For the most part, where the For the most part, where the media is not about “bread and circuses”( sports, sexuality displays,freak shows, gossip stuff), it is about spinning National dogmas and National ego, or the objective of certain interest groups,usually economically motivated ones…propaganda. The “bread and circuses” and the propaganda create a one, two, knock out punch to any potential for a healthy, civilized society. It encourages/facilitates a “wasteland”. This is not to say that everyone succumbs or that there are not still great people.
No, I have never read Chomsky, that would be much too complicated.The media told me so.
werewolf34
September 24, 2009 @
9:42 AM
The quality of reporting is The quality of reporting is way down. But we the people like politics to be more like drama than about issues.
When George Will becomes Glenn Beck, it is a bad sign
Veritas
September 24, 2009 @
9:54 AM
“Some who are too scrupulous “Some who are too scrupulous to steal your possessions nevertheless see no wrong in tampering with your thoughts.”
~Kahil Gibran
Arraya
September 24, 2009 @
10:05 AM
“The press is so powerful in “The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press.” . . . . “If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” ”
Malcolm X, at the Audubon, December 13, 1964.” In Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman, 96-114. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964, 101
The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”
– George Orwell, on “Doublethink” from his book of faction, “1984”
Those who control the mainstream media control the brainstem of our collective consciousness. When those charged with being the skeptical inquirers are neither skeptical nor do they inquire, the only phrase for it is deep complicity. When investigative journalists fail to investigate the obvious, it is deep complicity. When investigative journalists only investigate that which distracts the public from the obvious, it is even deeper complicity.”
— Barrie Zwicker, author, The Great Deception, The Great Conspiracy and Towers of Deception
“The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.”
— Aldous Huxley (author of “Brave New World”)
“Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”
— William Blum – Rogue State, on how governments control their citizens
“The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education and media. No conspiracy is needed. The editors of Reader’s Digest and U.S. News and World Report do not need to meet covertly with the man from NBC in an FBI safe-house to plan next month’s stories and programs; for the simple truth is that these men would not have reached the positions they occupy if they themselves had not all been guided through the same tunnel of camouflaged history and emerged with the same selective memory and conventional wisdom.”
— from Killing Hope, Ù.S. Military and CIA Interventions since WWII, by William Blum, p. 19, Common Courage Press, 1995.
The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.
— William Colby, former Director of the CIA
During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.
— Joseph Goebbels
We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
— Katharine Graham (now deceased owner of the Washington Post) at a 1988 speech at CIA headquarters http://www.namebase.org/davis.html
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
— US General William Westmoreland, Commander in Vietnam
The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominate political mythology.”
— Michael Parenti http://www.michaelparenti.org
The US military has invaded the US media. I would like tonight to call for an immediate removal of all US troops from CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, all of them. US troops come home!
from Michael Moore’s intended Oscar speech – delivered at the Riverside Church, March 27, 200
The press in this country is now and always has been so thoroughly dominated by the wealthy few of the country that it cannot be depended upon to give the great masses of the people that correct information concerning political, economical and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people shall have in order that they shall vote and in all ways act in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and chicanery of the ruling and employing class.
– E.W. Scripps (newspaper publisher ca 1900 in memorandum sent to his editorial executives)
The mass media become the authority at any given moment for what is true and what is false, what is reality and what is fantasy, what is important and what is trivial. There is no greater force in shaping the public mind; even brute force triumphs only by creating an accepting attitude toward the brutes.
— Ben Bagdikian (The Media Monopoly)
An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself.
— Joseph Pulitzer
In an authoritarian society there is a ministry, or a commissar, or a directorate that controls what everybody will see and hear. We call that a dictatorship. Here we have a handful of very powerful corporations led by a handful of very powerful men and women who control everything we see and hear beyond the natural environment and our own families. That’s something which surrounds us every day and night. If it were one person we’d call that a dictatorship, a ministry of information.
— Ben Bagdikan
“Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country….It remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons….It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world….As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.”
