Why I'm giving up on corporate American news channels and watching BBC!

[forty6]

Is anyone else so sick of slanted opinionated, abbreviated, sensationalized, homogenized, news? Honestly, the cable news networks in the USA more resemble voices of the Republican Party, (except for MSNBC, which from 4 PM to 11 PM is the voice of the Democratic Party for a few hours).

If I were a Brit, visiting the USA, I would think the Daily Mail had ownership of all the cable channels. I would think that America was full of psychopathic parents and priests who abuse or kill or abduct their children, or kill their spouse in the process of divorce.
I would think ONLY America COUNTS, and the other 95% of the population of the world was immaterial, unless it was a threat to that hallowed holy 5% in the US. I would think that American schools of journalism also teach their students to be side-show barkers at the local circus, shouting at their audience "come inside our tent, after this commercial, and see the amazing bearded woman slay her husband with a ginsu-knife!" or "come inside to see how fake Obama's birth certificate really is!".

America has lost their real journalists of conscience, they realize now they have sold them out to the addiction of fear. Americans turn on their news to see the spectacle, to become more petrified of their other American neighbors, conservative or liberal. And the big omission in America is any mention of the pre-civil war racism, which still thrives like a Cancer in all fifty organs of her body.
Conservative Americans are hypnotized into ignoring it, while liberal Americans are blindsided and befuddled by the never-ending call for the President's certificate of birth! Both liberals and conservatives mostly ignore internecine racial animus, and go about their daily lives, falsely believing all this was "setttled" in 1865, when Lee Surrendered to Grant. Of course, historically informed Americans know that the struggle for equality goes on today, and that one racial group is slowly making SOME progress, while those of Spanish speaking origin are largely facing that same prejudice and fear that blacks and native Americans face alongside them. The point is that American news treats all these racial tensions (or worse) as "anomalies", not the elephant in the living room's center, news media treat these issues more like the spider in the corner.

Anyway, enough for my first rant on American cable news media, (with echo's in countless other print media, from Huffington Post to the Blaze and World News Daily, Washington Post, or Washington Times, New York Post or New York Times).

What are YOUR thoughts about what you are being fed on the TV machine, packaged and sponsored and sold to you as "news"?
Do you turn them off? Do you seek other alternatives? Do you think PBS and NPR have sold out too?

And for those of you reading this from Canada, or the UK, or anywhere else on the globe, what are your thoughts about how bad our cable channel lineup of freak shows called "news" has become?

[Scuba]

1. Um, 'cause your cable provider doesn't provide Al Jazeera?

[hifiguy]

9. I don't get AJE as a separate channel

but I try to catch its nightly world news on MHz, which my cable provider offers on a "Worldview" channel. Deutsche Welle, which comes on afterwards, is also good. Both vastly superior to any world news on US TV (IMO the good MSNBC shows are almost always domestic news unless there is a huge crisis).

[Scuba]

11. Or in other words....

"A jumbo jet carrying 650 people crashed and burned last night. Four Americans were killed."

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. You want to know how bad American TV news is and how people in other countries see it?

Well, here's an example. My wife is British (I'm American). She saw the film "Bob Roberts", with Tim Robbins, which features quite a few CNN/TV news type talking heads (and was made in 1992). "Bob Roberts", if you haven't seen it, is a dark comedy about a folksinging fascist politician. Her reaction to the depiction of American TV news was, as she said to me, "I thought they were taking the piss, but it's really like that, isn't it?"

[forty6]

4. GREAT POINT!!!!!!!!!!!! ""I thought they were taking the piss"

I have traveled much in Canada and the UK, some in France and Germany.

I have a great time watching news in the UK, or even Canada, (well, I and ignore the Provincial in-fights there)..but the quality of news in other nations on television is so much better than in the USA!!!! So much more in depth, more "balanced", less campaigning, more emphasis on the factual.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[SoCalDem]

18. But but but.. their "news readers" are not as CUTE as ours are

:rofl:

[whathehell]

6. You want to know how "off" your wife's remark was?

Bob Roberts is a SATIRE and the characters were EXAGGERATED for the sake of humor.

You should have told her.

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. Well, no, she said that after I showed her clips of actual American TV news.

Which is not so different to the satirised version presented in the film, really. (Which is what she was saying.)

[virgogal]

3. A very wise decision but I'm sure BBC isn't perfect either. None of

them are.

[forty6]

5. I'm not looking for perfect, but I AM looking for facts without the sounds

of a circus barker delivering it to me! Without the sensationalizing of some undereducated mother of 4 or 5 in Alaska to make her a national influential news item. I'm sure you get the point.

[ejpoeta]

7. i was watching aljazeera english today. an interview with ralph nader

regarding the situation in wisconsin and other places regarding labor. very interesting.

