Anyone noticed that what passes for "news" today isn't news?

[Guaranteed]

This ties in well with my other thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1311110

Anyway, what I'm saying is that there's really very little news on NEWS channels today other than political drama. Where are the plane and car crashes? The peace treaties? The new weapons systems? The ethnic wars? It's all federal politics, all the time, as if there's else nothing going on in the world. We're not even hearing about the American soldiers being killed in Iraq.

It's politics as entertainment. It's the WWF- and they're choreographing it. It's Kerry vs. Bush, Dems vs. Pubs, 24/7. Every Sunday or Monday, literally, they shift the momentum the other way to keep public opinion, and the "horserace," close, which keeps people watching and makes money for them.

We're being manipulated, folks. This isn't news. They're ENTERTAINING us...

It's a soap opera.

[xultar]

1. No $hit, one of the questions to viewers for a mug was

How many times did Bush say in his commercial that Kerry voted for a tax increase?

WTF if that doesn't have a political agenda I don't know what does.

[SoCalDem]

2. Thankfully, few actually watch the "news channels"

We do, but MOST people do not.. That's one reason why they show such crap.. They know that we will watch..no matter what.. and they are trying desperately to "catch" a few more channel surfers who might catch a glimpse of a cute girl or hunky guy, and stick around for a few commercials.. That's all they are.. "commercials" linked together by tidbits of "infotainment"

If the congress was SMART and cared about the public getting real information, they could mandate that NEWS channels be commercial free and contain only HARD news..

No fluff
No sex scandals
No murdering Moms
No trials (isn't that WHY court tv came to be???:eyes:) )

There is plently of room in the psectrum, if news was important.. But it is NOT important.. They really don't want us to know what's going on :(

[4morewars]

3. It has been that way for some time....

All fluff, little or no substance. But I'll give ya this: It has definetly gotten worse in the last 3 or 4 years.

[redqueen]

4. Um, yeah

check it

[Guaranteed]

6. Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying...

I'm saying that they don't care who wins (except for Fox and NBC, it seems to me)...what they want is for people to WATCH. They're deliberately skewing the news so as to keep it as dramatic as possible, while keeping the race as close as possible- they jerk people around, like a soap opera, to get them emotionally involved and keep them watching.

I'm talking pretty specifically about the presidential race.

[BeHereNow]

5. 'Murikkkans can't be bothered with NEWS...

They WANT to be entertained.
If they actually heard NEWS, they might have
to wake from their stupor and DO something.
As long as they can have their stupid TV shows,
unlimited credit, gas guzzling monster trucks and
anti-depressant drugs, they are satisfied to wallow in
their own demise.
And so it is.
BHN

[pop goes the weasel]

7. what do you expect

from a country where a 1 pound can of coffee is now 11 ounces? Marketeers have been selling a diminished product for years, and every time the quality or quantity is cut back, a shinier wrapper is put on it. Whether the product is coffee or news, the result is the same: we're being cheated!

[tom_paine]

10. Nice analogy, pop goes the weasel

You are corect, sir.

[pop goes the weasel]

13. thanks

but that's ma'am, sir

[tom_paine]

8. Yes, our "news" is what I imagine they watched in "Farenheit 451"

though Bradbury probably wasn't prescient enough to predict details like that from 1948.

(not to bust on Bradbury, the book is insanely prophetic as it is)

It is NOT "news". Not at all. It is the Infotainment of Slaves. It is the chains slithering around our necks quitely, entertainingly.

Our own Slave-ification is intensely entertaining, clearly.

[Guaranteed]

9. BINGO.

That's EXACTLY it. EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY that concept.

[Guaranteed]

11. It's funny...I remember one time someone saying

that, in television, it's not the shows that are the product being sold to the viewer as the customer. It's the VIEWER being sold as a product to the ADVERTISERS, who are the customers.

It makes me sick that my being a political junkie makes me their product. Maybe I should just let go of politics and hope for the best.

[drhilarius]

15. that is the paradigm shift

of the consumer society of late capitalism in relation to the spectacle. Advertisers and companies create a reality the replaces the real (your lived life). You are expected to buy in, because your world (the real world) is the fantasy world, their world (the spectacle) is the "real" world. The French social critic Baudrillard had a fascinating example- Disney World. Disney world doesn't exist to provide a service to the real world, but rather the real world exists for the sake of Disney Land.

[Guaranteed]

16. That's fucking genius.

Seriously. It's totally true. The social concepts sold to us by the TV are the "real world," while the way in which we live our own lives is dismissed as unimportant, unrealistic.

I think I'll look up this Baudrillard guy.

[redqueen]

17. Being a political junkie does not mean you have to buy their wares

Get your news where you want. Don't watch if you don't like what they're selling.

We know what they're up to. We don't need to watch /read to know they're whoring.

[Guaranteed]

12. Don't forget: Sunday/Monday are the Momentum Switch days.

This is Bush's week. Next week is Kerry's.

[Guaranteed]

14. Kick for liberalnproud's thread

Totally right, my friend.