— Edward Bernays in his book “Propaganda” (1928). Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and chief advisor to William Paley, who started CBS in 1928
“There is no such thing at this date of the world’s history in America as an independent press. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinion, and if you did, you know beforehand it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things. and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allow my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it, and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks. They pull the strings, and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
– John Swinden, head of the New York Times, when asked to toast an independent press in a gathering at the National Press Club
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and thus clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken
“I view the output of established media as a slurry of manure and toxic waste; a propaganda product that requires heavy analysis and context fitting in order to recover the 5%-10% of useful information contained within an obfuscated mess.”
— http://www.cryptogon.com/?page_id=2
“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
— Howard Zinn
blahblahblah
September 24, 2009 @
10:12 AM
Google “Operation Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).
Eugene
September 24, 2009 @
11:27 AM
“Do not ascribe to malice “Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
svelte
September 24, 2009 @
1:40 PM
Eugene wrote:”Do not ascribe [quote=Eugene]”Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”[/quote]
lol love it!
blahblahblah
September 24, 2009 @
2:53 PM
“Do not ascribe to malice “Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
Malice has nothing to do with it, the people behind the propaganda are not malicious. On the contrary, they believe they are doing what’s right and what’s best for the country.
CardiffBaseball
September 24, 2009 @
12:52 PM
CONCHO wrote:Google [quote=CONCHO]Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).[/quote]
Interesting stuff Concho. McCarthy is of course vilified in Hollywood. However if this stuff is true, his attacking commies in showbiz, is not what brought him down. I am not saying McCarthy was justified, but if was trying to root out these folks you can easily see that being his downfall.
Things are not always what they appear, this much I know.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 24, 2009 @
1:10 PM
CONCHO wrote:Google [quote=CONCHO]Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).[/quote]
CONCHO: Google Encounter Magazine. Of particular interest are the names associated with that magazine (which was an excellent publication, by the way) and the fact that most, if not all, of them were either completely unaware of the CIA funding, or thought of it merely as a rumor.
My two particular favorites remain the NSA Echelon (SigInt) and Carnivore programs. When you see how much “private” information these two programs capture and disseminate within the US intelligence community, well, it should keep you up nights.
34f3f3f
September 24, 2009 @
5:22 PM
I used to read the Soviet I used to read the Soviet press years ago, and it was very much attuned with and directed by the party. Funnily enough, once you discarded the propaganda (as everyone in the USSR knew to do), it was surprisingly informative, with many references to factual information that could easily be cross-referenced. But western media does a different, and IMO better job.
To call US media an industry puppet, or state tool is unnecessarily harsh, and doesn’t take account of the difficult task of reporting without bias, with impartiality, or without being accused of leaning in a political direction. Moreover, if “mass media” is defined as media that is read by the masses, then there is a case to argue that they churn out what the readers want. Editorial comments are usually the place where the editors’ politics are made known, but generally the media dishes out mundane and uninteresting verbiage, that rarely attempts complex analysis, or contextual reporting for very obvious reasons. So none of this implies, in my view, that either government, or industry directly intervenes to influence editorial content in any really significant way. I think you’d find most editors would resist this fiercely. Manipulation is another thing, as are Media magnates.
The one area where I do think the US media let’s down the side, is in effective non-political campaigning on behalf on the American people. For example, I have seen foreign media bring major industries to heal by their relentless onslaught in the pursuit of civil justices. I’m not sure it could have saved the housing/banking crisis, but health care could (have) benefit(ed) by educating the masses, and going after the crooks. Ironically, Obama now blames the media for not getting his message on health care across to the masses.
Famous quotes about the media and its role abound, and no doubt much of it true, but generally, they do a fairly good job under sometimes constrained circumstances. All of this is not to say they couldn’t do a better job.
