Arnold Winkelried, in defense of this specific post by Phaedrus, he was responding to a statement by neuro-trash grrrl that implied a controlling cabal or conspiracy of people who controlled all the media.
I would agree to the idea of an oligarchy running the top outlets for news (a small group that is more alike than unlike who can reasonably be expected to think in similar ways). I don’t think that there is enough evidence for the idea that the top guys of all the electronic media, newspapers, magazines, and wire services conspire to broadcast or print only specific versions of the news.
Your example of The Insider is illustrative. The control of that specific story involved one news organization and one pair of super-corporations. Notice, too, that the story did get out. It was actually reported (with mild glee) by the competing networks at the time it happened. (It has also been accused of taking the standard artistic liberties with the facts to make its point.)
Tom, I took neuro-trash grrrl’s post to mean an oligarchy that thinks alike, not a cabal, and responded to Phaedrus earlier on that basis. Grrrl, did I read you right?
Since that’s the problem I see in the news media’s perception of the world, as my earlier posts probably made clear, I must admit I’m more worried about the stories it never occurs to them to cover, rather than the ones they kill (or try to) at a late stage of the game.
IMO, we should be a little more sympathetic to the average person than that.
There are two things going on here, I think: first is that we can only be where we are; we’re stuck with relying on the media to give us a basically accurate picture of that which lies beyond what we personally see, or what people we know tell us about.
Second is that TV and the other media are simply part of our environment; even when we think about them skeptically, they’re still shaping our perceptions. I’ve been a media skeptic since 'way back, but I admit I was taken in, during the early 1990s, by the way the media showed more and more crime; I thought we had a growing crime wave for a few years after the numbers were going down, simply because I didn’t have time to focus on that particular issue.
I was clearly not alone in this; many commentators have since attributed the presence of crime as a major issue as late as the '96 elections to the abundance of media crime reporting, ture-crime shows, etc., during the early and mid 1990s.
Nobody can think about everything, and the average Joe or Jane has plenty of things to deal with before even* getting *to politics. They’re going to be taken in by the media pretty regularly; we all are at least occasionally, unless we junk the TV and the radio, the newspaper, the Web access, and the whole nine yards.
Most people don’t get as far as the question in the quote; they don’t see it on the news, so it * just doesn’t register *; it doesn’t occur to them that there’s anything missing to ask about. So let’s be a bit kinder to them, and try to figure out how to demand more of the media.
tomndebb, point well taken. I guess my post seemed to imply that there was a vast conspiracy involving control of the media. That is obviously not true.
Let me play devil’s advocate here though.
At the time of the “McCarthy” senate hearings, did any major newspaper come out with an article denouncing his activities? Or did any major newspaper come out with an article extolling the advantages of communism?
Another example: during the Gulf War, did any majore news outlet come out with an article questioning the president about the US’s previous financial support of Iraq (even as recently as a year before the invasion) when their human rights record was no better than after the invasion of Kuwait?
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
Actually, Arnold, the answer is “yes” to both your questions. (No major outlet espoused Communism–they wanted to keep their readers, of course, but there were, indeed, papers who challenged McCarthy’s tactics.) There were fewer that challenged his stated goals, but they existed.
Similarly, during “Desert Shield” (prior to “Desert Storm”) there were a number of articles discussing the stupidity of going to war against a dictator the the U.S. had propped up.
I am actually more concerned about event such as the invasion of Panama where the news media in general never revealed what the U.S. actually did there. Since no major group will touch it, we have to rely on independents to bring us information. Since there are now so few independents, it is harder to tell when they have an agend that they are pushing, so it is harder to find the truth. (Not impossible, but much harder.)
I am not a fan of the way the media has begun rolling over for big interests. I preferred the fiery, independent, and jingoistic (and occasionally libellous) papers of the nineteenth century. With enough outlets, there will be enough contradiction to determine what really happened. Nowadays, I simply seek as many news sources as I can find, hoping that among them I will get adequate cross-coverage of event I need to know about.
RTFirefly had it about right. I did not mean to imply the existence of a conspiracy or cabal controlling the media. What I meant was that the people who run the various print, broadcast, and other media are in the highest economic strata of this nation, and are generally looking out for their own self-interest.
God is dead. -Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead. -God
Neitzsche is God. -Dead
Since no one else has mentioned it, I thought I would. The budget cuts to mental services during the early 80s were very real and probably the biggest factor in the increase in homeless people with mental disorders. Another very important factor was the advance in pharmaceuticals that showed great promise - greater promise in fact than was delivered.
The problem was that the seriously ill are/were more seriously ill than was thought even on their medication, and when the structure of the instution was suddnely pulled away and a bus ticket put in its place - many stopped taking their medication.
Obviously the lack of half-way homes was the big problem here - but it wasn’t just greedy budget cuts. People that had been catatonic schizophrenics for 30 years were suddenly laughing and playing checkers, and the mental health profession just got carried away.
Another surprising large factor was the release of Stanely Kubrik’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” which permanently stigmatized the mental health industry in the minds of millions of American tax-payers and voters. Although the movie reflected a grim reality (after all, Ken Kesey wrote the book while he worked in a mental hospital)it utterly failed to make it clear why it was the reality.
Obviously no one wants to see a return to those conditions, but you have to question the alternative many of the country’s most desperately mentally ill are facing.
Only during the Holidays are the homeless shown on TV. That’s for all the folks with no family and friends to feel grateful they have a roof over their heads and not go jumping off the nearest birdge is hopelessness. There was a recent gov’t survey that here in Hawaii the homeless popluation went down. All the homeless agenicies that are on the front lines are saying it’s up not down. Maybe the gov’t changed the way it “counts homeless”. For example: Go’vt figures on unemployed are just as skewed. In this 'booming"economy with the lowest unemployment rates?! Come on! In Washingtion state were there “used to be” 23% unemployment due to running out of big logs. A few years back the Unemployment office no longer counted people who ran out of unemployment benefits and guess what? Viola!! The unemployment rate went magically under 10% instantly and Washington state was no longer qualified for federal extensions on unemployment benefits once the state bennies ran out.
As far as mental:Ask yourself this. If I was fired tommorow- how many months can you keep living in your comfy domicle? Would your 'tude change to fearful? Perhaps scaring other people away from you. Get it?
