FlyingElvis75
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.Whoah, wth is all this about Chavez now? I thought we were talking about Easterbrook/Collinsworth/King/Michael David Smith and all the other carrion feeders on "spygate."
Anyway. I think the point stands: no matter what you may think of the "mainstream" media, sports media tends to be far worse.
PatsfaninVA, The thing is that our media is Corporately owned, which means it cares about a)ratings/ad revenue and b) not doing anything that will undermine the greater profit goals of the corporation.
In sports this means that we are given entertaining talking heads instead of actual news which leads to contrived controversy that sometimes irritates a certain fanbase while generally pleasing the larger population. In the real world, the result of corporate conglomeration and concentration of media amongst has far more damaging and dangerous implications.
Is that you, Noam?
Okay, then I gotta tell ya, bad call on the khmer rouge!
Media has turned this way because its easier to understand the news when it is heard as opinionated conversation, such as we do in the real world, with our friends and family. Fact after Fact is not intersting and doesnt take up enough time to get into the majority of the peoples head, because we as people, think most of our lives like when were skimming a book; we watch channels for a few minutes and hearing just facts dont keep you on that channel, conversaton does, headlines on papers, fast food, fast internet, Just its our nature to want everything now and/or quickly as possible. Opinion-based speculation and controversy and debate take things down to a "real world" experience and hence more people can understand, which in turn brings more interest and a bigger audience, and that brings more cash and revenue. Now that more and more media outlets are finding this brings a broader audience, you will see almost every media outlet giving more opinions and speculation with a small amount of facts.
I think your letting people off the hook too easily. I wouldn't call most of the arguing done by the talking heads as "debate." It's not in depth, it's a bunch of soundbites and catch phrases, and I think when it comes down to it, people want a little more than what our media offers, which is why there's so much criticism of it. People want facts and good journalism but they get lazy and want, as that ESPN ombudsman pointed out, "fast-food journalism." When you combine that with a terrible educational system and a total lack of critical thinking, you have a mass of people that can be easily swayed whatever way you want. I'm not trying to be "anti-American" here but watch the BBC. It's what people in Britain rely on and it's fairly objective and "fact" based. We could do a lot better if all Americans watched the BBC.
And mediamatters.org is also a great site.
You're merely indicating your personal preference. As you have stated, the majority is not interested in, or even capable of understanding, fact-based reporting. Stating that "people want" "real journalism" is not by any stretch of the imagination one of those "facts" that you hold so dear.
I never said my opinion was fact. My belief is that deep down, people want something more out of the people that provide them with news, and I pointed to the BBC as an example of how a large population is capable of understanding fact-based reporting.
Are you sure that a majority of british people are going to the BBC for their news? If so, how are you sure, or why do think so?
At any rate, even assuming british people flock to the tellie to watch the BBC nightly news, I would never compare the comprehension abilities of the British with us. To paraphrase a well-known quote, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American.
Dershowitz annoys me on occasion, but then, he writes opinions when he writes for the press at all. I find him to be overzealous in applying the "antisemite" label, but also find his thinking on Israel much better than the average American's; he's realistic, in the sense that he says judge Israel as you would judge other nations, whether in the Middle East, or the U.S.'s own international behavior.
Commentary from the left regarding Israel, from my point of view, is approaching worthlessness. The centrist left is criticized for being "old-fashioned" and controlled by the "Israel lobby," which, depending on the use and the source, may just be a code-word for "Jews." The "real" left, by contrast, insists on Israeli national suicide as the only "equitable" solution far too often.
It's sad when yours truly finds as much truth on Fox as on CNN -- which is close to what happened during the recent Hezbollah conflict.
PFnV
No you don't know what the majority of people want... Corporations do.
The majority of the entire US population enjoy hearing conversation and peoples opinion, because simply more entertaing and easier to understand. Also, the majority are naive or igorant, w/e you want to call it, to the credibility of whose reporting. The majority believe the creditibility of the media outlet or reporter is trustworthy enough to believe and base as their own opinion, then their opinion is changed to a fact because the majority thought that the credibility was reliable, when in actuality its not. So the media is basically brainwashing us, and as I recently read, almost all media outlets are "controversy brewing factories".