[deutsey]

21. I'm listening to a rebroadcast of it now on KPFA

Excellent interview. Long and substantial, stretches way beyond sound bites and spin with good questions, intelligent answers, and even questions from viewers and from protests.

Maybe one day American news media will catch up and become like this.

Doubtful.

[ejpoeta]

22. that's the thing i noticed most. the host asked a question and then

actually allowed nader to answer it. not in a soundbyte either. it was more than five minutes too. i wish i saw more of that kind of interviewing. sad that we have to look outside american media to find it.

[iamtechus]

10. BBC was threatened with loss of funding

Two or three years ago, the BBC was threatened with a loss of funding because they had published material critical of their gov (and ours). I don't recall the issue but I think it had something to do with Iraq war.

They immediately knuckled under and became very tame.

[forty6]

14. NPR, and PBS lose funding THIS YEAR......the BBC had criticism

over some internal critical pieces...

I'm not a citizen of the UK, (Oh how I wish I were!)... but I don't find anyone in the UK who wants to shut them up.

It's like "apple pie" to Brits. You wouldn't vote against an apple pie in the USA, would you?

If you can't remember the details, or find a link, it probably was some political strife for someone for a few moments...but NEVER would the UK abolish their primary source of unbiased news. I tell you, folks in England and Scotland find American news, (which many can get on their cable) utterly circus-like!

Last time I was in the UK, in my hotel, I watched the NBC Today Show at about noon local time, then switched to BBC for the real news.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

12. I have been watching and reading only foreign news for years now.

[forty6]

16. You are probably much better informed and a better citizen as a result!

That's all I have to say.

[Uncle Joe]

13. I used to be a news-hound lapping it up every day, flipping the remote

between every news network and reading up to three news paper virtually every day except Sundays when that many didn't publish.

I was under the belief that all of them would have some self-serving or political spin but the truth could be obtained by the use of my reason and getting information from as many sources as possible.

I started noticing a trend in the 90s which became acute during the run-up to the selection of 2000.

1. During prime-time networks news, their stories were highly coordinated, from the timing of commercials and to the stories themselves.

2. The inane and salacious would be promoted non-stop given vastly more air time than the critical issues facing the American People, basically the Enquirer and high brow Jerry Springer went mainstream in American "News." I believe this is part of their strategy to dumb down the people via distraction.

3. There would be a slight difference in spin, but the underlying messages were virtually always the same, with no real substantive analysis or differentiation among them.

4. They never challenged the belief of corporate supremacist orthodoxy over that of the public good.

5. The conservative or corporate point of view was/is virtually always given the last word during any of their debates or commentaries.

6. A lie could be exposed for what it was either false or ridiculous on its' face and they would still find ways to repeat it ad nauseum in an obvious effort to brain wash the people, if not during the morning programs, or the net work news hour, it would be in their scripted jokes at late night comedy time, ie: "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet."

7. Certain stereotypes would be played in their video clips if they couldn't come out and verbalize them.

8. Commercials increasingly dominated either net work "news" time, cable "news" and paper space in printed "news," an important story might get a tiny paragraph or ignored altogether, while an ad would take up an entire page.

9. The corporate media has an inherent conflict of interest, their true representation is either for their corporate owners or commercial buying corporate clients the American People are just customers and there is a big difference in De Facto fiduciary responsibility owed to a client vs a customer, as most any Realtor can tell you.

It dawned on me, the corporate media all had one overriding goal, to sell the American People either a product, a candidate and/or basically down the river, when the public good fiercely dictated the opposite.

In short they were/are promoting by different degree, the reality of corporate supremacy over the American People and by extension over "We the people's" government.

They did their best to turn Ronald Reagen in to a hero with their continuous corporate centric propaganda in-spite of his short sighted, disastrous polices; many of which have come home to roost. They did this because Reagan believed as they do, that if the people; believed their elected Representative government is the problem, then corporations will rule them.

Thanks for the thread, forty6.

[forty6]

19. Every word worth repeating........very well stated

I agree with 99% of everything you say... (Hey, I'm a Democrat, I can't agree with EVERYTHING!!!)

But your basic and clearly obvious points to critical viewers.........VERY CLEAR

Americans should STOP TRUSTING CORPORATIST PAID FOR NEWS>..................and here, in bold are your points again!

I used to be a news-hound lapping it up every day, flipping the remote

between every news network and reading up to three news paper virtually every day except Sundays when that many didn't publish.

I was under the belief that all of them would have some self-serving or political spin but the truth could be obtained by the use of my reason and getting information from as many sources as possible.

I started noticing a trend in the 90s which became acute during the run-up to the selection of 2000.

