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This message was self-deleted by its author (Tripper11) on Sun Dec 16, 2012, 12:11 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)tinrobot
(10,983 posts)http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)Turn off the news? I don't want to be ignorant.
progressoid
(50,129 posts)I doubt another 20 minutes or 4 hours of this macabre reporting would make me anymore intelligent.
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)progressoid
(50,129 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)It says at the end 'don't ask for gun control and stop watching the news'. It does not say 'seek excellence in journalism' it says 'turn off the news' right after it says 'don't point to gun control'.
Do you also say we should not discuss gun control? Really?
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)I just refer to the um whomever as idiots. I never remember their names. and yes the media has been rather sick covering this. lets go ask the kids how they feel.. What are you?
HipChick
(25,485 posts)truedef
(2 posts)Sign the petition to ask the President to publicly appeal directly to them: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/appeal-conscience-our-nations-media/y28nRnMD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Whisp
(24,096 posts)many die senseless deaths every day, of every age and everywhere, but that wouldn't sell papers and commercials as much as this travesty.
we are a sick society - the voyeurs as much as anyone else.
truedef
(2 posts)Sign the petition to ask the President to make the appeal directly to our media: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/appeal-conscience-our-nations-media/y28nRnMD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Floyd_Gondolli
(1,277 posts)Ignorance is not bliss, at least not to me. And pretending they don't exist or kill solely for notoriety is not at all productive.
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)People complain so much about the corporate sensationalist money driven "news" that gets pumped into our TV sets, and when the guy tells them not to watch it, they complain. I rarely watch the news, and yet seem to stay better informed than most of my peers who watch TV news daily.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)If so, please provide the original source.
"Instead of pointing to gun control as the problem" -- sounds straight from the NRA.
Fuck Corporate Media. And fake social media accounts attributed to celebrities. People are confused enough.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)It is the false linking of the drivel to Morgan Freeman. The other problem is placing the blame on the want for notoriety aspect. That is a total cop out from actual issues. If someone if touting that as the primary issue, they are lying to you. Putting victims in quotation marks really took it over the edge to repugnant.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)On what and why.
No thank you Morgan.
Cha
(299,269 posts)first with "BREAKING NEWS".. Got it All F***** UP.
I never turned on the "news".. don't even have a tv. Found out on DU.
no tv, no tv news.
Cha
(299,269 posts)that enriches our life just a little.
'Cause I did have one and saw what "the news" was doing back in 2002 when I woke up after Midterms and ran to phone and cancelled it.
Cha
(299,269 posts)Tripper11
(4,338 posts)I thought a lot more would...apparently not.
I was taken aback by the immediate negative replies.
I don't think it's about ignorance, I think it's about getting some perspective back, on our own.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)got some pushback?
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)I'm not finding it.
" 'Victim' of Columbine"? Did that not raise any red flags for you?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)A while back there was a recommended DU thread with yet another supposed Morgan Freeman quote, but the Twitter account was "@MorgonFreeman".
Why sweat the details?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)He's criticizing the media coverage for making supervillains out of the killers, thus providing inspiration to future killers.
It's not about coverage per se, it's about emphasis.
Here's what I wrote on this site five years ago, after NBC made a sensation out of materials sent in by the Virginia Tech killer just before he went on his rampage.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/JackRiddler/29
NBC as an element in the production of mass murderers
Posted by JackRiddler in General Discussion (1/22-2007 thru 12/14/2010)
Thu Apr 19th 2007, 07:44 PM
The Murder-Entertainment Complex
In the first "Scream" flick, the teenagers who are about to be hunted down and killed by the murderer talk about whether the horror movies they love to watch create serial killers. No, one of them answers: Horror movies just make the killers smarter.
The mass media do not create human timebombs. No doubt some people are born with a high predilection for fits of psychotic, murderous rage, a drive to kill beyond the violent drives shared by almost all humans (at any rate by almost all men). No doubt such tendencies develop or are inhibited through environmental factors: upbringing, trauma, the stations of one's experience.
But the culture-at-large certainly will affect how a timebomb personality is likely to blow. As a violent psychosis arises, its carrier might do nothing until he crashes a car, jumps off a bridge, or lashes out suddenly and fatally within familiar surroundings, at people close to him. He might sign up with the military, or become a mercenary. Sociopaths with good social skills have been known to make careers in politics and organized crime. (Am I being redundant?)
Why is it that in recent decades, in the United States and elsewhere, so many timebomb personalities have instead exploded into mass-murder rampages of the type exemplified by Columbine and now Virginia Tech? The easy availability of guns only explains the choice of weapon and the often-high number of casualties.
