1: Preface
As I’ve mentioned before, I work in media (nominally now), and I also try to adhere to my principles even when they get in the way of ‘pure capitalism’. So, I just wanted to write up this piece about ethics and media. Sure, libertarianism (or CPRMism in my case) says media coverage shouldn’t be prescribed by law, but I also know first hand the ability of media to manipulate the perception of the masses, and think those in the media should hold themselves to a standard which they don’t often do.
2: Back Story
I run my own small production company on the side. Right now I only work with a few clients that I trust and work another full-time job to support myself. But, it wasn’t always so. I used to have a slightly larger company that allowed me to eek out a living with a few other side deals. It all started when I convinced my original business partner, who had actual business experience, to partner up with me. Let’s call him Jack. Jack would do the business part while I would do all of the technical work. Even though we chose to start our business in May 2008, just before the housing collapse, we did make some headway. We were doing both professional work and client work (weddings and such). I’m a terrible salesman, and Jack was a bit too busy running his other business as well to handle all the sales stuff. It just so happened that at this time my brother-in-law, lets call him Ass, lost his job and was losing hope of finding a new way to support his family. He had worked in sales and needed work, so I suggested we bring him on to help with the sales part.
Things worked out pretty well. Jack and Ass got along very well and were expanding our business. We expanded into editing TV shows. I didn’t have to worry about the business part or sales while I was doing all of the actual production aspects. Things were good. So good in fact that to compensate Ass we gave him 1/3 of the business to compensate him, with the caveat that I as the creative got veto control over all projects.
The next demographic we started expanding into was the veteran community. My father was a disabled veteran, and we all felt this was a good cause, and it was good money. We produced videos for a lot of veteran programs, which Ass spear-headed.
3: The Dilemma
So with all the connections in the veteran community, one day Ass was contacted by the family of the only Prisoner Of War from the War in Afghanistan. They told the heart-rending story of their son who was captured by the Taliban. they wanted us to produce a documentary about him. This was a huge break for us. A documentary of this kind can launch you from obscurity to fame, bring a real face to war and inform the public.
Then Ass told me the details. The POW’s name was Bowe Bergdahl. I, along with most of America had never heard of the perils of this brave soldier. It sounded like a compelling story. And like I said, it would be our big break. The family was going to pay for the whole project, including flying out to film it. This is Oscar bait! Fuck the small TV shows we’d worked on!
So, after this call I’m excited and I start looking up news stories. It seemed there was some controversy of just how he came to be a prisoner of the Taliban. Some stories said he deserted and was captured. Some speculated he deserted and defected. After contemplation I thought as long as I was able to follow the facts and present them as they were, we could go ahead with the project.
4: Resolution
So, I talked to Ass and said we could do it, but the family might not like the film we make, how do we sell it to them? His answer, ‘That’s easy, they’re going to give us a script.’ I said there was no way I was going to do such a thing, and allow someone else to dictate my work, and that was final, as I had creative control.
His response was, ‘Fine, I won’t do it with the company then. I’ll hire some other people.’
In response to this I called Jack and said I would not work with either of them again if they went forward with the project under any guise.
In the end the differences in ethical thought resulted in my buying out the shares of both Jack and Ass just to mostly shutter the business (except for a few clients) rather than have the company I made dragged into the muck.
I don’t think many others in media would ever take such an ethical stand, and that saddens me. And far too many, like Jack and Ass, assume that a ‘libertarian’ will take the money over doing the right thing. I hope most of us are above that.
Well, at least I understood the TMITE part.
In all the timeline of human history, in which we have conveyed information to the masses or even small towns, how many were actually just giving the facts in a principled way and not written to sway, invoke, inspire, etc?
That’s a good question. I think a lot of us look back and think that when we were younger, there was some type of objectivity. But it might be that our memories tend to be inaccurate, or maybe they were actually putting some effort into pretending to be objective.
And I was clunky in trying to convey what was in my head. I do not mean to convey that there is none or that it cannot be done, but I think overall it has been a form of entertainment that presents information for a lot longer than we think.
So in Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky builds an air-tight case that this what always happens – the masses are hoodwinked. Lots of promises from the new faction seeking power, then once in power those promises are mostly forgotten or half-fulfilled, because the maintenance of power is all consuming.
Quite frankly, it doesn’t take a Chomsky to figure that out. It’s pretty self-evident.
When I was a yute you only had a few outlets. All the crazies were putting out newsletters on mimeograph machines and weren’t to be trusted. That gave the illusion that there was some sort of objective reality that I don’t think really existed. The attempt at censoring “fake news” is the attempt to go back to that time.
Meh, I remember “Rather Biased” bumper stickers in the 80s, referring to Dan Rather.
The media has always been at war with the people.
I think what has changed is any semblance of introspection and shame. The hubris of “we are the heartbeat of society” hadn’t fully set in yet, so they would only go so far in their agenda setting and narrative crafting. It had to have some tenuous tie to the truth.
TM has always been TE whenever they have held themselves out as the sole arbiter of truth. It just happens to be amplified in the current era of deep.
Derp*
deep derp.
^this
The network news and fishwrappers like the NYT have long pretended to be “objective” but they never were.
Of course they were, but then that awful Reagan got rid of the Fairness doctrine!
The media has always been at war with the people.
It has changed in the Internet age, and moreso with social media.
You only though it was objective because there was no opposition media that told a different story. Media have always been propagandists.
Yellow Journalism got us involved in the Spanish American War!
“Remember the Maine!”
Don’t forget about the raping, pillaging, baby murdering Huns that were storming across Europe in the early teens.
Don’t ask a Belgian about that..at least not in Brugges. Quite a long list of dead there.
Starts reading all of Durant. I’ll get back to you on that.
I wonder that also.
In 100 years what do you think anyone studying history will learn about Trump?
There was a time when White Supremacists were able to capture the Presidency, but thanks to Biden/Harris it was only one term.
Hell, what do they teach about FDR now?
Nope and all the text books will be in Chinese.
I’d say never.
The first publicly available newsletters generally had commercial purposes, and the first newspapers were government-run. The concept of a free press is relatively recent, and “free” certainly does not equal “unbiased”. Early American newspapers are a great example, in that most were explicitly partisan.
I think the current fantasy of an unbiased press was mostly conceived in the aftermath of Nixon’s undoing.
I’d be willing to bet there is a strong chance that press objectivity is an outgrowth of WWII press censorship (self and govt). That was quickly followed by the Cold War and the lie that partisan differences stop at the shore (i.e. bi-partisan foreign policy).
Interesting point!
‘That’s easy, they’re going to give us a script.’
That’s what Disney does, right?
I applaud your willingness to turn it down.
Yeah, that took some balls to close out a successful business to stay true to your principles, CPRM.
Wow – you at least dodged a whole lot of embarrassment by not making a scripted documentary about Bergdahl.
I am with you CPRM. Going into the propaganda business might be lucrative, but if you have any honor or self-esteem, the sleepless nights would suck. The problem we have today is how so many people lack honor or any sense of real justice.
