment model for news in which entertainment values superceded civic values and it attracted a different kind of person to the field. Over time, fewer and fewer reporters wouldn't play ball because those that refused were weeded out in a form of (un)natural selection. In the end, the survivors don't even know they are biased. They are so enmeshed in this system of celebrity punishment and rewards that their own self esteem is now drawn from their acceptability to the (Republican) establishment. And each and every day the partisan right wing media pushes the discourse a few inches further to the right."
(emphasis added, as if needed)
posted by lemania at 1:52 am
3 Comments:
I don't think there's much more to be said about FOX news, but what should we do with Michael Moore, for example? He has been among the most vocal to shed light on (and exploit?) the bias and the appeal of such "fair and balanced" entertainment/news programming, and yet I've heard it said that all of his very public anti-Bush positioning is one thing that virtually guaranteed Bush's re-election. Maybe the real problem is not so much the blurring of the distinction between news, entertainment, and advertising (in which Moore is implicated to no lesser extent than FOX), but the fact that all roads, as the post points out, inevitably lead to the right.
Sadly, one reaches the exact same conclusion when she tries to apply this 'model' to our meagre Greek reality: despite the verbalities of the "socialists" over the past two decades, the end-result is so rightly ..right. (The picture of Hadjinikolaou interviewing an endless succession of 'popular' entertainers on prime-time television comes vividly to my mind.) Now, the "conservatives" can temporarily appear more liberal in their media-moguls-wars only because they've come to realize somebody else had been usurping their natural right to be ..right.
But even the right in Greece is on the left by American standards... or is it culturally insensitive of me to say so? Good morning, btw.
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