4plexowner
September 25, 2009 @
4:21 AM
some of our low quality media some of our low quality media can be attributed to pure laziness
it is much easier to do a minor rewrite on a corporation’s news release than it is to do investigative journalism (you mean actually do research? why would I do that? this news release gives me all the details I need)
so what we call ‘news’ is quite often just a regurgitated news release that came directly from the corporation, govt agency, politician, etc
in these cases there is no malicious intent on the part of the media – just laziness – the propaganda came from the originator and the media just passed it along
~
there’s also the “go along to get along” idea that comes into play – stepping outside of the mainstream is not the way for a journalist to get job offers from the key players in the industry – writing an expose on the Federal Reserve and their nefarious doings might earn a journalist a name but it isn’t likely to generate any job offers or offers to publish from mainstream media – so what we get from mainstream media is news that is ‘acceptable’ and doesn’t rock anyone’s boat – especially the boats of the people who buy advertising from the media outlet (how much of the Union Tribune’s revenue comes from the real estate industry’s advertising? would you really expect an unbiased piece on real estate from the UT?)
~
this “go along to get along” effect also shows up in science because of the peer review process – the peer review process filters out any science that doesn’t fit the currently accepted ideas – suggest that the earth is round when the currently accepted model has a flat earth and see how long it takes you to get published (and don’t lose your head while you wait!) – suggest that comets are anything besides dirty snowballs – suggest that gravity is not the glue that holds the universe together, it is electricity – suggest that intelligent, modern human beings have been kicking around this planet for more than 5000 years (sorry to blow your religion BS out of the water with facts) – suggest that global warming isn’t the issue, it is global cooling and the mini ice age we are heading into – all of these ideas get filtered out of the mainstream and pushed out to the fringe media because they don’t fit the currently accepted models
those of us who are awake go to these fringe media sources so we can see what is really going on in the world
DWCAP
September 25, 2009 @
9:22 AM
Also, dont forget the Also, dont forget the buisness side of news. Not the advertising, or selling side, just the day to day costs. It takes alot of time to write an indepth piece, most of it in doing the research. It isnt like the bad guys just hand over incriminating evidence once asked. And how do you know to even ask? True good reporting takes time, patience, a backbone, and the ability to see the truth through the BS.
But now we have MBA’s and accounting folks running these institutions, and that is a big investment for the possiblity of a payoff. I read somewhere that one of the papers that was just aquired (it is a bad time in news right now) hired a conslultant to make things more efficient. His recomendation was that each reporter write something like 3 stories a day, including 1-2 ‘co-operative’ sources each. 3 stories a day is like 2-3 hours each. I spend more than that on Piggington posts sometimes.
Also, ever notice how in buisness reporting it is the same people/companies that are quoted? CNN/money seems to quote like 3 sources no matter what the news is. These people make themselves available to the reporters, making their lives easier, and so get to have the say. They also almost universally tend to be bullish IMO, because bears just take too long trying to explain themselves.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
9:28 AM
True good reporting takes True good reporting takes time, patience, a backbone, and the ability to see the truth through the BS.
And it also has to be run thru the editors that may or may not want to ruffle any feathers of people higher up on the food chain.
I’m sure there is lots of good journalists that get stopped at the editors desk for “political” reasons.
The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.
Dedicated to Arraya and Dedicated to Arraya and Partypup, two thinkers who get it…
“The most significant bias in the mainstream media is not the liberal or conservative views propagated to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the populace; the ultimate bias is in what is missing from the coverage. The investigative reporting on the most powerful forces within our society is left out of the discussion.”
“The mainstream media creates what is known in mass psychology as the “spectrum of thinkable thought.” By constantly discussing and debating surface issues, they limit the range of debate. Having the Republican vs. Democrat paradigm leads us to never debating the underlying Economic Elite who control both of the parties, not to mention their ownership of the media platform on which this debate is taking shape. The more important underlying issues are never discussed, and therefore never enter public consciousness.”
Zeitgeist wrote:”The [quote=Zeitgeist]”The mainstream media creates what is known in mass psychology as the “spectrum of thinkable thought.” By constantly discussing and debating surface issues, they limit the range of debate. Having the Republican vs. Democrat paradigm leads us to never debating the underlying Economic Elite who control both of the parties, not to mention their ownership of the media platform on which this debate is taking shape. The more important underlying issues are never discussed, and therefore never enter public consciousness.”[/quote]
Any discussion of ideas outside of the spectrum of thinkable thought is labeled “fringe” or “conspiracy theory.” Programmed keywords like “tin foil hat” can be used to instantly shut down people’s minds to ideas outside of the approved spectrum.