Ken Burns?
I’m taking the money, but I have no control over editorial content at my company. The shit they publish makes me grind my teeth, but the actual responsibilities of my job have nothing to do with reporting the news. I do marvel at how fast editorial guidance can go from “don’t call them riots, and minimize coverage of violence, we don’t want to detract from the message by spotlighting a few bad apples,” to “yes, the words to use are mob, siege, domestic terrorist, riots, etc. protest isn’t appropriate in this context.” As much biting of it as I’ve done, I’ve become accustomed to the flavor of my tongue.
Who would have thought that almost the entire media industry would decide to embrace censorship without any formal guidance (and sometimes opposition) from the government? I remember as a kid how journalists used to be tough blue-collar guys who would write the truth and damn the consequences.
I remember that as a kid, too, but as mentioned upthread, I find myself wondering if that really ever was the case.
Most reporters were most certainly “blue-collar” in their education and attitude towards the world. They weren’t the Ivy League idiots who pass for journalists these days. I’m sure they all brought some of their personal and political beliefs into their writing and investigations.
It’s not just that their beliefs may have colored their work product, it’s that it is impossible for their beliefs not to have colored their work product. This is the one nugget of truth in postmodernism… Once you scale up from trivially simplistic assertions, bias and shading start to creep in. Even something as simple as “that crayon is green
” is shaped by perception alongside the universal reality.The problem comes when journos get tunnel vision or prioritize narrative over truth. In the past, discovery of such shenanigans came with scandal. The competitors would shred you otherwise. These days, it’s just part of the job.
Depending on who is claiming it is green, of course.
It could either be “without evidence, Trump claimed it is green” or “Harris explained how green it really is”.
Only racists would say the crayon isn’t green.
And only the patriarch say it is green to continue the rape culture.
Anonymous sources familiar with the President’s vision acuity say the Donald could have color blindness and that the crayon is secretly red.
I’m confounded by people who confuse libertarianism with morals. What I am willing to tolerate in others does not require my moral approval.
From my perspective, libertarianism is an outside bounding box for normative social and political interaction. Morals are personal and usually a smaller subset within that bounding box,
As far as the media goes, they’ve completely overlapped their politics with their jobs. Their problem is fundamentally with the truth.
^^
Ode to censorship
Over the course of Trump’s presidency, Facebook and Twitter rewrote their policies to give the president more runway to say dangerous things under the guise that it was important for the public to know the stream-of-consciousness thoughts from world leaders. These policies were clearly designed around Trump’s online behavior and gave him the freedom to spread messages of hate, conspiracy and violence.
At best, those policies simply enabled Trump’s lies and calls for violence. At worst, they let those dangerous messages go viral and be believed by enough people who were willing to break down the doors of the Capitol.
For years, tech industry observers speculated what the final straw would be: What would Trump have to say or do in order for tech platforms to limit his messages on social media?
Now we know.
——-
It’s the same pattern we’ve seen over and over again throughout the Trump presidency. If anyone, especially those in Trump’s close orbit, is saying they’re surprised about what happened Wednesday, then they either weren’t paying attention or dismissed it all as unserious chatter online.
But we learned Wednesday the online threats were serious and online conspiracy theories were enabled by the president. And they were enabled by social media companies’ Wild West attitude toward allowing false information to reach millions on their platforms and feed the violence.
Propagandist for MSNBC business channel wants to silence competing/dissenting voices, for the preservation of the State.
That’s what made this nation great.
spread messages of hate, conspiracy and violence.
… Trump’s lies and calls for violence
Verifiable, objective examples, please. Or shut the fuck up.
SMITE
Moral preening, disingenuous cunte is a moral preener, disingenuous and a cunte.
We really are in the process of a divorce. Now half the country will be on Facebook and Twitter while the other half communicates on Gab and Parlor.
No, not equal halves. When I’m done with FB, I’m not going to some other version; and I have never and will never Twitter.
The more you tighten your grip, Zuckerberg, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. They really are not self-aware.
I think a lot of us look back and think that when we were younger, there was some type of objectivity. But it might be that our memories tend to be inaccurate, or maybe they were actually putting some effort into pretending to be objective.
I disagree. I think what we have now is a media establishment which wants to wrap itself in some sort of magical cloak of unassailable objectivity, even as they are explicitly taking sides and openly propagandizing.
In the glory days of bare knuckle yellow journalism, there was no pretense of objectivity.
*If you’re referring to Cronkite, I still think it was a veneer of objectivity trying vainly to hide a “all you need to know is what we decide to tell you” condescension.
What has changed is how monolithic the media has become. Sure, everybody was pushing their narrative, but not everybody was pushing the same narrative.
That encompasses the whole picture I think. How many mashups have been done of weekly nightly news by “local” media outlets that all say the exact same thing, use the same infliction in their voices, use the same key words?
Even locally now rely on wire-service to provide the information, even for local stories, by competing news agencies or papers or internet outlets.
Color commentators and wire reporters are probably the closest to objectivity if they can write their own stuff. It is at least presented through their own eyes/words with the facts that are presented.
I watched a show on the Smithsonian Channel about the Tet Offensive, I think it was called “The Lost Tapes”.
It was a replay of the news broadcasts from the days of the attack.
The joy in their voices as they described how the superior planning of the NVA had caught the Americans* off guard was unmistakable.
*I actually remember them saying “The Americans” not “us” or “we”.**
**Of course, that could be wrong, my brain lies to me sometimes.
That was a big reveal of Cronkite. Tet was an absolutely crushing defeat for North Vietnam, similar to the Battle of the Bulge for the Germans.
*crushing defeat for the Vietcong
Yes. There’s a good argument to be made that Ho Chi Minh backed Tet as a way to get rid of the VC.
Well it sure worked. After Tet, the VC was just a militia reporting to the NVA.
A couple divisions of NVA regulars got chopped up badly too.
CNN is starting to use “we” when referring to democrats.
The military leadership in Vietnam didn’t help things though. They’d been telling reporters (and so the American people) for months that the war was almost over. Then Tet erupts. It’s hard to convince people you’re into the mopping up phase when you have to (semi-graphic image) retake your own embassy.
Cronkite was still a shit and a liar.
Yeah Tet was a loss for the NVA and VC fighting force, but it was a win for their cause because it exposed the official deceit of our military and political leadership.
By being expressedly political, they make themselves part of the story.
Cronkite told an Ed Clark staffer that he wouldn’t cover the Libertarian Party candidate because he considered “libertarians are evil.”
?
Cronkite was a piece of shit who pretended to be fair and impartial but was not so in any way, shape or form.
“All the news that’s fit to print.”
“there was no pretense of objectivity”
Yep. At the time when the First Amendment was written, no one thought the newspaper were objective, but they still needed to flourish. People knew that every paper was only presenting one version of the truth. This was true through much of the nineteenth century. The problem today is that the media has adopted a partisan position while convincing itself that it’s being objective or it’s telling the truth, or both.
The early partisan press was way nastier than anything we see today. QAnon is almost a throwback in that regard.
