This Is Why I Don’t Watch TV News (Guest Post)

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[youtube]http://youtu.be/TM8L7bdwVaA[/youtube]

I found this link on another conservative blog and yes, I do have an inconstant roving eye. It leads to an excellent humorous video with an absolutely solid demonstration of how little objectivity or thought there is in your evening newscast. Plagiarism much? I truly dislike the idea that current “news” venues practice very little journalism and report only bits and pieces that they have harvested and culled from wire feeds, pruning here, snipping there to fit their editorial mindset– and then repeat it ad nauseam.

Compiled (apparently) by the producers of the Conan O’Brien show, the video is 2:30 minutes of clips showing local news talking heads repeating, verbatim, the lead-in to a segment about how we go Christmas shopping but spend more on ourselves. This is not a critical thing when standing alone, but it highlights this Smart Ass White Boy’s fruitless Diogenes search for an honest man.

I stipulate this IS a widespread non-partisan flaw that plagues the system/culture/CONGRESS too, not just the news media when giving frivolous puff pieces but deeply, seriously beyond that. Just conjure up Nancy Pelosi with that stunned deer in the headlights look intoning the same buzzwords you have heard moments before from the lips of Debbie Wasserman-Shultz or Harry Reid. Then flip channels and get the full dose of pathos from John Boehner weeping as he intones the exact words of a dozen of his colleagues. Or think of the media presentation of Trayvon Martin as an innocent 17 yo who just wanted to communicate to George Zimmerman that he was merely a peaceful kid via his attack.

To me, TV newscasts often resemble the nightly shark feeding conducted at so many water-side bars in Caribbean resorts to titillate the tourists with the awesome sight of sharks (the proletariat) being whipped into a feeding (political) frenzy! Its all innocent great fun until YOU have to enter the water at twilight to fix something.

Heck, I do not have a resolution to this! I am merely expressing my pain at the impotent angst caused by running into this at every turn yet seeing unhealthy levels of it in my own character. Have we EVER been more divided as a country? I graduated HS in 1965 and vividly remember those days but I do not remember ever seeing such widespread intentional propaganda driven confusion. 1 year to a new beginning and 3 years to a whole new environment if we care and demonstrate that concern by voting.

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I know its perfect article, but still many people’ s are surfing moves on TV news so what’s you more suggestions for that?
I agreed with your all noticed pionts, keep it continue.
Thanks

Seems to me there’s a whole lot of news people guilty of out right plagiarism. Something that should be remembered when they level such charges at others outside of the MSM.

@Ditto
There is very little journalism in the broadcast media nowadays. Fox, MSNBC and CNN are all just opinion and its really nothing new except for a few that make a decent analysis at times.

Being bored watchng news propaganda, we decided to get rid of cable. Now, with an antenna we focus on PBS programing of cultural variants and affairs. On New Years Eve we watched the Vienna Orchestra proformance of Johann Strauss’s Waltz Collection. From Vienna, we couldn’t have had a finer seat in the house.
One major short coming of no cable however, is the lack of Football College Playoffs since cable, mostly by ESPN, has eliminated the traditional CBS, NBC, and ABC as alternatives. Therefore, the computer can be used for live streaming. Other than this alternative, I wouldn’t even been able to follow the Hemaroid Classic.
Other than that, I’m sick of watching TV Car commercials — especially the pathetic Honda Varieties. Go Figure!!

Scary, isn’t it? It’s very important to remember to keep your brain’s power switch in the ON position at all times while engaging with the media. If you don’t mind the gates, they’ll fill your head up with b.s.

Here’s a reminder, from TheOnion.com. Adult Language Advisory! Don’t click if humorous use of the f-word will offend you:

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere.

@Greg:

Gotta love The Onion. Thanks for that link Greg, I needed it.

I hate to tell you, Dink, but in 1965 when we were 18, we were too ignorant and naive to know that Walter Cronkite was a lying bastard who would betray American soldiers in Viet Nam, that Huntley & Brinkley were corporate stooges, and that The Great Society would be broken families forced onto Government dependency by design. There never was a Time of Innocence for tv “news”. Evil is the same, always, and like tv news, we don’t have to participate. We are just too soon old and too late smart, Dink.

@twolaneflash:

I hate to tell you, Dink, but in 1965 when we were 18, we were too ignorant and naive to know that Walter Cronkite was a lying bastard who would betray American soldiers in Viet Nam, that Huntley & Brinkley were corporate stooges, and that The Great Society would be broken families forced onto Government dependency by design. There never was a Time of Innocence for tv “news”.

Yes, the general public had the idea that you could ‘believe’ the press, oh say back in the early 60’s. I can remember watching the coverage of the Kennedy assassination from Dallas and remember Dan Rather telling some story. I can recollect that his story was a little different from the other news stations. I don’t know if that was deliberate, but many years later when we found out that he was a total fraud, it brought back those memories of him being wrong before. You have to wonder if it was deliberate.

@twolaneflash:
@Redteam:
Fellahs, I am not sure I want to open a debate on the “newsworthiness” of reporters in the late ’60s-early ’70s. I did not watch much TV after I graduated high school (’65) until a steady girl friend I acquired in the early ’80s brought a spare to my house for when she was there. During the “interludes” she could keep up with her soap operas– she had other, um … attributes that commended her to me that had remarkably little to do with brain function.

I certainly misspoke with the incomplete “There is very little journalism in the broadcast media nowadays” comment making a virtual comparison I really did not intend. My thought was truly a comparison with the historic printed news media which prided itself on its character and objectivity (which truthfully, did not always exist even there). The point I was stretching for is how these animated images have become a full time accompaniment for many people’s lives and their success is dependent more on saying what people want to hear than what they need to know. In addition, the 24/7 access requires them to fill a lot of otherwise empty air with countless equally empty words evoking strong, lurid images that resonate with the victim component we all possess, no matter how well suppressed.

AND, twolaneflash, I heartily agree with too soon old but damn man, when does the smart kick in?

@Geepers: #4
You might be interested in making your own HD TV antenna. I made one using the instructions at (http://www.tvantennaplans.com/). I lived north of Philadelphia at the time, and received about 30 stations. I actually made two of them and put them together, end to end, as one. You could use one board instead, if you want to make it bigger. You could also try the smaller one and see if you receive enough stations. If not, you can always add another one.

The instructions I used didn’t include the reflector panels. I suggest trying it without the panels, then if you aren’t getting enough stations, you can always add the panels. If you don’t use the panels, I STRONGLY recommend putting something on the sharp ends of the wires to prevent injuries.

The antenna is directional, so I took a piece of paper and made a circle, labeled the directions, then put the stations at the appropriate reading. I then put the paper on the base around the pipe so I could turn the antenna to the station I wanted to watch.

If you watch the propaganda media, which I don’t any more, you will notice that many times they use the EXACT same catch phrase, and use the EXACT picture. If they were independent news media, would they have different catch phrases and pictures? It reminds me of the woman who wrote a book about news photographers that I wish I could remember the name of so I could order it. She followed the news media and photographed the photographers. The cover of her book shows a Palestinian boy getting ready to throw a rock. The propaganda media sent THEIR picture around the world. HER picture showed the Palestinian boy standing in a posed position, with three rows of photographers taking pictures. This is how the propaganda media gets most of its pictures, and why so many of them look alike.

Let’s not forget about the many faked pictures that they have used. The conservative blogs have caught them doing this so many times that they don’t do it any more, or they aren’t getting caught any more.