The power to control people resides first with those who control the language. By subverting and distorting phrases, or by eliminating words entirely, a society can be made to forget entire concepts.
Zeitgeist
July 20, 2010 @
3:43 PM
100% correct and brilliant 100% correct and brilliant summation. I am starting to listen to the news or watch it strictly for entertainment purposes, but I also search for memes to predict future trends in behavior. They serve as markers.
blahblahblah
July 20, 2010 @
3:46 PM
Excellent article over there Excellent article over there at ampedstatus.com, BTW. Make sure to read all of the five sections posted so far. It puts all the depressing details out there simply and with ample documentation. Few will read it, fewer still will understand it, and even fewer than that will believe it.
That’s okay, just tell yourself it’s “tin foil hat” talk and go back to reading about Lindsey Lohan going to jail or about where LeBron James is moving to. You’ll feel all better afterwards…
sd_matt
July 20, 2010 @
10:34 PM
Supply and demand. Supply and demand.
Casca
July 21, 2010 @
9:08 AM
Nothing like closing the Nothing like closing the survey once acceptable results are reached.
outtamojo
July 21, 2010 @
9:25 AM
Zeitgeist wrote:Dedicated to [quote=Zeitgeist]Dedicated to Arraya and Partypup, two thinkers who get it…[/quote]
After entertaining thoughts the world was out to get me for a while, he and a few others there made me numb to conspiracy theory, so called “out of the box thinking”, “dime a dozen thinkers who get it” and such years ago.
Aecetia
July 21, 2010 @
12:06 PM
Very interesting real estate Very interesting real estate comments on that site. They are probably too bearish for most of the folks here.
Novel approach to the double dip issue.
CA renter
July 22, 2010 @
1:18 AM
Excellent article Zeit! Excellent article Zeit! Thanks for posting it. Couldn’t agree more with what they’ve said.
September 24, 2009 @ 9:27 AM
For the most part, where the
For the most part, where the media is not about “bread and circuses”( sports, sexuality displays,freak shows, gossip stuff), it is about spinning National dogmas and National ego, or the objective of certain interest groups,usually economically motivated ones…propaganda. The “bread and circuses” and the propaganda create a one, two, knock out punch to any potential for a healthy, civilized society. It encourages/facilitates a “wasteland”. This is not to say that everyone succumbs or that there are not still great people.
No, I have never read Chomsky, that would be much too complicated.The media told me so.
September 24, 2009 @ 9:42 AM
The quality of reporting is
The quality of reporting is way down. But we the people like politics to be more like drama than about issues.
When George Will becomes Glenn Beck, it is a bad sign
September 24, 2009 @ 9:54 AM
“Some who are too scrupulous
“Some who are too scrupulous to steal your possessions nevertheless see no wrong in tampering with your thoughts.”
~Kahil Gibran
September 24, 2009 @ 10:05 AM
“The press is so powerful in
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press.” . . . . “If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” ”
Malcolm X, at the Audubon, December 13, 1964.” In Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman, 96-114. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964, 101
The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”
– George Orwell, on “Doublethink” from his book of faction, “1984”
Those who control the mainstream media control the brainstem of our collective consciousness. When those charged with being the skeptical inquirers are neither skeptical nor do they inquire, the only phrase for it is deep complicity. When investigative journalists fail to investigate the obvious, it is deep complicity. When investigative journalists only investigate that which distracts the public from the obvious, it is even deeper complicity.”
— Barrie Zwicker, author, The Great Deception, The Great Conspiracy and Towers of Deception
“The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.”
— Aldous Huxley (author of “Brave New World”)
“Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”
— William Blum – Rogue State, on how governments control their citizens
“The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education and media. No conspiracy is needed. The editors of Reader’s Digest and U.S. News and World Report do not need to meet covertly with the man from NBC in an FBI safe-house to plan next month’s stories and programs; for the simple truth is that these men would not have reached the positions they occupy if they themselves had not all been guided through the same tunnel of camouflaged history and emerged with the same selective memory and conventional wisdom.”