Agreed, e.g.: https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708977/
And far too many, like Jack and Ass, assume that a ‘libertarian’ will take the money over doing the right thing. I hope most of us are above that.
Well, there’s the right thing, and the Right Thing. There’s no end of hills to die on.
I sit quietly and keep my mouth shut when my company does things I strongly disagree with, like enthusiastically and publicly supporting masking and lockdowns, or bringing in diversity and inclusion consultants to peddle critical race theory. The reason is, frankly, money. They pay me well, I know I wouldn’t do nearly as well as a solo practitioner, and can’t be arsed to find another job that pays as well. Partly because I doubt I would like my working conditions as much as I do here, partly because I don’t want to move, and partly because I’m pretty sure any company that would give me a comparable position would piss me off in exactly the same ways. I also keep my mouth shut, at work and in public, on pretty much the entire range of social and political issues of the day, because I believe doing otherwise would put my job at risk.
So, am I taking the money over doing the Right Thing?
We can’t curse the darkness if we are unwilling to light the candle.
If you’re being absolutist, Yes. And I don’t blame you for not wanting to re-enact the battle of the Alamo.
The one thing that would end the lockdowns is all of the restaurants engaging in civil disobedience but almost no one wants to take the risk.
I don’t know what the right answer is or where to draw the line.
I, too, chose the money. And I feel guilty for it. But I have one kid in college and another who will be in college next year.
Most days, I really like my job (I get to break things!). I get more vacation days than I know what to do with. I get paid more money than I can spend.
But my company is owned by a Chinese company which is owned by another Chinese company which is owned by the Chinese government. That weighs on my conscience.
The Marxists always said capitalists would sell them the rope with which they would hang the capitalists. Maybe that works in reverse as well?
My company is starting to go down this road.
2 months ago we had mandatory sensitivity training.
One guy asked if a muslim worked in the office and got offended by a picture of his wife in a skirt, what should be done? The “instructor” gave some meaningless platitudes about respect and common sense that didn’t come within a mile of answering the question.
It was very difficult not to ask”What value does this bring , really? Are we a bunch of 5 year olds?”
Not wanting to be fired or put my name on the list, I was quiet.
Are we a bunch of 5 year olds?
That is exactly what they want you to be, and dependent on the “adults” to guide you.
Yeah, I chose a steady paycheck for twenty years over raising objections to soldiers time being wasted at Equal Opportunity and Teach Men Not to Rape training. By the time I retired there were soldiers getting UCMJ’d for wrongthink on social media. I would’ve been shouting into the void. There was zero chance I wouldn’t get thrown under the bus and there wasn’t a commander alive that would have had my back.
The signs that were emerging in late ’07 through ’08 was my cue to exit the military. I could have dug deep and stayed and been preparing to retire in a year..but nah.
I was at ~10 years around then. I fell victim to a weird version of the sunk cost fallcy.
Those things were beginning to creep in the Army as we started to integrate lady soldiers into the rough and tumble Combat Support units. We had no idea how to handle it, they couldn’t do somethings physically, they may be able to drive a jeep but it would be tough for them to change a tire on a deuce and a half.
Thank dog I was nearing my time and had admin jobs where the ladies were an added attraction, circa ’75-76, Fort Hood. We are seeing the fruits of those labors harvested now with the unfortunate deaths/rapes and the consequences resulting in the firing/termination of senior officers.
And if you question these things you will be called on the carpet.
So, am I taking the money over doing the Right Thing?
You can see me struggling with that question in the forum.
Bah.
It is impossible to be a libertarian and believe that the world is your responsibility.
A lawyer… with, with a… conscience? How did three years of law school not erase that? [I keed, I keed]
You joke, but I was one of like 5 people who had a funny taste in our mouths during the ethics course. Everybody else just clapped along like the amoral seals they are.
This x1000. It’s far too late to expect otherwise. The rot is everywhere now. You can only hope that it reaches your company last. Mine is getting on board very slowly for I won’t go into other than saying the industry is related to finance and they seem to be less woke for now.
insert “reasons” somewhere in there
Also part of the mix:
Nothing I could do or say would affect any of the things I object to. So it would be a purely principled thing to do, I guess.
My situation was similar to yours. Big money from a multi-billion dollar corporation that pushed all the same shit and like you I realized that working in a similar role for a similar behemoth, would be no different. Big Corp’s gonna big Corp.
So I retired early. I highly recommend it. No stress and I live like a king. Making mixed greens tossed with a two corn salsa with tomato wedges and a pile of smoked salmon in the center this evening for dinner. Might add a few capers as well. And life will be even better when things start opening up again.
So I retired early.
Absent some financial catastrophe, its scheduled for late next year.
You know that’s my concern too. I had an annual physical last week (my GenPrac is and OB/GYN, witch is kind of neat). She envies my freedom to cook whatever I please. And I mentioned to her that life is sweet and will continue to be so, absent hyperinflation. It does concern me some as it’s something I can’t personally control and history tells us it’s possible.
Full discloser: I didn’t retire, I was fired for bad spelling 😉
The sad thing about all of this is that libertarianism really is the right answer for this divided country. Leave people to live their own lives as they see fit and then you won’t have people try to destroy each other trying to gain power. Unfortunately no one except “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” will understand this.
Of course, because everyone thinks they know better than everyone else, and indeed as our arguments here demonstrate we aren’t immune to that.
We do tend to be quite reluctant to shove our “solutions” onto unwilling people. That is what sets us apart.
Yes, but we have our own purity spiral, and are somewhat prone to getting cross at those who disagree with various tactics we have in mind.
See the various arguments on how we should react to the protests, and it isn’t like we are even going to do anything more than snark on the internet.
“Don’t you dare cross this philosophical line in the sand I have drawn or I’m leaving.”
Something like that?
To be fair both sides, crossed the line, because right now we are all on lockdown, so like the mob our tempers are wearing thin.
This. Thankfully, most arent holding grudges.
To be completely fair, only one side drew a line that could be crossed.
The other side made no “true libertarian” purity tests.
Federalism is the cure. Prog states can be prog states if they want, it’s no skin off my nose. We won’t get real federalism because the Left will never, ever leave you alone. Power and dominance is all they understand. The Right isn’t as bad in this regard, IMO, but they certainly have their own tendencies to try to run your life for you as well.
They’re all rooted in historical progressivism. The difference is that the Democrats snuffed out the liberals in their ranks, and the Republicans merely marginize theirs. As such, the GOP still has a little voice in the back of its collective head saying “don’t go full statist”, even though they don’t listen to it very much.
You can be proud of your stance, CPRM. The boss gets paid to make the tough decisions. You did the right thing in buying them out, putting your own money where your beliefs were.
I remember that as a kid, too, but as mentioned upthread, I find myself wondering if that really ever was the case.
“His Girl Friday” was not a documentary.
