Comments on: If Americans Are Uninformed, Corporate Media Have Made Them So

By: FAIR Blog If Americans Are Uninformed, Corporate Media Have Made Them So « Susanthur News Reports

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:44:08 +0000

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By: David Selwyn

David Selwyn — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:32:57 +0000

For some time, it's been my observation that Fox "News", reminds me of the movie, "The Thing"
(John Carpenter's remake, starring Kurt Russell.).
"The Thing", aka "The Fox"News, showed up in the cold camp that television news was becoming by 1996. Television "hard news" had been cooling in the eyes of network execs for some time. "The Fox", arriving as a dumb dog in camp, was no threat to the journalists of CBS,NBC and ABC NEWS. The "hard news" pros were amused by the cute tricks,and simple communication techniques "The Fox" was limited to. But "The Fox" was cunning.
Using it's seemingly innocent ineptitude, laughably lax journalism and clownish commentators, "The Fox", an alien "news" species we now call "info-tainment", became an attractive and easily accessible alternative to hard news, with all of it's gray areas and complexities. Inevitably, as "The Fox's" ultimate goal of media absorption planned, the ratings convinced serious news organizations to be a little less serious and a little more like "The Fox".
And so on, and so on, and so on, until serious journalism, objective journalism , legitimate journalism, the life blood of democracy and a free society, loses all credibility, having been totally absorbed by the alien, the "info-tainment", "The Fox".

Fox News was never intended to be a "news" network, nor even to be profitable (Murdoch lost millions
and millions for years). Fox is, and always was intended to be, the propaganda arm of the corporatists
invasion against we the people. The really big profits come once we pesky citizens are all reduced to slave wages by our hobbesian fascist corporate lords.

By: dianrib

dianrib — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:38:30 +0000

Corp owned news media is a failure . It no longer' informs' or 'reports facts ' or hard news – it's only purpose is to keep stock holders happy – and make millions on ad revenue. Problem is viewers are not aware of this fact. since we can not depend on them we must seek out other ' news sources' PBS BBC C Span are good options. Last 30 yrs rragan buhs toxic policies put us on path to global disaster – massive war profiteering – undermined working class.
That has been the Reagan Bush scheme with assist of Greenspan – Rubin- Sommers & cohorts.
Bush's Supreme Court just made that very clear . UNLIMITED CORPORATE MONEY TO OUR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
Toxic idea – SO typical of last 30 years .

By: woody

woody — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:26:47 +0000

People who say the USer propaganda system--the media and the schools, primarily--do not "work" often fail to apprehend the true purpose of the system.

Systems theory (and post structuralism) teaches that "the purpose of s system is what it does." If what the schoold DO is mainly to intervene to train students to be 'media consumers' on the one hand, while classifiying. ranking, and organizing them in terms of their utility to the Owners, on the other, and it does so "successfully," (that is, the Owners approve of the consequences), then you cannot complain that the schools are "failing." They do, in fact, fulfill their "purpose."

And so, if the media do nothing but spread confusion, misinformation, and seem to muddy issues rather than to clarify them, on the one hand, and serve as vehicles for the CorpoRat state's official propaganda, and the "people" not onloy permit but expect that great diversionary influence to wipe their minds clean every night as they fall asleep in front of the tube, it is difficult--from thestructuralist/systems pov--to declare that the system is a failure, since it does what it is DESIGNED to do…