— from Killing Hope, Ù.S. Military and CIA Interventions since WWII, by William Blum, p. 19, Common Courage Press, 1995.
The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.
— William Colby, former Director of the CIA
During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information.
— Joseph Goebbels
We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
— Katharine Graham (now deceased owner of the Washington Post) at a 1988 speech at CIA headquarters
http://www.namebase.org/davis.html
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
— US General William Westmoreland, Commander in Vietnam
The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominate political mythology.”
— Michael Parenti http://www.michaelparenti.org
The US military has invaded the US media. I would like tonight to call for an immediate removal of all US troops from CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, all of them. US troops come home!
from Michael Moore’s intended Oscar speech – delivered at the Riverside Church, March 27, 200
The press in this country is now and always has been so thoroughly dominated by the wealthy few of the country that it cannot be depended upon to give the great masses of the people that correct information concerning political, economical and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people shall have in order that they shall vote and in all ways act in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and chicanery of the ruling and employing class.
– E.W. Scripps (newspaper publisher ca 1900 in memorandum sent to his editorial executives)
The mass media become the authority at any given moment for what is true and what is false, what is reality and what is fantasy, what is important and what is trivial. There is no greater force in shaping the public mind; even brute force triumphs only by creating an accepting attitude toward the brutes.
— Ben Bagdikian (The Media Monopoly)
An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself.
— Joseph Pulitzer
In an authoritarian society there is a ministry, or a commissar, or a directorate that controls what everybody will see and hear. We call that a dictatorship. Here we have a handful of very powerful corporations led by a handful of very powerful men and women who control everything we see and hear beyond the natural environment and our own families. That’s something which surrounds us every day and night. If it were one person we’d call that a dictatorship, a ministry of information.
— Ben Bagdikan
“Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country….It remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons….It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world….As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.”
— Edward Bernays in his book “Propaganda” (1928). Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and chief advisor to William Paley, who started CBS in 1928
“There is no such thing at this date of the world’s history in America as an independent press. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinion, and if you did, you know beforehand it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things. and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allow my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it, and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks. They pull the strings, and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
– John Swinden, head of the New York Times, when asked to toast an independent press in a gathering at the National Press Club
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and thus clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken
“I view the output of established media as a slurry of manure and toxic waste; a propaganda product that requires heavy analysis and context fitting in order to recover the 5%-10% of useful information contained within an obfuscated mess.”
— http://www.cryptogon.com/?page_id=2
“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
— Howard Zinn
September 24, 2009 @ 10:12 AM
Google “Operation
Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).
September 24, 2009 @ 11:27 AM
“Do not ascribe to malice
“Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
September 24, 2009 @ 1:40 PM
Eugene wrote:”Do not ascribe
[quote=Eugene]”Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”[/quote]
lol love it!
September 24, 2009 @ 2:53 PM
“Do not ascribe to malice
“Do not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
Malice has nothing to do with it, the people behind the propaganda are not malicious. On the contrary, they believe they are doing what’s right and what’s best for the country.
September 24, 2009 @ 12:52 PM
CONCHO wrote:Google
[quote=CONCHO]Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).[/quote]
Interesting stuff Concho. McCarthy is of course vilified in Hollywood. However if this stuff is true, his attacking commies in showbiz, is not what brought him down. I am not saying McCarthy was justified, but if was trying to root out these folks you can easily see that being his downfall.
Things are not always what they appear, this much I know.
September 24, 2009 @ 1:10 PM
CONCHO wrote:Google
[quote=CONCHO]Google “Operation Mockingbird” and “The Mighty Wurlitzer”. Things have been this way in the US for most of your life (unless you are really, really old).[/quote]
CONCHO: Google Encounter Magazine. Of particular interest are the names associated with that magazine (which was an excellent publication, by the way) and the fact that most, if not all, of them were either completely unaware of the CIA funding, or thought of it merely as a rumor.
My two particular favorites remain the NSA Echelon (SigInt) and Carnivore programs. When you see how much “private” information these two programs capture and disseminate within the US intelligence community, well, it should keep you up nights.
