How many here actually BELIEVE in a media "Conspiracy"?

[HEyHEY]

I believe in shitty reporting.

[MichiganVote]

1. Both. Except one has imagination and the other creates hysteria

Take your pick

[K-W]

2. There are conspiricies in the media, the media is not one big conspiricy.

I think that about sums it up.

[K-W]

6. I believe the technical term is corruption.

The media is corrupted by conspiricies.

[aquart]

8. Yup. Corruption.

[lonestarnot]

34. Payoff on Print; Tainted Town Cryers; Cut off cable!

[blm]

9. Agree. The media IS corporate and does reflect its corporate masters.

And those corporate masters benefit from GOP policies.

[marmar]

3. Agreed....

As a member of the media, I believe that the media has become so beholdent to corporate interests and so absolutely spineless when it comes to taking on the party in power, that it's become pretty weak and worthless, save for the occassional NY Times or Washington Post article. The alternative media really is the place to find anything out these days. Mainstream media more or less wants to go with the flow.

[HEyHEY]

14. Hey

I'm in the media too...which is why I ask this question. I've never been told what to write.

[marmar]

16. Neither have I, but...

There's sometimes a lack of support for certain types of stories among the top editors. He's not a "rocking the boat" kind of guy.

[HEyHEY]

18. AH...I've been fortunate

Never worked for an editor that was like that... however I'm still new. My first editor hated journalism and let us do whatever we wanted. Then I was my own editor. Now I work as my own news director. As I said, I've been lucky.

[sendero]

4. Media are whores..

... and as soon as Dems learn how to be good Johns, we will get out message out once again.

[alittlelark]

5. I believe in it, and believe that it's exposure

is the ONLY way that change will occur.

[Stirk]

7. Corporate interests control the mainstream media, and so a

filter naturally developes that keeps out unacceptable (i.e. anti-corporate) views. Most of the media bias comes from simple business concerns. Media outlets owned by GE aren't going to be particularly critical of defense contractors, for instance.

But there are more direct and intentional media conspiracies as well. Fox News alone is proof of that.

[mcscajun]

10. So let's just call it what it is: Corporate Media and forget this MSM crap

"Mainstream" is far too bland and gives them too much legitimacy.

Corporate IS what they are, and who they serve.

[Stirk]

12. I think that's a much more accurate term.

Corporate Media. I agree- that's more descriptive.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Just because it LOOKS like a conspiracy doesn't mean it is.

Declining journalistic standards, laziness, restriction of information by the government, et cetera are all more likely than "conspiracy".

The label "conspiracy" only applies to Fox News and right-wing talk radio...they're all on the same page, have the same goals, push the same propaganda...but they only represent a part of the entire media picture.

[gatorboy]

13. I work in the media...A newspaper actually. Here's my story.

Our editor in chief is a pretty die-hard conservative. She even checks the Drudge for reports.

Anyway, the next day after the first night of the Republican convention there was a huge front page story about. Nice big color picture of McCain and others. You could tell what they were selling for the front page.

The front page after the Democrat Convention? A small article near the bottom about Clinton's speech. But the actual headline story? It was about the new crosswalk being constructed downtown. Nice big picture of the crosswalk, too! A crosswalk!!

Being biased doesn't have to mean conspiracy. It just depends on who'd running things...

[Jamastiene]

15. yes/no

"conspiracy", not a word I'd use because it would insinuate that I am nuts, which I am, but it's not good to let the others know that, okay. But the media nowadays are a bunch of whores propogating propoganda for Bush. I think it is called business from their perspective. It's bullshit from a bunch of right wing sadists from my perspective. I prefer mine.

[EVDebs]

17. You mean coincidence theorists who dare to believe Operation Mockingbird

REALLY is in effect ? That and the poor state of "reporting" -- if you want to call what Judith Miller was doing reporting, well, go right ahead-- it looks more like Operation Mockingbird and the CIA's influence on the media.

Read all about it on alternative media http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html

snippets of Bernstein's famous article "The CIA and The Media"
http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/ciamedia.htm

full article at
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/Media%20Readings/Berstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20the%20Media.htm

(please acknowledge attribution as shown at bottom of pg above Fair Use notice)

[bleever]

19. Conspiracy, no. Conformity, yes. Especially in a time of heightened

fear and insecurity.

The * administration has created, within the media, an atmosphere of fear and conformity. Fear of losing access, fear of revenge.

The Japanese say, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." The * administration has seized the hammer and sought to put it to maximum use to paralyze the checks-and-balances function of a free press.


:thumbsdown:

[ken-in-seattle]

20. The chilling effect of the cycle of reward and punishment...

The chilling effect of the cycle of reward and punishment... is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.

The initiation of that cycle was part of a conspiracy, yes, but it is rolling along on it's own momentum for quite a while now.