I submit that the corporate media have played a willing, lucrative and immoral role in the cultural chain of production that creates mass murderers of this type. I submit that they became fully conscious of this role long ago. They have created an industry of mass-murder consumption, glorifying the perpetrators in direct proportion to the number of victims killed and the amount of spectacle generated. (A group of Amish girls in a one-room school is not as impressive as 32 college-age victims in two locations several hours apart, is it? So you don't even remember the name of the Amish schoolhouse murderer, who committed his crime just a few months ago, whereas Cho will be with us for many years.)
In the case of real-life killers, this celebration of their exploits is camouflaged by the exploitation of grief, rituals of moral approbation, and "the public's right to know." But the fictional treatments generally do without need of piety or pomposity: The most prolific and profitable of all Hollywood genres are the ones dealing with serial killers, some of them supernatural, some of them seen mostly as shadows pursued by a heroic cop. Mass murderers are stars. More movies are made about them and more box office is harvested than by all movies about scientists and do-gooders and athletes combined. Manson and Ted Bundy and Son of Sam are brand-names, alongside their fictional and supernatural counterparts Freddy and Jason and Hannibal Lecter. (Is this just as much a commentary on the market as on the media who serve it? Yes!)
On receiving the package from Cho (or "Ismail Ax," his supervillain identity), NBC could have taken one picture, broadcast it at low resolution, and described the other contents of the package factually. That would have fulfilled the requirements of "delivering the news." They could have devoted a few minutes to the package as the second or third story of their program. They could have kept a copy of the material to protect themselves, and left the rest to the cops.
Instead, NBC gave the Cho package full coverage as top-plus story. They showed the text of his "manifesto" so that anyone taping it could read it. They released all of the stills and broadcast much of the video in full resolution. They used Cho's choice of imagery as icons to sell their program. And every single other corporate media outlet followed suit. Today, the front page of every tabloid in New York features the same shot of Cho with two guns, and I'm sure that's true in most every other US city and town.
The broadcast of the material amounts to a glorification. Yes, they call him "evil," which is a form of aggrandizement. The lonely, frustrated psychotic is now a comic-book character, a myth, an immortal. He's joined the killers' pantheon alongside his inspirations, Dylan and Eric, whose celebrity requires no last name. Reality once again meets the standard of satire, for this is exactly the scene in "Natural Born Killers" when in an interview with the TV reporter played by Robert Downey, the imprisoned Woody Harrelson discusses the impact of his media persona compared to that of other famous mass murderers. ("Am I bigger than Ted Bundy?"
Without a doubt, this encourages future timebombs to choose the same path, as Cho also predicts in his own bloody-minded images and words. This is obvious to everyone with minimal sense, and no talk on NBC's part about how they agonized over the decision to broadcast this material can mitigate the reality. (At least the tabloids don't bother with the bogus moral justifications.)
Here's a little mental exercise: Imagine Cho had killed 33 people meeting in a corporate boardroom, or the head of state's cabinet, or a group of generals discussing next year's biowarfare and nuclear weapons acquisitions. Imagine the manifesto justifying his murders actually had a comprehensible political basis. On receiving such a package, what would NBC have done? I submit they would never have dared to broadcast it, even though it would actually be relevant. It would undeniably constitute "news." Because that would reward and encourage the murder of power-brokers, of owners, of elites. And would anyone be wondering whether his act qualified as terrorism?
Because Cho killed students and teachers at random, it is safe for NBC and the corporate media to publicize the material he provided. His victims are expendable, an acceptable and fully externalized cost in the chain of production for the murder-entertainment complex. NBC and all the corporate media companies who followed its lead are therefore free to maximize their Cho ratings windfall. And for the mass murderers of the future, they are providing the ideology, the how-to, the fashion tips, the incentive, the glory.
PS - Please correct your thread title. Morgan, not Morg-ran.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)" More movies are made about them and more box office is harvested than by all movies about scientists and do-gooders and athletes combined."
Load of horsepucky. Just not true. You want it to be true. But it is not true. Here is a link to a list of last year's top box office films. 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' at number 28 is the only, the only film about murder in the entire top 50, which features such films a 'We Bought A Zoo' and 'Harry Potter' and 'Hangover 2' 'Bridesmaids'. The dominate forms are chidlren's films and comedies. Smufs, Pirates, Pandas....that's where the big money is. Year in and year out.
There are many worthy criticisms of the film media but what you are saying is what you want to say, not what is true. If it was true, you'd not be reaching back to the 80's and 90's to cite your Natural Born Freddies and such.
It's fine to hold ginned up, anti artistic sentiments I guess, but when you start denigrating the audience for watching that which they are not watching, and making large conclusions based on that falsehood, it does make others inspect the words more closely.
Also, this is not Morgan Freeman, which is why it is spelled wrong. He'd never say such idotic shit. This piece says 'don't look to gun control'.