Speaking of venomous snakes…
The first rattlesnake I ever caught was by mistake. I was fishing on the Wisconsin river with a friend of mine. We were riding our bikes back to the house and right by the bridge after crossing the slough I thought I saw a bull snake on the bank. I REALLY like catching critters and have my whole life. Anyway, I grabbed the top end of my 2 piece fishing pole. Pinned his head down and reached down to grab the back of his neck. it was at that moment that I’d discovered my ‘bullsnake’ did in fact have a rattle. I don’t know why it waited until that particular moment to use it, but it did. I picked him up. Received my friends adoration and then gave him a bit of a toss into the grass, jumped on my bike and rode like hell!
I’m still a huge fan of snakes and relocating/interacting with them. If you want to get a lot more familiar with them as far as identification and behavior. I highly recommend the “north Texas Snake Identification’ group on FB. It’s a lot of fun.
Snakes are evil creatures and should be locked in cages. – Personal belief. I leave them alone, don’t go near em, don’t wanna touch em. I don’t trust anything without legs that isn’t a fish.
Even fish are a bit shady.
I’m still a huge fan of snakes and relocating/interacting with them.
I got no beef with non-venomous snakes. I like seeing them around.
Venomous snakes on my property become dead snakes. The alternative is dead dogs, and/or an expensive trip by my wife or myself to the ED. Yes, the dogs have had snake avoidance training. But, pit bulls. The odds that the MurderDeathBeast, who is a big fluffball around people and dogs, but has a hair trigger around reptiles for some reason, wouldn’t take on a rattler are not good enough.
Yup. If I encounter a venemous snake, and it hasn’t run away from me by the time I’ve got a weapon ready, it’s demonstrated that it’s a threat to me.
Yep. I’ll relocate nonvenomous ones (if the wife doesn’t see it first), but venomous ones get a neck-reassignment surgery courtesy of the nearest digging implement. Unfortunately, wife’s hatred of snakes is great enough that she won’t be satisfied with relocation even for the little garter snakes. We’ve had to spend enough money on doggie snake bite treatment for this lifetime.
Timber rattler? You were a lucky kid. I say that when I should have drowned/froze to death in the Mississippi many times over. Kids are dumb.
Yes. Luckily the ‘nicer’ of the rattlers. I loathe to think of all of the stupid stuff I did when I was little and it terrifies me when my kids go play outside.
It is narcissism maybe? I am guessing a lot of media types look at a story and think “What do I want to convey that will get people to read my story and not their story?” and not “What does this event convey and how can I write it to make it relatable or understandable?” Adding personal perspectives is going to happen, we aren’t robots, yet.
Thx CPRM. In the same way the people think libertarians don’t want X to be illegal we must like X, they think libertarians aren’t interested in making other peole moral, therefore we have no morals.
As has been said by many here: libertarianism != libertinism
…but they’re not mutually incompatible either.
Correct. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear about your latex body suit and pudding fetish, though.
There’s always room for Quaaludes!
Three words: William Randolph Hearst
Bias is not a new thing. Hell, Hearst publications had a hand in spinning the country up for the Spanish-American War.
I do not think it is anything that you can get rid of. Even if it is not the brazen fabrication we see out of the media now, it is in editorial decisions as to what is worthy of coverage and what is not. The only answer to bad information is more and better information. Of course seeing the facts behind the bias and framing requires a level of analysis that is not taught at any level of the American education system (hell, the Ivies are just teaching what to think not how evaluate information). Even if it were taught, I think since our brains are built to be lazy and not use anymore energy than they have to, this skill is beyond some.
I wish everyone would read some books on sales, advertising, negotiating, rhetoric, and other forms of persuasion psychology. Seems like if more people understood the nuts and bolts of discourse, they wouldn’t be so easily swayed by pretty words and feel-good imagery.
OT: As a lesbian trapped in a man’s body I think I see this aspiring lesbian’s problem…
So, you drive a Subaru Outback and wear entirely to much flannel?
I had a lesbian goat farmer strike up a conversation with me about my Subaru two or three years back.
I looked around, but I didn’t see a rabbi, a priest, OR a minister.
No farmer daughter either? Weird.
I started to lose trust in them with the way Bill Clinton was covered.
It really went downhill in 2004 while I was in Iraq, the Iraq I saw and what my wife would see on the news were 2 separate countries. Then a friend and I (we were both squad leaders conducting convoy security) were both interviewed for a news paper. My friend was very gung ho about us being there, I was more skeptical. My wife found his interview, but they didn’t mention me.
The more I’ve paid attention the more I see, TMITE.
I’ve lost a couple of very good friends of mine because I thought we should’ve never invaded Iraq. They had both done tours over there. It’s strange to me that people don’t seem to understand what being honest with them and myself means.
We can’t choose to believe in something whether it’s a cause or a god.
Back in high school in my graphics arts class, I was making shirts left and right with whatever slogans or ideas that came to mind. One shirt I made was Media Chaos. My very liberal and very hippie English teacher posed this question to me:
Does media drive the chaos or does chaos drive the media?
I still couldn’t answer that question with absolute certainty.
There is (was?) a popular account on Twitter with the handle “el gato malo.” He obviously had a point of view, but the account simply went through the numbers available on COVID-19 and tried to bring up issues the media wasn’t reporting on. One of the more common ones was demonstrating the complete lack of correlation between interventions like lockdowns and masks and resulting COVID metrics like deaths, cases and hospitalizations. IE, Florida and Sweden’s metrics are no worse (and usually a little better) than heavy lockdown places like New York and the UK.
AFAIK I’ve never seen him post anything even modestly inflammatory. Not once.
Anyhow his account was suspended a few days ago:
https://twitter.com/nay_sue1/status/1346606743334182913
He’s on Parler right now and has said he has no idea why he got suspended. Twitter has not contacted him and has not returned any of his requests for an explanation.
Yes the media has always been severely biased, but there was hope just a few years back that the decentralization of the internet would make media outlets superfluous and allow the news to come from a million independent sources. It appears that big media, big tech and big government are trying to align to prevent that from happening.
That might still happen, I think running two minutes of Trump hate staved it off for a bit, but I think they will resume the downward slide they were on before Trump.
They’re gonna rocket power down that slide.
That shitshow yesterday was a set up to launch an all out assault on Trump and his supporters.
The thing is about many “Trump supporters” is that the media has it backwards. These aren’t people who support Trump, these are people whose frustrations Trump has latched onto. Trump _knows_ how disliked the Mitch McConnells and Nancy Pelosis of the world are. So he became a populist champion in opposition to that, most likely for entirely self-serving reasons.
Minus Trump, these frustrations aren’t going anywhere.
Trump was never a cause of anything. He was a symptom.
And the media didn’t get it backwards. They pinned it perfectly on the ass of Americans.
I think It’s a back and forth thing. Trump used social media to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and get elected. In response, the social media giants dropped objectivity and actively began to censor content. In response to that, people will move to other sources of information.
Interesting post, thanks.
I’m also in non-fiction/doc production, and have worked with individuals pursuing passion projects, small production companies, and corporate outlets. My experience mirrors yours: that ethics matter more for the smaller shops, where the founder is more personally attached to projects.