Some are hacks and some are pretty news readers, but until we see another Bill Moyers or at least someone who does not let their fascist tendancies run as free as Wolf Blitzer, we will probably not be able to recognize a journalist on tv.

The forth estate has at the very least abdicated their required role in American politics, at the urging of their corporate paymasters. So what you call it is kinda moot.

------------



--Begin relevant Quote--
Basically, being a liberal news channel in the US is like being a liberal person in Texas: just say that you favor lethal injection over the electric chair because it reduces the suffering of the prisoner and bingo! You're liberal. Dare to suggest that the US military might not be 100% right all of the time, and bingo! Your news channel is liberal.
-- Christian Christensen
Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey

[Az]

21. No need for conspiracy

It is a natural evolutionary process of a system disconnected from our social needs. In simple corporate sense there is no sense in complying with social forces if you can instead dictate the message to them.

Its a budget issue. It costs more to try to keep pace with what society demands than it does to simply display the virtues and qualities you wish them to have.

Consider the shows prevelant these days. So called reality shows. But they aren't about reality are they? They create artificial situations where people are forced into nonsocial structures akin to corporate culture. Then these conflicts are presented to the public as examples of understanding other people. This creates a disconnect from our fellow citizens because we project images we learn from these shows onto our fellow humans.

Everything about the corporate message is about striving to enrich self. Competition and greed are praised over compassion and selflessness. Be number 1 at all costs. It's just the gilding on the cage to be number 1. We are the number 1 prisoners of the corporate delusion.

There is no need for conspiracy. It is just the natural pressures that result from corporations following their designed goals with no regulation or consideration of our society. This nation was created as a means of forming a more perfect union for We The People. In that process we created the corporate entity. We gave them rights on par with ours. And they took it from there and now rule us and often have more rights than we do.

[Jamastiene]

25. That's the difference between

us and them. Point well taken.

[Eric J in MN]

22. By conspiracy, do you mean that General Electric hyped

the Iraq War on MSNBC before the war for its military contracts?

I believe that, but I wouldn't call it a "conspiracy" because that term if perjorative.

[frylock]

23. i would suggest that you read "into the buzzsaw"..

it tells how the media supresses important stories that reflect poorly on their corporate owners, and how the real journos are blackballed for refusing to play ball.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573929727/qid=1106363224/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-3886318-1433517

[Just Me]

24. I would characterize IT as a conspiracy against the media.

It can be a difficult task to sort out individuals from groups but that task is essential to preserving a coherent sense of reality.

It would be an absolutely ridiculous assertion that a "media conspiracy" exists because such a blanket proposal fails to consider the complexity of a diverse human existence.

On the other hand, if you were to suggest that there are those individuals or circles of individuals bent upon manipulating the media,..that suggestion is obviously plausible since such conspiratorial manipulations HAVE HAPPENED!!!

I believe the more defining question is: Whether or not the media is being manipulated and, if so, by whom.

Naturally, there are media outlets clearly participants in a corporate profit black-hole which support ONLY THOSE LEADERSHIPS which increase their self-serving interests. But those OBVIOUS mouthpieces for corporatism (fascism) are excluded for purposes of my observation.

[theresistance]

26. Conspiracy may be the wrong word

as its got all sorts of negative connotations, but in effect that is what's happening. There is an establishment line that has to be pushed and anything contrary is suppressed or not covered. It can be subtle, but it happens. Most importantly, it is done largely voluntarily, whereas in the Soviet Union it was forced.

[leftofthedial]

27. I believe in a conspiracy

that controls large chunks of the Murkan media

and manipulates the rest through intimidation and infiltration.

and the small part of the media that is uncorrupted suffers from a plague of shitty reporting.

[leesa]

28. "Conspiracy"??? Do you mean are they purchased by the GOP?

[in_cog_ni_to]

29. I do.

They have known for years what this administration is all about and are so intimidated by KKKRove they won't report the truth. They know if they do KKKRove will destroy them. They see what he does to other people who speak out against the chimp. (Dan Rather) They KNOW what's going on. Money is more important to them than their country.

[bpilgrim]

30. it's the natural and predictable outcome of a highly concentrated and

controlled effort designed to serve the elite.

read noam chomsky he breaks it down very well, Manufactured Consent gets to the heart of the matter.

peace

[JanMichael]

31. I mean, look, how obvious does it need to be for you?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2988846

It's there.

[HEyHEY]

36. Poor reporting

No one is saying "Oh this can't be picked up because Bush will get mad." They're saying "Oh, we didn't break that so...it's not news."

ANother reason...as Palast himself said...Nobody cares

[JanMichael]

38. That isn't "poor reporting" brother. It's fear.

Internal filtering for self surivival. Who wites the paychecks and what happens when some mainstream reporters buck conventional wisdom on some subjects?

Sometimes they're cannonized at other times they get a pink slip.

