News or Propaganda?
Televison news in America is dying. It's being replaced by propaganda machines, masquerading as news programs. This is not due to liberal bias in the media as some conservatives would have us believe, it's caused by tv stations realizing what the majority of Americans want is not news or facts, but confirmation that their opinions are correct.
Wake up America! News is not designed to make you feel good about your opinions. Why is it that the majority of conservatives in this country watch Fox news, and the majority of liberals watch Cnn? Could it be because each of these stations tells it's watchers exactly what they want to hear? Hey, that's great for entertainment value and it sure does make you feel good to see Ann Coulter, or Howard Dean ripping the other side a new a-hole, telling you, "yup, you're right they really are all idiots", but guess what, that's not a news program. Yes, there is a place for political opinion pieces on the news, but the problem is, with some of these stations, that's virtually all were getting and most of it is being billed as actual fact not opinion. When the stations reporters and anchors are stating opinions as fact or the station is just plain slanting the news with it's choice of coverage, that is propaganda, not news.
I enjoy feeling good about myself and my opinions as much as anybody, but when I turn on the news I don't do it to have some reporter pander to me, and insult my intelligence with some edited version of what's happening in the country. I watch the news to become informed. To learn something I don't know, so I can form well thought out, intelligent opinions on the state of affairs in America and the world. Obviously, if someone on the tv news is simply telling me what they think I want to hear, I'm not getting better informed, I'm simply getting more brainwashed to think one way and one way only.
Tv stations would not be replacing the real news with this drivel if it wasn't causing their ratings to jump, and making them money. Americans are flocking to "their" particular news stations, becoming brand loyal (which proves my point) to a 24 hr. news station and then going out in the world and spouting all the new "facts" they've been spoon fed. Is this truly what we want as Americans, to be an underinformed, over opinionated nation of dupes?
Wake up America! News is not designed to make you feel good about your opinions. Why is it that the majority of conservatives in this country watch Fox news, and the majority of liberals watch Cnn? Could it be because each of these stations tells it's watchers exactly what they want to hear? Hey, that's great for entertainment value and it sure does make you feel good to see Ann Coulter, or Howard Dean ripping the other side a new a-hole, telling you, "yup, you're right they really are all idiots", but guess what, that's not a news program. Yes, there is a place for political opinion pieces on the news, but the problem is, with some of these stations, that's virtually all were getting and most of it is being billed as actual fact not opinion. When the stations reporters and anchors are stating opinions as fact or the station is just plain slanting the news with it's choice of coverage, that is propaganda, not news.
I enjoy feeling good about myself and my opinions as much as anybody, but when I turn on the news I don't do it to have some reporter pander to me, and insult my intelligence with some edited version of what's happening in the country. I watch the news to become informed. To learn something I don't know, so I can form well thought out, intelligent opinions on the state of affairs in America and the world. Obviously, if someone on the tv news is simply telling me what they think I want to hear, I'm not getting better informed, I'm simply getting more brainwashed to think one way and one way only.
Tv stations would not be replacing the real news with this drivel if it wasn't causing their ratings to jump, and making them money. Americans are flocking to "their" particular news stations, becoming brand loyal (which proves my point) to a 24 hr. news station and then going out in the world and spouting all the new "facts" they've been spoon fed. Is this truly what we want as Americans, to be an underinformed, over opinionated nation of dupes?
posted by Leo at 2:02 AM
3 Comments:
It may not be so much making money, as losing it slower.
TV news is dead, short sound bites for short attention spans killed it.
It just doesn't know it is dead yet, so you have picked up the dirge that it is singing to itself.
Nice well thought out post, thanks.
I see a tandem relationship between the disintigration of TV news and the rise of talk radio. It's really come to the point of punditocracy, I term I first saw on the Altercation blog.
This country has been politically brainwashed to believe our governence is too complex for us to understand. Couple that with divisive, opinion based propaganda, and you have a nation ripe for plundering.
Considering the state of our national finances, I think we done been pirated.
Thanks for commenting on my post at Bring It On.
You both make good points. Thanks for the comments.
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