September 24, 2009 @ 5:22 PM
I used to read the Soviet
I used to read the Soviet press years ago, and it was very much attuned with and directed by the party. Funnily enough, once you discarded the propaganda (as everyone in the USSR knew to do), it was surprisingly informative, with many references to factual information that could easily be cross-referenced. But western media does a different, and IMO better job.
To call US media an industry puppet, or state tool is unnecessarily harsh, and doesn’t take account of the difficult task of reporting without bias, with impartiality, or without being accused of leaning in a political direction. Moreover, if “mass media” is defined as media that is read by the masses, then there is a case to argue that they churn out what the readers want. Editorial comments are usually the place where the editors’ politics are made known, but generally the media dishes out mundane and uninteresting verbiage, that rarely attempts complex analysis, or contextual reporting for very obvious reasons. So none of this implies, in my view, that either government, or industry directly intervenes to influence editorial content in any really significant way. I think you’d find most editors would resist this fiercely. Manipulation is another thing, as are Media magnates.
The one area where I do think the US media let’s down the side, is in effective non-political campaigning on behalf on the American people. For example, I have seen foreign media bring major industries to heal by their relentless onslaught in the pursuit of civil justices. I’m not sure it could have saved the housing/banking crisis, but health care could (have) benefit(ed) by educating the masses, and going after the crooks. Ironically, Obama now blames the media for not getting his message on health care across to the masses.
Famous quotes about the media and its role abound, and no doubt much of it true, but generally, they do a fairly good job under sometimes constrained circumstances. All of this is not to say they couldn’t do a better job.
September 25, 2009 @ 4:21 AM
some of our low quality media
some of our low quality media can be attributed to pure laziness
it is much easier to do a minor rewrite on a corporation’s news release than it is to do investigative journalism (you mean actually do research? why would I do that? this news release gives me all the details I need)
so what we call ‘news’ is quite often just a regurgitated news release that came directly from the corporation, govt agency, politician, etc
in these cases there is no malicious intent on the part of the media – just laziness – the propaganda came from the originator and the media just passed it along
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there’s also the “go along to get along” idea that comes into play – stepping outside of the mainstream is not the way for a journalist to get job offers from the key players in the industry – writing an expose on the Federal Reserve and their nefarious doings might earn a journalist a name but it isn’t likely to generate any job offers or offers to publish from mainstream media – so what we get from mainstream media is news that is ‘acceptable’ and doesn’t rock anyone’s boat – especially the boats of the people who buy advertising from the media outlet (how much of the Union Tribune’s revenue comes from the real estate industry’s advertising? would you really expect an unbiased piece on real estate from the UT?)
~
this “go along to get along” effect also shows up in science because of the peer review process – the peer review process filters out any science that doesn’t fit the currently accepted ideas – suggest that the earth is round when the currently accepted model has a flat earth and see how long it takes you to get published (and don’t lose your head while you wait!) – suggest that comets are anything besides dirty snowballs – suggest that gravity is not the glue that holds the universe together, it is electricity – suggest that intelligent, modern human beings have been kicking around this planet for more than 5000 years (sorry to blow your religion BS out of the water with facts) – suggest that global warming isn’t the issue, it is global cooling and the mini ice age we are heading into – all of these ideas get filtered out of the mainstream and pushed out to the fringe media because they don’t fit the currently accepted models
those of us who are awake go to these fringe media sources so we can see what is really going on in the world
September 25, 2009 @ 9:22 AM
Also, dont forget the
Also, dont forget the buisness side of news. Not the advertising, or selling side, just the day to day costs. It takes alot of time to write an indepth piece, most of it in doing the research. It isnt like the bad guys just hand over incriminating evidence once asked. And how do you know to even ask? True good reporting takes time, patience, a backbone, and the ability to see the truth through the BS.
But now we have MBA’s and accounting folks running these institutions, and that is a big investment for the possiblity of a payoff. I read somewhere that one of the papers that was just aquired (it is a bad time in news right now) hired a conslultant to make things more efficient. His recomendation was that each reporter write something like 3 stories a day, including 1-2 ‘co-operative’ sources each. 3 stories a day is like 2-3 hours each. I spend more than that on Piggington posts sometimes.
