Old Media News In The Tank

It has been so bad this election season that I have stopped watching such networks such as CNN and MSNBC. Consider this:
The Media, Sen. Obama And He Who Must Not Be Named.
Found at:
http://zachjonesishome.wordpress.com/the-media-sen-obama-and-he-who-must-not-be-named/

Your observations on the News is spot on. PMSNBC is absolutely in the tank for Barry Husssein. No doubts there. We used to have a joke around here that it isn't CNN, but C3NN as in the Clinton, Communist and Crescent News Network. Now it is just C2NN for the Communist and Crescent News Network, since they summarily tossed the Clintons over the dam. Fox is starting to take on that label of being unwatchable for the very reasons you state. Democratic 'Strategist': "Bush sucks, Pelosi and Reid are great". Republican 'Strategist': "Bush is great, the Democrats Suck". I could give your their answers before they give them out. Some strategy. For once, I'd like to hear some REAL strategy and tactical analysis, not this partisan sniping. I tell you, if Firearms were abused as badly as the "Freedom" of the press, there'd be a total nationwide gun ban in place.

I canceled my subscription to the Boston Globe years ago, because it became such a partisan rag. I hated to do it, because my dog really enjoyed going out to fetch it each morning. The WSJ is one of the few papers still worth reading. I've also noticed that Fox and CNN are putting more and more babes on. What next, will they start wearing bakinis so we'll keep watching. I agree that Fox is overdoing the dueling political analysts. One of them is devoted to Barack and the other to McCain, it's boring. I also vote for getting rid of Colmes, he's annoying and can't really believe what he says. What about Nancy Grace? She would make a great Wicken Priestess, but who wants to watch her show? Glen Beck isn't bad, I find myself watching him most evenings. His total lack of PC is refreshing.

The Balkanization of news is likely to increase on the web for a good while before serious consolidation occurs. This is considered by most as a feature of the web not a flaw but is problematic, to say the least, from a balance standpoint. In that regard if you ignore the fluff on Drudge and supplement with the more sober commentary on National Review Online then about as balanced a news picture as one is likely to get these days will emerge. NRO is partisan of course but far more serious journalists appear there than any other site that comes to mind. The ad hominem hysterics of nearly all the "progressive" sites are by comparison puerile and inconsequential.

I don't understand how anyone can say they weren't "in the tank" prior to the knuckle heads in the media now. Have you ever thought the reason McCarthy was vilified was because their beloved communism was under attack? Or have you ever thought why only demoncrats won elections for all those years? Come on they just didn't have anyone expsoing their total bias. Come on Walter Conkrite almost single handedly lost the Vietnam war after Tet was won.

Lets not forget the rise of pure speculation as news. It's so much easier and cheaper to sit around chatting with "experts" about all the disasters that "might" happen, than it is to make the effort and spend the money required to send someone out into the world to report on what actually is happening.

George Orwell when he wrote 1984 and Animal Farm gave us a prevue of what life in the 21 century would be like!

Investors Business Daily is a good source of information. IBD is only interested in making money, their news analysis is spot on.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one questioning why I ever viewed the fox news channel. They certainly have changed the manner in which they handle the news.

I distinctly remember watching happily as the commie/liberal/progressive didn't get to have the final word in the block and wonder of wonders, sometimes there were only conservative/rightwing/fascists, like me presented. When they changed, I turned them off. Haven't been back since. I can get that excrement elsewhere. I did find the Glenn Beck show on CNN though. What a shocker! It's the only thing I watch that is news related on T.V.

75 news channels, same stories, same slant on all of them and if I hear one more news corporation going "green" I'll puke.

What a great tool to control the minds of men.

No truer words have been spoken. But, would anyone believe the B'ham riots were nothing more than paid radicals to promote Huntley to tell the world how bad life was in the OLD South. Get a GRIP people and look at your own GREAT inner city.
Nightly news is waiting for the kill.

I think the larger issue regarding the news is being missed entirely.

When the news media started losing audience, they relied upon the principles that they "thought" drew viewers because the media, along with the academic pseudo intelligentsia really think they are smarter than the American public.