Seeing this has reinforced my certainty that “humanity” disappears in large organizations, be they business, government, religious, or whatever.
Seeing this has reinforced my certainty that “humanity” disappears in large organizations, be they business, government, religious, or whatever.
QFT
Like a wise man said once, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.”
Maybe the most quoted line on Glibs…
Wasn’t aware of the other shit popping off.
Oklahomans are pretty chill.
I don’t get it. All of Oklahoma’s electoral votes are Trump’s.
Well, it’s a little boring in OKC, and a protest might be fun. Unless it’s raining or something.
I would suspect it isn’t all about Trump then. A much deeper festering wound that never was allowed to scab over is emerging.
^This.
Trump was able to capture the frustrations of a large segment of the population that felt marginalized. Whether they are right or wrong doesn’t matter. As long as they are ignored and/or treated with open derision, they aren’t going away.
And since we are site of intelligent people, there are absolutely parallels to the genuine crowds and people over the summer about policing of black neighborhoods. They are marginalized, forgotten, felt to be nothing except a headline on page 115 of their local rag.
Hopefully, cooler heads prevail but everyone wants a piece of the pie at this point.
Just so. The BLM/Anti-Fascist Fascists basically did what Trump did, they found an issue and leveraged it to further their political position.
I do think there is a qualitative difference though. I do think Trump gives half a shit about the people he advocates for, whereas BLM et al, are Marxist ideology uber alles. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is my take.
Of course they are, almost like everyone is feeling alienated, which is why the system keeps stirring shit, so the two attack each other.
I was ok with the BLM/Antifa rioters burning down a police precinct.
I am ok with Trump supporters storming the capital building.
Rioting is an American past time. Lets keep it at government buildings and away from private property.
Not me – you burn down my local police station, who pays for it to be rebuilt?
Me.
My property and sales taxes are already quite high, thankee.
Your taxes are already as high as they think they can get away with. If they thought they could get away with raising them, they would have already. They would rebuild with the money they have already been stealing from you and your neighbors. They just wouldn’t get new chargers this year and the annual christmas party would have to be BYOB instead of open bar. Maybe it would even put a dent in their legal defense for rights violating officers fund.
So the destruction gives them cover to go even higher. If every government building in a town get flattened, do you think they would not drastically raise taxes?
Leave me out of it. Go burn an effigy or two instead.
Also, OUR HEROZ IN BLUE will all jump on PTSD disability claims, costing even more… and stop responding to calls for the few things they are actually needed for.
Curiouser and curiouser.
You have to be some really shitty parents to name your kid Ass. No wonder he turned out the way he did.
OT: thanks for the response about ctd in the a.m. links
I thought it was just the diminutive of Absalom.
Schmoobs is a liar, an asshole, and playing with fire.
“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Thursday. “This president should not hold office one day longer.”
“The quickest and most effective way – it can be done today – to remove this president from office would be for the vice president to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment,” Schumer continued. “If the vice president and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president.”
Wtf do you think is going to happen if you idiots do that?
I actually want to see them try it. I’d be curious how many congresscritters would jump ship.
Between that and the expulsion of members…just do it. Stop acting like a teenager mad at their parents threatening to runaway and do it.
Talk about symbolism. Trump’s gone in 13 days but you want him removed?
He might incite another insurrection between now and then and end democracy forever!
(This was literally the justification presented on NPR this morning. I am not making this up.)
This is really, really stupid.
Thanks for the story CPRM. Congrats on holding values above $$.
Where was this sentiment when DC was burning a few months ago? Or in regard to the attacks on the Courthouse in Portland?
“I think many of the [mob] will [be held accountable], yes,” he told “America’s Newsroom.” “There are limits on our ability to identify folks, but to the extent we can, I presume folks will be prosecuted; that ultimately comes to the prosecutors. We at the Department of Homeland Security have urged prosecutors all across the country, state and federal, to take every single one of these cases. Because until you do, until we have agreement left and right, that violence is never allowable, ever allowable, then it’s going to continue.”
OT:
I’m thinking the Capitol Police let the protester/rioters through. Actually, I think this was the right call. They didn’t have enough riot police to stop them. The other option was to shoot them. And while the woman getting killed was tragic it could have been worse. It could have been another Kent State or Boston Massacre. In the end the Capitol Building for all its symbolic meaning is just a building. Somewhere down the line I’m thinking the decision was made to slow down the rioters to get the people out and then let the rioters have the building for a bit before chasing them out with a greater show of force. Thoughts?
I think they were let in, but I don’t know why. While there were a few rowdy people I did see mostly people calmly walking through the building, some with their hands up. Curiously some clips that displayed this described the participants and “nazis” and “white-supremacists”.
Set up, with Antifa agitators.
If this be true…
Interesting. The person breaking the windows is wearing a helmet, which is definitely antifa-ish since they show up prepared for violence. I don’t recall seeing any Trumpistas wearing helmets.
Honestly, I don’t think it matters much. Whether the right throws the spark into the tinderbox or the left pretends to be the right and throws the spark, everything is ablaze all the same.
A match cares not who threw it or where it lands, only that it can breath and grow.
Set up, with
AntifaFed agitators.Why does the capitol police need to review footage before making a copy for the DC police?
There is absolutely no reason why CCTV in government buildings should be recorded both on site and remotely, real time, so that the possibility of editing, damage, or loss is minimized.
should *not* be…
There is absolutely no reason why CCTV in government buildings should not be recorded both on site and remotely, and streamed to the web, real time, . . . .
Absofuckinglutely
If for no other reason than to make our betters aware that we’re watching.
But muh National Security! Terrorist or Trump supporters might be watching!
That’s what I was going for, pretty much. It won’t be long before this can be applied to bodycam footage as well. They should have nothing to fear, for they are all noble public servants.
Well that would be what FIOA is for.
I have a feeling that the current chattering class is decidedly non-interested in doing so.
Confederate flag = white supremacist
Today a co-worker mentioned how orderly the “storming” was. People were still respecting the velvet ropes.
“It could have been another Kent State”
It was.
Neil Young is gonna sing about it?
I work on industrial equipment. Luckily, there is no politics that dictate how to make a machine work or not work.
That was my sentiment very early this morning when I was doing some system upgrades on our automation equipment.
“there is no politics that dictate how to make a machine work or not work”
Not yet.
Look at the couinterrevolutionary disparaging Comrade Lysenko!
Sounds like something a cis white male would say.
Sounds like what a white cis male would say.
I’m pretty sure the new DEI officer will help the company figure out how to make woke cruise missiles. It’s going to be an interesting ride.
Paint a rainbow flag on it, and then raise the price a few thousand bucks
then raise the price a few million
thousandbucksWell yes but a few thousand net when the politicians get their campaign donations.
Jack and Ass got along very well
I like the juxtaposition of those names.
I don’t think many others in media would ever take such an ethical stand, and that saddens me.
It saddens me too.
You did the right thing.
Thanks for the write-up.
Secretary of Transportation just resigned…
Not like he wasn’t out in 2 weeks anyway, so Stunning, Much Brave!
