Lies My Paper Told Me

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/49416/

Lies My Paper Told Me

By Allan Uthman, Buffalo Beast. Posted March 24, 2007.

We can't just blame the media alone for not telling the truth -- we've got to face the fact that audiences are paying to hear those lies.


While I'm one of those big complainers about deception in the media, I have to admit I get a giddy thrill out of reading it. As with any addiction, I've developed an increasing tolerance and require an ever purer dosage of insidious lies and appeals to conformity to get my kicks. Now I have a special appreciation for the most extreme variety of corporate press dishonesty: articles written solely to insult reality.

There's a pattern that articles seem to follow when some poor bootlicking journalist is tasked with refuting an objectionably true piece of information, despite having no coherent case against it. Usually, the majority of the piece will assess the offending claim and generally summarize the evolution of the controversy. This first 80% or so of the article will read like a regular, reasonably evenhanded piece of journalism, perhaps even containing sympathetic quotes from the suspect claim's proponents. Then, having nearly filled their word-count and still at a loss for a decent argument, the author will make a wild U-turn and hurry through a brief, entirely subjective, incomplete and patently idiotic dismissal of whatever point they were just explaining, a tacked-on "there, there" to soothe their tender, easily rattled readers. It reeks of editorial interference, but what's really remarkable is how clumsy and transparent the process is.

snip//

The New York Times played a central role in freaking people out about Iraq, remember. Since then, there has been much hand-wringing on the subject. If they had it to do over ... but now they do. Here they are presented with a second opportunity to get it right, to pull no punches, to treat the Bush administration with the scrutiny and skepticism warranted by the nefarious, lying band of blundering super-criminals that they have proven to be. The Times could be straight with us; they could tell the truth. If The New York Times -- or Newseek, or Time, or The Washington Post, or NBC, or CNN, or any other major corporate news outlet had come out and definitively made the very simple case that the "wiped off the map" quote was simply, objectively wrong, it would have gone a long way toward deflating support for our third and perhaps dumbest invasion since 9/11, and might even have helped foster some healthy public skepticism on the issue. Of course, a lot of people would simply accuse them of treachery, which is one reason for press timidity. But by telling the truth, they could, in fact, have made the world a safer place and perhaps saved thousands of lives.

But that's just not what the press does. What they do is they tell you lies; lies they already know you want to hear. Just as politicians look to polls to determine their policies, letting poorly-informed people lead them on important issues, the press can figure out what its readers or viewers believe, and make a hell of a living pandering to their egos and telling them that they're smart. If they have no rational case, false or otherwise, to support the lies, it doesn't matter much.

All they have to do is say something is true, and it becomes true, especially when it confirms the central tenets of American epistemology: That we already know everything important, that we are always right, and anybody who disagrees is a dangerous threat to our well-being. They lie and tell the audience they are right, and they never have to change your mind about anything. And the audience rewards them, lauding them and paying them money to keep hearing those sweet, self-serving lies. So when the war in Iran is on and they are wondering how the hell it happened, remember: The New York Times and Newsweek are symptoms. Their audience is the disease.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Lets all email Dennis Kunich

he said he would introduce the Fairness Doctrine. Maybe we can encourage him to do it. Tell him how bad this country needs it and maybe he will speed it up for us.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Propaganda is propaganda. I figured out the media lies at the young age of

17. I was already a bit skeptical, but my friend and I were on our way to the first rainbow gathering and we heard the Governor of the State of CO. declaring on the radio that the gathering was cancelled, that the whole thing was shut down. We decided to go see, and man, what a blast. What a cool and groovy thing that was. The Governor had lied on air and the gathering went down in history and launched a long and glorios annual migration of thousands to gather together and go, and a decades long running battle with the Forest Service over the right of peaceful assembly and free exercice of religeon.

So yeah, they lie like dogs.

[pretzel4gore]

3. truth is toxic to the lying liars...

imagine if they began reporting what's going on w/out lying. every single person seeing the news would be saying 'whaa! whaa?' and calling them, asking 'what the hell!' and the pigmedia could never explain what happened, and why, w/out going back to skipping over, misinterpreting and then outright lying. they know it. they will never tell truth. they are political criminals.