Their strategy was to dumb down their delivery. You see, it really goes back to the whole "if it bleeds, it leads" principle. It must have conflict to be interesting. They thought they were losing audience to the Jerry Springers of the world. Not so.

The public was telling them they want the truth, unvarnished and unadorned. We started looking to other sources to find out what is really going on.

We don't prefer news of bloodshed and corruption. Even worse for their ratings, we can tell the difference between the hooey they spew and the truth. We know we are being subjected to manipulation and we reject it wholesale.

The writing is abysmal. Just because the general public are not professional writers doesn't mean we can't distinguish between bad writing, good writing and great writing.

Classic literature and music don't become classic because elitists commend them, but because generation after generation, the general public commends them by continuing to read and listen to them.

Most importantly, we want the good news even more than we want the bad news. And we will go find it elsewhere if they refuse to provide it. We refuse to be inundated with the morale crippling agenda of negativity that they have been foisting off on us.

It's as simple as that. All the rest, including their political grandstanding, is just puffery. We, the people, see through it and will not succomb.

Best regards,
Gail

So are we to be independent wanderers, surfing the web to fashion our own boutique of news sources?

That's what anyone with any intelligence does.

The lemmings watch NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, get a totally distorted picture of what is actually happening, and remain stuck on stupid.

THE "MEDIA" BOUGHT DOWN THEMSELVES WITH THE "SELECTIVE" SLANT. LEAVING OUT FACTS, THEY IMPOSED THEIR OWN VIEWS & EGO'S. THUS NO ONE IS WATCHING. AMERICAN'S WANT ALL THE FACTS, W/O MEDIA'S SELECTION & BIASED VIEWS.
SAME WITH LOCAL NEWS, NO RESEARCH, JUST READING FROM
NATIONAL BIAS NEWS PLUS ALL THE NEGATIVE EVENTS. BORING. TURNED OFF ANY TY "PRETEND" NEWS LONG AGO.
I READ FORBES, LUCIANNE.COM, AMERICAN THINKER.COM, ETC. YET, MAJOR MEDIA (WHICH ONLY TALK TO EACH OTHER) SEEM CLUELESS THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT "THEIR" OPINION!
ZERO CONTENT - ALL REPORT/READ THE SAME STORY.
BORING.
CONGRESS ALSO SEEMS CLUELESS, THAT THE PUBLIC, RESENTS THEIR ANTI-AMERICAN LEGISLATION & SNEAKY DEALS THAT NEVER BENIFIT THE U.S. CITIZEN. THEIR EGO & LACK OF COMMON SENSE MAKES THEIR
"ACCUSATIONS & PRETEND "INVESTIGATIONS AS ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO BE SEEN & HEARD ON BIASED MEDIA. ONLY 545 PEOPLE, MOSTLY CONGRESS, CONTROL THE REST OF CITIZENS. THEY NEED TO BE VACATED FROM OFFICE & SEE HOW THEY WOULD DO IN REAL WORLD...WITH THEIR STUPID TAXES & REGULATIONS.
THESE IN CONGRESS, (20 PLUS YEARS, WAGGING THEIR LIPS) WHO, HAVE NEVER HELD A REAL JOB NEED TO GO. ONE SHOULD LIST THE DAMAGE EACH HAS DONE TO CITIZENS.
LOOK AT ALL THE ARROGANTS ABOUT OIL PRICES, CONGRESS IS TOTALLY RFESPONSIBLE FOR THE HIGHER PRICES. THEY ARE THE ONLY ONE'S WITH THE POWER TO TAX & MAKE REGULATIONS. JERKS.

Media news? Who has time to watch NBC or CBS? Who wants to? The shows they make are trash and filth. The news is biased and they talk down like your a idiot. I get virtually 100% of my news online now. With the exception of the WSJ the print media is a joke. Cynthia Tucker anyone? She alone is reason for me to not subscribe to anything.
As to TV shows, they are just plain stupid, the humor is lame and the sexuality is a bore. So are the stupid cuts at Republicans, Christians, etc. I cannot even remember when I watched the 3 major networks except to catch local news...
Maybe if they produced some shows worth my time I might... Until then, DVD, The History Channel and TCM will have to suffice...
Leave it to the left to perpetuate a failed business model..

