How The Media Fails In Covering Elections

[ihavenobias]

The Narrative Narrative
By Marty Kaplan

Meta makes the MSM go round. Reality isn't real any more; to the press, all the world's a stage. Or rather, all the world's an onstage and a backstage. Candidates don't have beliefs; they have positions. Campaigns don't have meanings; they have narratives. In the postmodern funhouse that imprisons prestige media, the job isn't to cover events, but rather to reveal their theatricality; the trick isn't to find truth, but to disclose "framing"; the task isn't to establish facts, but to transform them into he-said/she-said Mexican standoffs.

The Washington Post's coverage of the CNN circus in Las Vegas set the tone: "For Clinton, it was a chance to change the story line." Not only is this a depressing observation about what politics has become, and a dispiriting illustration of what political coverage has turned into; it's also, tragically, true...

For the rest:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/the-narrative-narrative_b_73167.html

[AndyTiedye]

1. They Aren't "Failing", They Are Doing EXACTLY What Their Owners Tell Them to Do

[ihavenobias]

2. They *are* failing

They are failing our democracy. But yes, they are increasing ratings which is more important, obviously.

[AndyTiedye]

3. It Isn't Even About Ratings (They Are Failing There Too)

It is about catapulting the propaganda.

[ihavenobias]

4. Well

the vast majority of people get their news from television, that's a fact.

It's a sad fact, but there's no disputing it.

But yes, more people would rather watch American Idol (and so on) over a discussion of relevant issues, but that's another problem...

[L0oniX]

5. NBC CBS ABC FOX MSN CNN etc are our enemies

Suggested watching: INN, AGR, DW, Mosaic, LinkTV, FSTV (Freespeech tv), Democracy Now.

[AndyTiedye]

6. Not ONE of Those is on Our Cable

INN, AGR, DW, Mosaic, LinkTV, FSTV (Freespeech tv), Democracy Now.

[L0oniX]

9. I know ..it sucks ...we have Dish Network

[AndyTiedye]

10. We Have Redwoods. No Satellite for Us

[sss1977]

7. as Howard Beale told us in Network...

"This network is now in the hands of CC and A the Communications Corporation of America. We've got a new Chairman of the Board, a man named Frank Hackett now sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this tube? So, listen to me! Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park, that's what television is! Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, side-show freaks, liontamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! If you want truth, go to God, go to your guru, go to yourself because that's the only place you'll ever find any real truth! But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry: just look at your watch -- at the end of the hour, he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear! We deal in illusion, man! None of it's true! But you people sit there -- all of you -- day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds -- we're all you know. You're beginning to believe this illusion we're spinning here. You're beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! We're the illusions! So turn off this goddam set! Turn it off right now! Turn it off and leave it off. Turn it off right now, right in the middle of this very sentence I'm speaking now --"

[tom_paine]

8. Network sounds tame and anachronistic these days.

Not it's prophetic message of warning, that was spot on and has only been superseded because it has come fully and 100% TRUE and things are now so far past that it boggles the mind.

But the "Mao Tse Tung Hour"? That lame-ass couple of minutes of video robbery couldn't even get on E! TV's Talk Soup, it's so tame.

:rofl:

1976, that's when that was made. A mere 41 years ago. And in that time a new Hitler, a new Caesar has risen, and using the awesome powers of psychology, PR, advertising, and marketing, they have driven a nation clincally insane for extreme personl gain. Not unlike the old Hitler and Caesar (who had no conception of psychology in acient Rome, but his political instincts were prototypes of such and would have made his machinations very recognizable to Dick Cheney or Karl Rove, today)

Network details only one tiny battlefield here, and prophesied it's outcome to ten, no twelve decimal places.

Unfortunately.