Conservatives bristled with indignation when the news could no longer be kept under wraps that there weren’t any WMDs in Iraq and insisted that, if we were really “good Americans”, we’d rally ‘round Ole Glory “out of respect for the office” so as to present a “united face” to the rest of the world…
Where was this same “respect for the office” that these people nobly lay claim to when Ken Star was working Linda Tripp’s puppet strings with Monica Lewinsky in order to rake President Clinton over the coals? Can you say “double standard”, boys and girls? (I knew you could!)
Who are they tryin’ to kid?
First of all, news is news, kids. If you’re a news reporter (news producer, news cameraman, etc.) the reporting of newsworthy events is in your job description and, News Flash: If you stop reporting newsworthy events, your job gets taken away and given to someone who will…
Since there seems to be some confusion about this process on the part of Conservatives, let me walk you through it. It’s very simple, really. Here’s the deal:
- Step 1: Some event (in which someone in the world might be interested) happens somewhere.
- Step 2: The media find out about it somehow.
- Step 3: (Optional): The media investigates the story’s merits (or, not…).
- Step 4: The media prepare a bunch of reports on it.
- Step 5: Those reports are broadcast to the public via assorted means.
And I know this is going to come as a shock to all of the higher-echelon Conservatives (and all of you budding Fascists, as well) but, as a general rule, news reports aren’t supposed to be biased.
See, unless it’s controlled by a dictator of some type, the media doesn’t get to sort through all of the events that happen every day and then only report on the items they happen to like or the ones that put people they happen to agree with in a good light.
Oh and here’s another news flash that Conservatives might find of interest: News-item content isn’t supposed to be “shaded” to make one side of an issue look better or worse than the other side nor is the entirety of news items available for viewing by the public supposed to be selectively limited by manipulation in advance.
As it turns out, there is a name for this practice -- but, it isn’t “news reporting”... (Can you say “propaganda”?)
See, ideally, by the end of the day, all of the reporters in the world should have reported as many of the events happening that day as they were able to on a practical basis so that everything that happens pretty much gets reported by somebody, somewhere, at some time, to somebody who’s interested in hearing it.
But the part that really gives me a good belly-laugh is the part about the “liberal-media”…
I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that there are otherwise intelligent, sane, rational people in the world who seem to believe that there’s a pool of radical, leftist, multi-billionaires somewhere that’s bankrolling the Morley Safers of this world.
Because, when you lump all of the media into one camp like that, you have to factor in the total amount of people employed by the television, radio and newspaper industries (and all of their online equivalents) by the salaries most of them command. This adds up to quite a tidy sum and somebody’s got to be paying it.
(Believers in “liberal media” sure are out of touch with reality for people who claim never to have taken psychedelics in the Sixties…)
The same condition that suspended their logical thinking processes apparently also affected their eyesight because they don’t seem to be able to make out the credits that roll across their TV screens after “public broadcasting” network shows either. If they could, they’d see the signatures of massive conglomerates -- like Chevron and Gulf Oil, the Midland Group, IBM, Ford and various other foundations all spawned by the Fortune 500 -- scrawled across the bottoms of the so-called “liberal media’s” paychecks.
A wise friend once gave me some advice that’s been very useful to me over the years. She told me if I was ever in doubt as to the true agenda of any person, organization or faction to “follow the money trail back to its source”.
So, in point of fact, the “liberal media” does not exist but, the sheer extent of the pervasive and persistent delusion that it does qualifies it as one of the most successful manipulations of public perception ever undertaken by Corporate America, in my opinion.
It’s a great cover, though, when you think about it… If one of your or your little corporate buddy’s schemes is accidentally exposed and word leaks out, every time they play that annoying, incriminating, little sound-bite on the evening news, all you have to say is “it’s just another attempt by the liberal media to discredit me”.
Perfect! Problem solved!
And it works every time… Because we all know about the “liberal press” and its agenda of subversion and manipulation, don’t we?
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