When Conspiracy Theories Don't Fit the Media Narrative

[TomCADem]

Nice article that discusses why haven't Joni Ernst's flirtation with Agenda 21 or Tom Cotton's ideas about ISIS gotten more attention. It pretty much notes how the mainstream media simply misleads by portraying stories into an established narrative. For example, the unpopularity of President Obama, means that stories or events that show President Obama in front of an appreciative crowd must be ignored. However, if you get one random heckler, that will get front page treatment.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/when-conspiracy-theories-dont-fit-the-media-narrative-midterm-election-tom-cotton-joni-ernst/382209/?google_editors_picks=true

Joni Ernst is an Iowan, born and bred, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, and the Republican nominee for the Senate in Iowa. She has also flirted seriously with wacky conspiracy theories, especially Agenda 21, which takes off from an innocuous, voluntary UN resolution and turns it into a sinister plot which, as the John Birch Society says, “seeks for the government to curtail your freedom to travel as you please, own a gas-powered car, live in suburbs or rural areas, and raise a family. Furthermore, it would eliminate your private property rights through eminent domain.” And she has made comments about Americans totally dependent on government that make Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” observations look almost populist by comparison.

Tom Cotton, who is the Republican nominee for the Senate in Arkansas, is a congressman, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a decorated veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has also said, at a town-hall meeting, “Groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism. They could infiltrate our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.”

* * *
The most common press narrative for elections this year is to contrast them with the 2010 and 2012 campaigns. Back then, the GOP “establishment” lost control of its nominating process, ended up with a group of extreme Senate candidates who said wacky things—Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Sharron Angle—and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in races that should have been slam dunks. Now the opposite has happened: The establishment has fought back and won, vanquishing the Tea Party and picking top-flight candidates who are disciplined and mainstream, dramatically unlike Akin and Angle.

It is a great narrative, a wonderful organizing theme. But any evidence that contradicts or clouds the narrative devalues it, which is perhaps why evidence to the contrary tends to be downplayed or ignored. Meantime, stories that show personal gaffes or bonehead moves by the opponents of these new, attractive mainstream candidates, fit that narrative and are highlighted.

[newthinking]

1. Most all institutional media has become tabloid at best, influenced, deceptive at worst.

The sooner we accept and expect this, the better.

Some of this is a result of the changes brought forth by the internet and the current mega-profit model, where the previous models that supported heavy spending on investigative journalism don't work as they used to.

"Reporting" for most media outlets now consists of acting and drama (Television) or small staffs of story finders under pressure to produce stories so prolifically and with emotion.

This has become a boon to various powers (Government, Marketers, corporations) who are able to provide the media with the prepared stories that they want to propagate.

It also results in heavy editing of which stories and what reporters by editors; It becomes much more risky to publish a story that does not track with all the other "reports" that are based on the predominant narratives, or might upset the culture's view of themselves or the world around them.

Add to this corruption: Where governments are now turning a blind eye, having allowed journalism to be filled with paid stories and journalists who take in extra income by becoming a surrogate, so that government itself can pay or use compromised journalists if/when they need to.

It would behoove all liberals to to realize that pretty much *all* corporate media is now affected and they should not trust stories simply because the industry has multiple owners or because a particular narrative is prevalent through multiple distributions. Our current form of Darwinian capitalism and government mechanisms is so powerful that it can even work these "wonders" across a broader spectrum of outlets than we would have thought possible. Even unintentionally.

Ultimately we will have to find a way to regulate: Not news stories, but the market that news stories exist in. We can't even trust government funded media anymore (because western governments have few standing principles at this time). Even outlets like BBC are affected.

I am more and more coming to the conclusion that prolific use of citizen commissions are going to be where the democratic future lies.

[Blue_Tires]

2. kick