Also, ironic that your avatar wrote so many bloody, horrific plays with so many deaths and torture scenes and rapes and kipnappings. Hundreds of years ago, the top entertainments were bloody plays and bear baiting. Now, the top entertainments are comedies and animations. I love Shakespeare. His work is very violent. Very. Some of his 'hero' figures kill serveral people in the course of a play.
So what's your issue with Kung Fu Panda? What does that say about the 'market'? I mean, you said the films that make money comment on 'the market and the media'. Or does that only count when it is the made up, fictional popularity of nonexistant films, not the actual films that fill the actual market? It seems to me a top 50 with one murder story and a few spy films is about as tame as it gets. Add all the cartoon animals and slapstick comedies in the top 50 and it is almost as if the market wants fun, laughs and some insights here and there. 'Crazy, Stupid Love' made way more money than Dragon Tattoo. As did 27 other films about subjects other than mass murder.
Which is worse? Harry Potter, or the Panda one? Which says stuff about 'the market'? Bridesmaids? Was that an indication of a society on the verge? How about the Smufs, Chipmunks? Or maybe it is Puss in Boots or Cars that are so indicative of our ruination?
The whole 'I sound like a Baptist preacher shouting about James Dean' routine is just funny to me. Yeah. It's those kids films and comedies that are destroying the world. Sure. If you say so, we can all blame Smurfs and Pandas. Why not?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Apparently you need to attack some Baptist minister who hates James Dean and thinks fiction media about violence directly causes violence in real life. As very little of your response addresses what I wrote, even tangentially, or seems to have even remotely understood my thesis, I'm going to leave you to chase your own tail. This failure of communication is surely my own, and probably not related to conditioned templates of response on your part that cause you to peremptorily read and hear things that aren't there. Okay?
shireen
(8,333 posts)For some reason, he's been the target of some unfortunate hoaxes.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)bongbong
(5,436 posts)And the only organization that wantonly lies more often and with even less guilty feelings than the GOP is the NRA.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)UFB.
MessiahRp
(5,405 posts)Being the big tent we have a lot of gun nuts here too and because of that a lot of NRA sympathizers on this board. So of course that post speaks to them. It absolves guns as being the problem which is total horseshit.
bluetexas
(44 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 16, 2012, 01:25 AM - Edit history (1)
send in the bogusity meter!
AldoLeopold
(617 posts)So NOW FUCKING WHAT? Are we going to have to regulate information now? Godamn piece of shit humans. And people wonder why I'm an anti-humanist? REALLY?
FUCK ME WITH AN APPLE CART.
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)Beartracks
(12,897 posts)UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)Beartracks
(12,897 posts)... everything sounds better when you imagine Freeman's voice speaking it.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp
================
JanMichael
(24,932 posts)internet horseshit. Thank you.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)The author of this piece did not verify source - http://www.examiner.com/article/morgan-freeman-on-adam-lanza
Still looks like a hoax
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)I won't believe this until I see the actual interview.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)stupid shit from Facebook.
Robyn66
(1,675 posts)and even then I didnt watch much. Its too much to take in. I know what happend, I have enough information. I dont want the gory details, the play by play, I cant handle it. It was the same with 9/11, I was present the day it happened I watched the news that morning and I have avoided every replay, voice recording, and movie ever since. Call me weak but I just dont need to drown myself in horror to understand what has happened.
AldoLeopold
(617 posts)SleeplessinSoCal
(9,303 posts)The question keeps coming up about a motive. To me its clear that the "motive" is to do what others have done as a way out. It's said that depression is anger turned inwards. And when it's turn out at matricide, there's no telling what will happen next. The die is cast.
I recall the first mass shooting in my experience coming from a campus in Texas with a gunman in a bell tower. It sticks with you in a really bad way. If it sticks with me, imagine how an angry and depressed, anti-social person would behave. Especially surrounded by a culture of violence living in a 24 hour news cycle world where there are plenty of reporters where there should be a time of respect.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/whitman/index_1.html
In our society today, the NRA would rather we all kill ourselves than behave responsibly. That is really bad news.
Cha
(299,269 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)This piece claims that gun control is a bad idea. Do you agree with that?
Someone stuck Freeman's name on this, but the content is very right wing and could be NRA authored for that matter.
So you agree that gun control is a bogus issue and when we hear about it we should ignore it?
This piece says 'don't talk about gun control, blame the media'. Do you really agree with that?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Or did you get swept up in the emotional string pulling and miss the intent of the essay?
defacto7
(13,485 posts)it's a lie wrapped in a truth.
Sounds like NRA to me,
riverbendviewgal
(4,260 posts)K&R
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nt