I know..I just happen to get those in my inbox..her words were..interesting
“Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supports of the President stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed. As I’m sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside”
Her resignation isn’t effective until the 11th…gotta get that whole paycheck in.
Sounds like someone is trying to get in some last minute cred with the new bosses before the reaper comes in to kill her career. It’s like a sitcom, I always hated that guy, boy I’m glad you are here.
The only thing that trouble me was that woman getting shot dead.
Yeah, that was a dampener. Before that it was more like “May I have 10,000 marbles, please?”
Stinky, you usually have such funny avatars. Why are you doing this to us?
“your resignation has not been accepted and you are terminated for cause, effective immediately.”
All that’s happened this year and she resigned over that? Fuck her, the Republicans are always going to lose because they’re just spineless.
Well her hubby is the Turtle, so…
Another one of the career apparatchiks who goes government/non-profit/think tank/government.
They are making a big display out of doing their favorite activity – conceding.
Which means absolutely no advice from the opposing party will be had in the “advise and consent” role with all of Joe’s picks.
Now I get to enjoy The Buttigag (I can’t be arsed to look up the spelling oh his name) as my new boss.
Isn’t she Miitch’s wife? Or was that some other Sec. Trans?
Yep. She was the reason that the FAA didn’t get privatized because rather than letting the market do it, she was lining up Raytheon and L3 and others to be the sole contractors maintaining the equipment, along with plush board seats to whoever paid her family the most.
Great. Now how am I gonna get anywhere?
They way its going? Deplorables trucking around rickshaws.
You’re not. Lock downs for everyone!
Good stuff, brother.
Ethics are a motherfucker and most people bail when the money gets real.
If you’re not well stocked on mags, today would be a good day to put an order in.
Just sayin’
Mine just arrived today. Looks like my “buy gun stuff before the electoral drama of mid-January” instinct was spot on.
FIL lost many a boats in the past. One day, I found a boat in my garage.
Also, wow. The price I paid for new brass 223 yesterday is now below the minimum price for any 223 on AmmoSeek.
6 mags for the Ruger PC9 came last week.
I look at my checkbook balance and think: Silver? Ammo? Mags?
The answer is yes.
Several years ago, my little gave me 7 mags he brought back from his time in Iraq. Hopefully that will be enough.
If its not, I have about 100 clips for my back up rifle.
You’re right.
ATM, with all of my mags loaded, I have loose 5.56 in the box. I should fix that untidiness.
We at the Department of Homeland Security have urged prosecutors all across the country, state and federal, to take every single one of these cases. Because until you do, until we have agreement left and right, that violence is never allowable, ever allowable, then it’s going to continue.
No shit, Shirley? Where were you a few months ago?
Well now its propaganda and much, much more. That seems reasonable I guess.
Seriously, talk about some fuckin’ irony there. Portland’s been rioting continuously for the better part of the year, and both the media and the Democratic Party are peachy keen with it.
They had armed militias fighting pitched battles – they legitimately tried to burn down a federal building with everyone in it.
until we have agreement left and right, that violence is never allowable, ever allowable, then it’s going to continue.
So its going to continue.
Remember when Kamala was saying the left-wing riots should continue? That’s a clip you’ll never see again on any news channel or YouTube.
And begging people to donate to bail funds for the rioters?
This is from the appointees I assume? We shall see if they can get the rank and file swamp creatures on board. I am not optimistic, especially under a pre-Harris administration. As to state prosecutors, well, expecting them to evenly and apolitically apply the law seems to be a bit of longshot at this juncture.
In my own little business, I do all three of those things; sales, business, and production. And when my market, a market I was reasonably familiar with and enjoyed both the products of and the people in that line of work, started to change in a direction that I do not like and think is cheap and crappy I found myself doing what you did, albeit for vastly lower moral objection. And yes, it cost me money, but even as a libertarian I found that capitalism does not remove morals, nor does it get hurt when one makes a moral decision. In fact, that is an aspect of capitalism at its finest, in that I get to make these choices, and I get to implement them.
Good piece CPRM, one of the best here.
Another thing I was contemplating, a while ago:
For at least a year, a big chunk of the establishment/media has been explicitly saying democracy would be destroyed if Trump were not defeated. President Cartoon Villain had to be removed from office, by any means possible. Rewrite the election laws, or merely ignore them as needed. Democracy must be destroyed, if that’s what it takes to save Democracy. Once we are rid of Bad Orange Despot, we can set about repairing democracy, maybe. Unless we decide we like this new version better.
And there are people who wonder why we think the media is our enemy.
I love the moniker “President Cartoon Villain”: the Trump-haters I know see him exactly this way. A caricature mostly unhinged from reality.
As a media professional, I’ve known co-workers and associates with beliefs all over the political spectrum. And I’m certainly no Democrat, so I can only shake my head when you call me enemy.
Your Evil Red Media is as much a caricature as President Cartoon Villain.
99% of the media give the rest of them a bad rap.
TMITE
Lawyers are scumbags
Teachers were too stupid to get a productive job
Engineers are cripplingly socially awkward
Medical doctors have a God complex
Baristas are humanities grads who got steamrolled by the real world
…
Generalizations. Defaults, even. However, they’re not universally applicable straightjackets.
The few folks I’ve actually gotten to know who ended up in the media skew conservative/libertarian and are thoughtful people. That said, I get the sense that they’re the far outliers.
Engineers are cripplingly socially awkward
Hey! That’s not tr…. aw fuck me.
Lawyers are scumbags
Hey! That’s not tr…. aw fuck me.
Wate, wate, teechers R not stewpid ! They teech the kids stuff.
But, I’m….awww.
There are some Indians fans here, right? What the hell kind of trade was that today? They got mostly bupkis for Lindor AND Carrasco.
Welcome to the life of a 90’s Cubs fan. The front office had their heads so far up their asses in those years they wore their glasses on their belly buttons.
Last year was the last grasp. Now it’s time for another long period of rebuilding. They couldn’t afford to keep both of them for the salaries that they would be commanding.
I get why the traded them, but I can’t believe they got so little in return. Amed Rosario flat out stinks, Gimenez is a good but not great prospect, and the two kids are lotto tickets. It would have been an iffy return for just Lindor, but for both guys? Total robbery.
I honestly can’t believe it. The mets made out like bandits and it disgusts me.
You did the right thing. Sadly it had a price. It usually does. I’m struggling to some extent with a similar dichotomy right now. Take the money, or keep your soul.
The world is full of sell-outs. I wouldn’t mind it so much if they weren’t also constantly trying to force their views on everyone else. I know it’s a coping mechanism, to justify to themselves the decisions that they’ve made, but it’s bullshit nonetheless.
The media is not the only industry full of scumbags, but it is nevertheless full of scumbags. One need only look at the disparate treatment relative nobody Scott Alexander got regarding his blog vs. the kid gloves inside-the-beltway contacts get (“anonymous source”, “person familiar with the process”, “high-level insider”, etc.). Peasant lives are irrelevant and their livelihood and reputations just necessary sacrifices on the career ladder; whereas powerful and connected people can give or withhold “access” and so their lives, livelihoods, and reputations must be protected. The more people realize this, the less power the media has, and the more incentive they will get to clean up toxic behavior.