Here's the deal. In this country a small group of Leftists have a large say in what gets printed and broadcast. Their aim is to move America incrementally to the left along the lines of socialist Europe. The Social Democrat platform is their model. This ideological shift occurs along with the changes since the 60's in our basic institutions to undermine the so-called "cultural hegemony" of our Western philosophy and traditions. It is what Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist theoretician, called "the long march through the institutions". It is fundamentally more dangerous than any foreign threat in my opinion. Our news sources are free to say anything, but the truth is we are always subject to political propaganda from the producers and editors of the major news organizations, worldwide.

When in this election season or, for that matter, since 1992, have the media not been in the tank for Democrats?
The giants of the past - Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley and the rest - were all seasoned reporters who transitioned to television news. The people today are pretty faces. With few exceptions, they haven't worked in anything but television. Most newcomers aim to get into television journalism, television being the operative word. You don't have to be a meteorologist to do the weather. Someone just hands you a script and you wave your hand in front of what (to you) is a blank screen, while someone else handles the graphics.
As for why people would worry more about politicians who become journalists over those who become lobbyists the short answer is that the journalists are in a better position to directly influence VOTERS. The lobbyists are seen as insiders and most of what lobbyists do happens outside the view of most Americans. A lobbyist is a lobbyist is a lobbyist. Whether he's a professional lobbyist or a professional politician turned lobbyist, he is perceived as having the same influence on elected officials.
Fox started out doing hard news but quickly turned to missing woman of the week stories. Thankfully, the names of most of these women escape me but I do remember when it seemed the business of the country stopped after a woman went missing in Aruba. It took 9/11 to get journalists to cover something other than the disappearance of a young Washington woman. Cable stations made national news out of what would normally have been local or, at best, regional stories.
Television news is best for a story that is breaking. Otherwise, there's little reason to watch it anymore. Even this year's election coverage is pointless. Why bother watching it? Skip the election coverage and a one hour show can be over in less than half an hour, leaving more time to read.

I haven't had much use for the network news since the late 1960's when they tried and convicted the government over the Vietnam War using the nightly newscasts as a venue. Then there was the Watergate embarrassment, during which Dan Rather hung like a bulldog on the neck of Dick Nixon, reporting night after night from outside the White House, building his own career at the expense of that of the American President. By 1984 or 85 when they had the chutzpah to interview a terrorist through the window of a hijacked airplane, while he was holding a gun to the head of the pilot, I gave up on network news entirely.

Personally, I grew up with a shortwave radio in the home and was listening to news from all over the world by age 10. I remember listening to Radio Moscow, the BBC, voice of America, Radio Nederland, Deutsche Radio, and many others during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 and wondering how people could have such different reports about what was happening. Listening to it all, I realised that I was better able to form my own opinion when I'd heard all sides of the story. I never looked back.

I never believed that any one group could deliver unbiased news. That's why I've always made the effort to locate multiple sources and then make up my own mind. I categorically don't watch the networks or the FN/CNN/MSNBC triumvirate for my news. I still scan the shortwave bands and use the internet to locate a variety of opinions so that I can arrive at my own conclusions about events around the world.

But I know I'm unique among Americans.

Sadly most people, Americans included, are easily distracted by the "bright shiny objects" the media bring them in the form TV and movies. By so doing, they become the 'useful idiots' on whose willing backs tyrants climb to power.

Congress is contemplating requiring the FCC to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine. They don't want to impose it on network news, just on talk radio. I can think of a number of reasons it's a bad idea, and I would encourage all of you to write/call your representatives in the Senate and the House to express your disapproval of the Fairness Doctrine. But the Democrats are strong and it looks as though they'll get stronger.

For your own sake and the sake of freedom in America, please let your representatives know that if they have to compromise on the Fairness Doctrine, the best compromise is that the Fairness Doctrine get imposed not just on talk radio, but on all content brought to Americans via TV (including cable) and radio. I'd be willing to give up the opinions of talk radio on the condition that the opinions of the networks and news channels were eliminated at the same time.

We need a new acronym instead of MSM . . . there's nothing especially mainstream about them. Maybe, CNM (Corrupt News Media), BNM (Biased News Media), UNM (Unbalanced News Media), etc. Run a contest, adopt and stick to the winner, and maybe the more descriptive "meme" will morph into common usage.