1. During prime-time networks news, their stories were highly coordinated, from the timing of commercials and to the stories themselves.

2. The inane and salacious would be promoted non-stop given vastly more air time than the critical issues facing the American People, basically the Enquirer and high brow Jerry Springer went mainstream in American "News." I believe this is part of their strategy to dumb down the people via distraction.

3. There would be a slight difference in spin, but the underlying messages were virtually always the same, with no real substantive analysis or differentiation among them.

4. They never challenged the belief of corporate supremacist orthodoxy over that of the public good.

5. The conservative or corporate point of view was/is virtually always given the last word during any of their debates or commentaries.

6. A lie could be exposed for what it was either false or ridiculous on its' face and they would still find ways to repeat it ad nauseum in an obvious effort to brain wash the people, if not during the morning programs, or the net work news hour, it would be in their scripted jokes at late night comedy time, ie: "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet."

7. Certain stereotypes would be played in their video clips if they couldn't come out and verbalize them.

8. Commercials increasingly dominated either net work "news" time, cable "news" and paper space in printed "news," an important story might get a tiny paragraph or ignored altogether, while an ad would take up an entire page.

9. The corporate media has an inherent conflict of interest, their true representation is either for their corporate owners or commercial buying corporate clients the American People are just customers and there is a big difference in De Facto fiduciary responsibility owed to a client vs a customer, as most any Realtor can tell you.

It dawned on me, the corporate media all had one overriding goal, to sell the American People either a product, a candidate and/or basically down the river, when the public good fiercely dictated the opposite.

In short they were/are promoting by different degree, the reality of corporate supremacy over the American People and by extension over "We the people's" government.

They did their best to turn Ronald Reagen in to a hero with their continuous corporate centric propaganda in-spite of his short sighted, disastrous polices; many of which have come home to roost. They did this because Reagan believed as they do, that if the people; believed their elected Representative government is the problem, then corporations will rule them.

[emcguffie]

23. I think you hit the nail on the head. Precisely.

And I believe it was in the late nineties, when Clinton was President, that the media ownership rules were relaxed. As a result of that, the management of network news changed drastically. Whereas from the beginning of television there had been some kind of inviolable separation between news divisions, which were not considered profit making, and the entertainment divisions of the networks, which were profit making, that separation was breached, so to speak, and news divisions were required to generate profits on their own. That's when all the glitz, bells and whistles and pretty faces started showing up.

The outright lying was an accompaniment. I now believe the news in this country has always been made to lie about certain things from time to time -- like the JFK assassination or something like that -- but it became standard operating procedure for the new corporate masters to interfere with the news divisions. Whereas before the news divisions had been independent entities when it came to management, and were not expected to follow the same rules as the entertainment folks, now they were called to task and told they had to do as they were told.

It seems to me that the entire collapse of our culture can be directly attributed to the media ownership relaxation and the arrival of black box voting, and there's cross pollination there. The fact that we accept black box voting as much as we do is also due to the strict control of the output of the newsrooms. The same corporate masters that bought the media designed, built and promoted electronic voting, and ever since have also used their control of the ballot box to further their takeover of all of our lives, from our jobs, job security and income to our healthcare choices and access.

Election reform activists have at times managed to get stories into the MSM, but as important as those stories are, they never "have legs" and we just forget about them. There is no aspect of our lives today, in my opinion, that has not suffered because of the deregulation of media that Clinton presided over.

[Uncle Joe]

24. I agree that relaxation of rules did damage by empowering a conglomerated media.

It was a trade-off with a Republican controlled Congress for expanding the Internet in to schools and rural areas around the nation.

I believe our and the rest of the world's greatest mid-long term hope for increased democracy and empowerment of the people relies on the First Amendment magnifying mass two way communication of the Internet, I believe the Clinton-Gore Administration felt the same way.

One way, top down communication whether print or television is becoming a thing of the past, but like any wounded animal, that's when it can become most dangerous.

[lukasahero]

15. Al Jazeera, BBC, Twitter and DU

are my news sources now. And admittedly, I visit DU less and less these days - twitter feeds that need more now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. I traveled to England in 2006 and 2007

I was really impressed by their mainstream newspapers, even the Times, which is on the Tory side of the spectrum. It was for intelligent conservatives, a breed we don't find much anymore. The ideas were disgusting, but they were intelligently argued instead of yelled out repetitively. The Independent and the Guardian were interesting and full of in-depth coverage of all sorts of things.

Their tabloids, which I refused to buy but sometimes found lying around on trains, were at the National Enquirer level or below. Yes, below.

[forty6]

20. The UK has MANY tabloids.......some better than others...all want to..

do what America's cable news networks do to us..........titillate!!!!

[lfairban]

25. I listen to the BBC every night.

I wish American News was like that.

K&R