It is said that evil prospers when good people do nothing, but I think that shows a bias against passive resistance. Evil prospers when good men let themselves become part of evil schemes.
All progjection, all the time. Trump won’t leave office and he’s going to take power in a coup. Reality, he has no organic political base and the opportunists and RINOs working for him are fleeing the sinking ship. Meanwhile the Democrats are trying to engineer their 3rd or 4th coup attempt. Can’t even be arsed to wait three weeks.
As soon as the votes were certified, which I believe he has said in the past, he said “Cool, I am done”. Or they going to ignore that cause he must not have meant it.
Until he is paraded in an orange jumpsuit and chains, it’s not enough.
Kathy Griffin hoisted the image of their endgame.
Yes, but there needs to be the ritual humiliation first.
I’ve been thinking about the “Fact Check” phenomenon on social media and the constant lamentations about “disagreement over basic facts” spewed by our cultural overlords since 2016. You know what, why even have even have courts with fact finders like judges or juries when “Fact Checkers” tell you what has actually happened in any controversy? Even in civil actions, there are plenty of cases which survive summary judgment, meaning there was a genuine dispute of a material fact essential to the parties’ claims which would need to be decided by a neutral fact finder. Why not skip all that mess and just hire the Fact Checkers to tell the parties what is true! Think of all the time and resources we could save!
Social media is about making money via targeted advertising.
When a social media CEO goes before Congress and says the business is about connecting people or spreading ideas or sharing American values, they’re lying. None of that makes them one red cent.
Fact checking is about keeping regulators at bay and investors interested.
When they say fact checking is about preserving democracy, providing a basic set of common facts, or raising the level of discourse, they’re lying. None of that makes them one red cent.
?
When a US Senator stands up and starts talking about “her” truth, we’re well past the point that facts matter anyway.
I think this fits in here,
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/great-unreason-2020-curious-quite-authentic-jack-kerwick/
It was no accident that we moved from learning and critical thinking to memorization in our schools.
Memorization as a learning technique is currently stigmatized and has been for a while. It’s useful for many things, like the alphabet, vocabulary, times tables, etc. “Critical thinking” was all the rage when I was in school (I’m 32 right now) but frankly they mostly didn’t mean it and it can’t be taught anyway.
Schools can’t produce “critical thinkers”. Schools produce people in the image of those who work in them.
Critical thought is taught through experimentation and failure. That can’t happen in the current system.
I can’t even get people to thought experiment if it may take them to a place that violates their preconceived biases.
I don’t see what is so difficult about saying “if *these* things, then *this* thing”.
It should be noted that when trolls put up signs in neighborhoods that read “Islam is right about women”, some called the police because it bothered them, but they couldn’t explain why.
https://www.thefire.org/ohio-universities-involve-fbi-in-investigation-of-its-okay-to-be-white-and-white-nationalist-groups-postings-on-campus/
Yes, they could, they just didn’t want to.
“I am afraid my neighborhood will be taken over by radical Islamists and kill me if I venture outside of my house uncovered.”
And if you think that can’t happen here…
I over simplified it and yes memorization is good in some areas, but it has slowly taken over all aspects of learning, at least from what I have seen from my teen’s school work. There is no why? What do you think and back it up essays. I think in their two years as high school students they have collectively written 5 essays.
They are drumming out the curious. As trashy just put, it is taught through experimentation and those papers are given Fs if they don’t enforce what the kids should have memorized, even in essays that are stated as “Tell me why you think….”
Funny – you just answered my question below.
I had a film class my senior year in college. I wrote a paper on Scarface (the 1932 version), and in it, I referenced nothing the professor had said because I had no reason to think any professor would want a regurgitation.
My TA gave me a D. I went to her and said, “WTF?” She said, “He covered this in class. It was XYZ.” I said, “First, I didn’t see that in the movie and I’m not going to write something about what I didn’t see whether it agrees with the professor or not. Second, I’m a senior, in English, and I have never had to write a paper regurgitating what the professor said. Third, is anything I said in that paper wrong? No, it is not.”
She changed it to a B, but that’s as far as she would go.
I always hear”Social distance! Wear a Mask! Wash your hands!
All for the Greater Good! *The Greater Good!*
“Report your neighbors to the Cheka, it is for the greater good!”
As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Interestingly curious.
You know what else “fits in here”? *Wink*
Mo’s review of Abrams erotica novels?
Geez Louise, I gotta read the damned thing first!
😉 Just seeing if you were lurkin
Her gargantuan, chocolatey mass rolled over onto its back, her huge belly folds rippling and undulating as the rocking of the groaning mattress springs rocked gently from the shifting mass, slowly coming to an equilibrium. Her limbs spread like the arms of a starfish, and her large bosoms flopped lazily toward her armpits, she stared at the ceiling, basking in the warm tingles that still pulsed in her loins, and the coolness of the evening breeze on her skin, beaded and glistening with sweat and Crisco. She waved a chubby hand at her mouth, grasping at a long, coarse pubic hair that she spat out, twirled it around her fingers, and began playfully flossing the gap in her front teeth. She looked over at the bathroom doorway, through which Gretchen’s soft white belly and lightly sagging bosoms were visible in the mirror.
Gretchen let out a great big, sonorous, deep dish doozy of a fart, smiling at herself in the bathroom mirror, revelling in the acoustics of Stacy’s finely appointed en suite. She caught site of Stacy’s upside down face, adoring her in the mirror.
“I love it when you’re so gross and unladylike”, said Stacy, gazing up at Gretchen and rolling onto her front, revealing a large patch of oily dampness on the sheets. Gretchen’s gentle yet stern features subtly shifted into a wry smile, as she sauntered back toward the bed, tossing aside the ten inch strap-on, and leaning over to peel a rather flat slice of pineapple and sausage pizza from Stacy’s left buttock. Stacy giggled as Gretchen teased her with the pizza slice.
“Who’s my hungry, hungry hippo?” asked Gretchen, seductively, feeding little, flaccid chunks of flattened pineapple into Stacy’s mouth, lingering to let her lick the salty residue from her fingers.
limey outed as SugarFree?
*rhythmic vomiting noises*
O.
M.
G.
That’s a lot of rocking. What are you, a Neil Young fan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvxxdZpMFHg
Thanks for sharing your story, CPRM. Even if such a family-approved hagiography of bergdahl would just have been made by some other company, at least you personally know you weren’t involved.
Upthread there’s some discussion of whether the media was less biased in the past or is that something our memories tell us in retrospect.
I think the bias in more recent news coverage real, and here are three aspects in which that is true:
1) I’ve recently been watching news programs from the 80s, and although there was certainly some significant bias, they would actually have guests on who talked about liberty vs statism, etc. They would let Milton Friedman speak. Most News media didn’t try to denigrate America or its ideals.