Also, ever notice how in buisness reporting it is the same people/companies that are quoted? CNN/money seems to quote like 3 sources no matter what the news is. These people make themselves available to the reporters, making their lives easier, and so get to have the say. They also almost universally tend to be bullish IMO, because bears just take too long trying to explain themselves.
September 25, 2009 @ 9:28 AM
True good reporting takes
True good reporting takes time, patience, a backbone, and the ability to see the truth through the BS.
And it also has to be run thru the editors that may or may not want to ruffle any feathers of people higher up on the food chain.
I’m sure there is lots of good journalists that get stopped at the editors desk for “political” reasons.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html
July 20, 2010 @ 1:25 PM
Dedicated to Arraya and
Dedicated to Arraya and Partypup, two thinkers who get it…
“The most significant bias in the mainstream media is not the liberal or conservative views propagated to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the populace; the ultimate bias is in what is missing from the coverage. The investigative reporting on the most powerful forces within our society is left out of the discussion.”
“The mainstream media creates what is known in mass psychology as the “spectrum of thinkable thought.” By constantly discussing and debating surface issues, they limit the range of debate. Having the Republican vs. Democrat paradigm leads us to never debating the underlying Economic Elite who control both of the parties, not to mention their ownership of the media platform on which this debate is taking shape. The more important underlying issues are never discussed, and therefore never enter public consciousness.”
http://ampedstatus.com/part-v-overcoming-the-divide-and-conquer-strategy-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-usa
July 20, 2010 @ 3:14 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:”The
[quote=Zeitgeist]”The mainstream media creates what is known in mass psychology as the “spectrum of thinkable thought.” By constantly discussing and debating surface issues, they limit the range of debate. Having the Republican vs. Democrat paradigm leads us to never debating the underlying Economic Elite who control both of the parties, not to mention their ownership of the media platform on which this debate is taking shape. The more important underlying issues are never discussed, and therefore never enter public consciousness.”[/quote]
Any discussion of ideas outside of the spectrum of thinkable thought is labeled “fringe” or “conspiracy theory.” Programmed keywords like “tin foil hat” can be used to instantly shut down people’s minds to ideas outside of the approved spectrum.
The power to control people resides first with those who control the language. By subverting and distorting phrases, or by eliminating words entirely, a society can be made to forget entire concepts.
July 20, 2010 @ 3:43 PM
100% correct and brilliant
100% correct and brilliant summation. I am starting to listen to the news or watch it strictly for entertainment purposes, but I also search for memes to predict future trends in behavior. They serve as markers.
July 20, 2010 @ 3:46 PM
Excellent article over there
Excellent article over there at ampedstatus.com, BTW. Make sure to read all of the five sections posted so far. It puts all the depressing details out there simply and with ample documentation. Few will read it, fewer still will understand it, and even fewer than that will believe it.
That’s okay, just tell yourself it’s “tin foil hat” talk and go back to reading about Lindsey Lohan going to jail or about where LeBron James is moving to. You’ll feel all better afterwards…
July 20, 2010 @ 10:34 PM
Supply and demand.
Supply and demand.
July 21, 2010 @ 9:08 AM
Nothing like closing the
Nothing like closing the survey once acceptable results are reached.
July 21, 2010 @ 9:25 AM
Zeitgeist wrote:Dedicated to
[quote=Zeitgeist]Dedicated to Arraya and Partypup, two thinkers who get it…[/quote]
Here is someone I’d like y’all to meet on S.I.
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/profile.aspx?userid=8091627
After entertaining thoughts the world was out to get me for a while, he and a few others there made me numb to conspiracy theory, so called “out of the box thinking”, “dime a dozen thinkers who get it” and such years ago.
July 21, 2010 @ 12:06 PM
Very interesting real estate
Very interesting real estate comments on that site. They are probably too bearish for most of the folks here.
Novel approach to the double dip issue.
July 22, 2010 @ 1:18 AM
Excellent article Zeit!
Excellent article Zeit! Thanks for posting it. Couldn’t agree more with what they’ve said.