[Gold Metal Flake]

32. I believe in a lot of morally bankrupt bastards who have grown very

dependent on their large salaries and know where their bread is buttered. They are letting us eat cake.

[The Backlash Cometh]

33. Olberman has already confessed that media whores are wimps.

So, I'm inclined to believe that there is a pack mentality taking place. They're not out there to scoop each other out of news. Instead, they're like price fixers. They seem to have a conglomerate out there deciding for them what will be "safe" news, and what won't. But if someone is actually good at digging up the news, he may not be around for long, because putting out news that people aren't ready to accept can be an unpopular thing with their advertisement clients.

[pretzel4gore]

39. blackmailed media.....

if you look at what happened- the media bias during run up to 2000 election, including the relentless anti clinton stuff, oj simpson, michael jackson, 'al gore is wooden' etc theme the media literally drummed into national consciousness until the election, which the media faithfully called for gore until somehow (suprise) bush won! the media actively abetted the theft of the election, never reporting the effort by black democrats to get even one senator to sign on (with al gore himself playing the bush heavy re: F911) the refusal to certify bush's win....somehow bushinc stole the highest office in the land, and the mass media were responsible....putting bushinc in debt to them until sept 11/01 when, in one fell swoop, bushinc turned tables on the mass media, letting them know 'if we go down, 300 thousand of you media whores are coming with us' thus forcing wimpy cowards to lie repeatedly about everything: obl, the wtc 19, barb olsen's ph. call, the actual events of the wtc horror, wtc blg #7, the wargames exercises run that very morning and the resulting paralysis of US security forces, the flipping of the wtc 3 times in weeks before 911, the short sell of airline stock, anthrax, washington sniper, the flight 587 crash, afghanistan, the bs about saddam, iraq (though the US media had lied to help bushinc in 1st gulf 'war' and were thus hamstrung from getgo re iraq) etc etc....iow the US media now is in so deep with the bush criminals nothing can be done w/out destroying the corporate media, which would be easy for the democrats to do if only because the mass media are loathed almost as much as it's possible to loathe something, cuz everyone knows they are a control mechanism, used by conmen/crooks...with no end in sight

[TankLV]

35. I don't think the fact the whore media is bought and paid for by the

repuke party and kowtows to the repuke party line is such an outlandish concept if that is what you mean by "conspiracy".

That it is has been proven a fact time and again.

It is an awful "conspiracy" in the truest sense of the word.

[Minstrel Boy]

37. Gary Webb would have agreed with you before he wrote "Dark Alliance."

In his Into the Buzzsaw entry, Webb writes

"In seventeen years of doing this, nothing bad had happened to me. I was never fired or threatened with dismissal if I kept looking under rocks. I didn't get any death threats that worried me. I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing colleg classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? Hell, the system worked just fine, as far as I could tell. It encouraged enterprise. It rewarded muckraking.

"And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job. It turned out to have nothing to do with it. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress."


Have you read Into the Buzzsaw? It's more than shitty reporting.

[Vidar]

40. Good reporting is out there but suppressed by the corporate heads

until it pays, then they jump ship.

[spanone]

41. It's a cultural conspiracy. Money rules everything including press.

Might is right bullshit. Win your tv timespot and who cares if it's accurate. Fox calls itself 'fair and balanced' which makes no fucking sense whatsoever yet they are allowed to get away with such nonsense. Fox should have been Michael Powells' outrage not Janet Jacksons breast.

[Tsiyu]

42. More like "Boogie Man Nights" than "Manchurian Candidate"

Take a bunch of folks with more money than sense (e.g. Senators and Nightly Nuze Entertainers), throw in some prostitutes and a few cameras and !Viola! Once you develop the undercover photos: INSTANT COMPLIANCE!


Rove calling up and threatening their firstborn encourages any who shun the parties....

[gorbal]

43. They want to be invited to the white house

That is why many media outlets were slow to take up the weapons of mass destruction story. Plus the fact that many are indeed biased.

Rupert Murdock is his own private "conspiracy" although I believe he is quite out in the open about it. I remember watching Amy Goodman interview republicans. They all got their info from "Fox News".

[durutti]

44. Not conspiracies, but institutions...

The media have certain built-in biases (the following is borrowed from the writings of Edward S. Herman):

1. Ownership. Media outlets reflect the worldviews of their (largely rich, white and male) owners.

2. Advertising. Media outlets derive most of their profits from advertising. They want to make their coverage business-friendly and appeal to people with large expendable incomes.

3. Sourcing. The mainstream media tend to depend on the state, well-funded think tanks, press releases, etc.

4. External pressure. Letter-writing campaign, government actions, etc. all have an effect on the media. There are numerous well-funded right-wing groups that are devoted to exerting this pressure, such as Accuracy in Media.

5. Anti-terrorism as a national religion and control mechanism, much in the same way anticommunism used to be.