OPRAH TANKS
Whenever my crystal ball gets cloudy and full of flame I remember Oprah endorses Obama and Obrah's ratings tank.

My thoughts, exactly. Even the Wall Street Journal is getting dumbed down and going mainstream, with lots more liberal news and views. The Washington Times is good, but it's owned by the Moonies. That leaves the New York Sun, which I'm going to subscribe to by mail (i.e., cost of subscription plus cost of postage) as soon as I can. Any thoughts?

"Are we sentenced to scanning the daily Drudged-up offerings to separate wheat from shaft?"

Don't you separate wheat from "chaff"? Or am I missing something?

Nothing can be as bad as seeing a 23 year old "political" strategist on Fox or CNN telling me what I already know. Makes U wanna puke.And then there are the local news broadcast that want you to tune in to an in-depth analysis of something that last about 2 minutes. Where is the other 58 minutes of analysis to properly cover the subject matter?? They might as well as put in on a billboard along the highway becasue the time frame (as in attention span) is rated at about 5 seconds.

Some of us can remember when Mr. Cary's so-called giants were telling us how great it would be when Castro defeated the tyrant Batista to free Cuba. We can also remember that during the early 1960s they never once told us that the core of the so-called civil rights movement were young people who had grown up in Stalinist households and aspired to create a Communist Amerika, albeit one not subservient to the Soviets. Nor did they ever tell us that Martin Luther King's principal adviser, Stanley David Levison, was a secret member of the Communist Party, a fact which the FBI had leaked to Southern newspapers. And who could forget Walter Cronkite's notorious claim that we would have to negotiate with the Vietnamese Communists after the Tet Offensive when he knew very well that they would accept no settlement that would guarantee safety for South Vietnam? And there's much, much more.

The truth is that the mainstream media has seen its role as a vanguard in the march of progress since its inception and has lied to the American people for decades. The big question: given that federal law holds that the public airwaves should be used for the good of society, why is it that the propaganda of the mainstream media isn't confined to cable?

all those AT readers who believe the bloggers who post here should expand coverage of world news so we have an unbiased view of the world, please raise your hand.

I still watch Fox news (at least the lead-in stories) because I just can't stomach the all the BO fawning on BNM (biased news media, ha!) I vote for BNM as the next acronym. great suggestion BobK!

TODAY'S MEDIA
A man is walking through the zoo when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to devour her right in front the little girl's screaming parents. The man runs to the cage, hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain, the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the man returns her to her terrified parents.
A reporter has seen the whole scene and says to the rescuer: "Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life."

"Why, it was nothing," said the man. "Really, the lion was behind bars and I knew God would protect me just as He did Daniel in the lions den long, long ago. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt was right."
"I noticed a Bible in your pocket. Are you a Republican," asked the journalist.
"Yes, and I'm a Christian on my way to a Bible study," the man replies.
"Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist and tomorrow's paper will have this on the front page."

The journalist leaves. The following morning the man buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on first page:

"Right Wing Republican Christian Fundamentalist Assaults African Immigrant and Steals His Lunch."

"With the exception of Cronkite, most are forgotten."
And with the exception of Cronkite, most were true professional journalists, as was Cronkite until the recent past. I vividly recall his hissy little temper tantrum when, during Desert Storm, reporters were actually banned from some locations and were forbidden to release time-sensitive operational information. Looking at his distinguished past, perhaps his decline into MSMism can be attributed to senility (I've always said liberalism was a mental disease), but it was sad to see.
We are, and have been, witnessing the death of journalism and the birth and growth of political hacks who care for nothing but their own narrow, rigid world view, substituting opinion and inuendo for fact. And mostly learned at the knee of some former hippy, probably communist or socialist "journalism" professor. The American media briefly discovered the power they weild during Vietnam, when they molded public opinion and influenced national policy. They seemed to have mostly forgotten it for years until, in 2005/2006, they rediscovered it - with a vengeance - by their DIRECT influence on the congressional mid-terms. They, more than the candidates themselves, determined for the most part who got elected and who didn't. And the Lefties have been riding that wave ever since.