2) Politics used to stay out of non-political news sections. You could read cover to cover in the sports section without knowing how the reporter on the World Series thinks about universal healthcare. Same for the entertainment section unless the entertainment was inherently political.
3) Quality of journalism has rapidly declined. The concept that a news story should contain Who-What-When-Where-How is lost on reporters now. Even when the article isn’t a political stance at all, it’s damned tough to find those basic facts in an article on a traffic accident or a reunion with a lost pet. That doesn’t even begin to address the failure or reporters to ask any tough follow up questions if a public figure.
Those 3 things are very different now than in the media of 40 years ago.
We’ve moved from “biased but willing to give fair treatment” to a confrontational model that inflames situations.
Ugh, remember “Crossfire?” And how Jon Stewart bravely pointed out how they were making things worse by allowing hatethinkers on their show?
Loved Buckley on that show, How about the McLaughlin group?
Same thing I have noticed with law students is universal, I suspect, in colleges. When I was in law school in the late ’80s, most of us wanted to join law firms, do interesting work for real clients, make some cheddar. The students who wanted to do “public interest” work, “make the world a better place”, etc. were a very definite minority.
Now its every damn one I talk to. Practically nobody in law school wants to be a lawyer who represents the interests of businesses and ordinary people. Journalists now don’t want to find the truth and publish it, they want to “make the world a better place”, “speak [their]truth to power”, etc.
Universities (and primary education) are selling “Change the world” all the time now.
And the narcissistic little bastards eat it up.
It’s part of the selection process for colleges now. There’s even a SJW section now the admissions test for medical school.
I had to pretend I wanted to do research for “the public interest” during my interviews for my PhD program. Even once accepted, I had to give every assignment that “make the world a better place” vibe in order to get an A from the professors. I can’t tell them that I’m here because I need those three little letters after my name in order to get promoted and make more money.
Many are true believers but I suspect many are playing the part, as I am, to get in and get through. No idea on the breakdown though. I can say that I’m the only non-believer in my program.
UVA when I was there, 1995-99, was a very apolitical campus. Sure, there were the usual campus leftists, but they were few in number and generally ignored, if not mocked. It’s practically a Blue Ridge Berkeley now. Makes me fucking sick to my stomach.
1. The Cold War put a hard stop on how far left it was permissible to go in American politics. Since it ended, Democrats have been rocketing leftward and using similar tactics as Lenin and his ilk. Even lefties had to pay lip-service to liberty and rights. That’s reflected in the writing of the time. One reason those of us who lived in the 80s remember very little political divisiveness.
2. Yes. Sports, music, movies, books, girls… all far better in the 80s. Just watching shows like Stranger Things or That 70’s Show makes me nostalgic for those fun times.
3. Yep – they can’t gather facts and have zero curiosity. Do they train curiosity out of students at journalism school? They can’t ask the obvious follow-up questions.
They can’t ask the obvious follow-up questions.
“A follow-up question, Congressman. Based on your answer, its not clear to me whether you are a liar, or an idiot. Could you clarify?”
Like that?
“It started off boring and slow with Not Sure trying to bullshit everyone with a bunch of smart talk: ‘Blah blah blah. You gotta believe me!’ That part of the trial sucked! But then the Chief J. just went off. He said, ‘Man, whatever! The guy’s guilty as shit! We all know that.’ And he sentenced his ass to one night of rehabilitation.”
For 3), can you even consider what we have now to be be journalism*? It seems more like state propaganda machines. Especially after hearing the Project Veritas tapes revealing CNN taking their marching orders from both Dem and GOP politicians.
*referring to MSM. Some independent journalists still exist.
The newsmen of the past were mostly liberals, but, for the most part, they at least made an attempt to be objective.
VDH has left National Review, except for the podcast he does for them, and his other podcast, The Classicist is no longer a production of the Hoover Institution, now being published by Ricochet.com
Are NR and Hoover distancing themselves from more candidly pro-Trump voices? I’ve really come to appreciate VDH in the last couple of years, although realistically he’s been not so much a straightforward “pro-Trump” voice, but someone who has most eloquently challenged the hypocrisy and mendacity of anti-Trump hysteria, while acknowledging the successes of the adminstration unabashedly. I don’t know what the situation with NR is, but they have slipped back into the #NeverTrump niche quite quickly.
I like VDH. And even CCWC’s dulcet voice is no longer enough to overcome his NT-ness.
(I’m impressed with your knowledge of American politics. Would be interested to know, perhaps via forums, how you arrived here / there.)
This is an unexpected development. San Diego news treats Ashli Babbitt like a human being who didn’t deserve to be executed.
A vet who lived in the local equivalent of Venice Beach? Must have been interesting for them.
Neocons gonna neocon when a Dem is power.
3) Quality of journalism has rapidly declined. The concept that a news story should contain Who-What-When-Where-How is lost on reporters now. Even when the article isn’t a political stance at all, it’s damned tough to find those basic facts in an article on a traffic accident or a reunion with a lost pet. That doesn’t even begin to address the failure or reporters to ask any tough follow up questions if a public figure.
Stories which do not include a “How does this help my team or hurt the other team?” are pretty few and far between.
Your Evil Red Media is as much a caricature as President Cartoon Villain.
Sorry. Point me to a news aggregator which will provide sources who are not almost exclusively a Democratic Party stenographers’ pool.
Google news is chock full of CNN and NPR, and similarly slanted content. Not much else.
Authoritative sources, comrade.
Remember when Hillary got to review and demand rewrites before “legitimate” news sources could publish?
“Even” business and economics news is completely slanted to the (political) Conventional Wisdom; the Federal Reserve Bank is scrupulously apolitical, everything they have done was absolutely necessary, consumption good / saving bad. We are awash in stories bemoaning the unequal distribution of wealth caused by institutional racism. It’s always and everywhere Republicans’ fault. If only there were more women CEOs. Try interviewing somebody besides that hysterical retard Jope Stiglitz. Blah blah fucking blah America is a giant shithole.
Don’t like being called my enemy? Stop fucking lying to me and propagandizing for the crypto-Stalinists destroying the economy.
*Kai Ryssdal waves “hi”*
That guy has been a pretentious douche for 20+ years.
I am having trouble finding that link someone shared for a zillow listing of a converted coutrhouse in VT. Anyone have it?
NM, found it.
Woo-hoo! Party at Not Adahn’s . . . jail?
I was curious as to how they were listing it. They don’t count the seven “half baths.”
A friend of mine (who’s featured in my avatar at the moment) just sent me this:
“If the USA saw what the USA is doing in the USA, the USA would invade the USA to liberate the USA from the tyranny of the USA.”
About sums it up.
Are there any trustworthy news aggregators out there?
Me, but I don’t do requests.
How much trustworthy news is there to aggregate?
don’t know
I anticipated this answer moments after I posted the question.
I am having trouble finding that link someone shared for a zillow listing of a converted coutrhouse in VT. Anyone have it?
Do you remember what town it’s in (or near)?
If you duckduck “zillow [city]” you should be able to find it