Dems and the Media

[NativeTexan]

Democrats have got to make America realize how they have been lied to over the past several years. We must make the country realize that there is NO liberal or Democratic bias in today's media. FOX is nothing more than a "Republican Propaganda Machine", and is not the middle of the road!

The main stream media, itself, is using FOX as a measuring stick for their own political bias, and that pulls them all the way to the Right! That thinking makes John McCain a liberal, and Ronald Reagan the moderate, for petes sake!!

Right-wing propaganda over the last 10 years has been the most successful lying machine since Adolf Hitler's Third Reich!!

Some kind of pressure MUST be brought upon this Conservative Media to change their ways and move BACK TO THE CENTER where they BELONG!!

[Flabbergasted]

1. David vs Golliath

Unfortuntely people won't care until they don't have a job? Ever news organization in the country has swung more right including NPR, and PBS (don't give them a donation). All of the sudden they have all these programs about Christ (Not that I have a problem with that) but how about Buddha or Muhammed.

[Crazy Dave]

2. What's the status on Al Gore's news network?

Is that still in the works? I did a little research (through Google) last month and the latest information I found was from early 2005.

Disclosure: My wife and I do watch a little of the FOX News network occasionally. We go to sleep watching Greta Van Susteren and I used to work at a Hardees flipping hamburgers with Shepard Smith in Ft. Walton Beach, FL during the early 80's. SORRY :-(

As I stated earlier today in another post:
"It's tabloid TV now, strictly for entertainment purposes and promoting agendas. You can't take any news network seriously anymore."

Back to Al Gore though, what's the news?

[Flabbergasted]

3. Sorry don't know

[Crazy Dave]

4. NP but....

...I wouldn't be so hard on NPR. Last week they ripped Bush and his administration a new one without even intentionally trying, just by reporting the facts.

[Flabbergasted]

9. Unintentional?

Still there reporting is going right and I wouldn't donate to them. What did they have to say?

[Crazy Dave]

10. Only the facts.

The lies, failed social security reform, the Libby & Rowe indictments, the Valerie Plame leak, cronyism, Katrina failures, breaking the law by spying on Americans, etc.
Shit! I guess NPR just can't make anybody happy anymore. To the left they are always accused of being to right, and to the right, (the FOX's, the Hannity's and the Limbaugh's) they are considered too far left.

What's wrong with just straight reporting and not having sides or agendas?

[Flabbergasted]

13. Point well made

Still the point for me is Bush and cheney are calling the shots. As a sign of our dissaproval I would not donate.

[high density]

6. Isn't that "Current TV?"

I haven't watched it for more than five minutes but I don't think it's exactly a "news network."

[billbuckhead]

7. It's not designed to be a news network, it's something else

<http://www.current.tv/>
Here's a recent review in Mediaweek.

Gore's Current Hopes to Involve Viewers

Megan Larson

DECEMBER 19, 2005 -

Smirks were evident when former Vice President Al Gore stood in front of a small crowd at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association conference in 2004 and announced he was launching a news network that would target viewers 18-34. Those smirks morphed into raised eyebrows this year when he and business partner, entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, said they would program their new channel, Current, with viewer-produced content.

Current is still a work in progress, but it has progressed further than most observers had expected at its birth. The network, which launched Aug. 1, is in 20 million homes on DirecTV and Time Warner systems and has attracted major advertisers, including Sony Electronics, Toyota and Xbox. It also appears to have a never-ending supply of new, low-cost content from both viewers as well as its own edit staff. “It’s an intriguing property because it is a new media model,” said Ed Gentner, senior vp, group director, national broadcast for MediaVest Worldwide.

Current’s president of programming David Neuman described the content as “lifestyle and information,” but almost anything can go under that banner as long as it is compelling. “I quote Tom Leykis who invites people to call in to his show to talk about anything as long it is absolutely fascinating,” said Neuman. “It has to be. Our audience won’t stand for being bored.”
-------------------------------snip------------------
<http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001699895>

[Flabbergasted]

14. What's your analysis?

[billbuckhead]

19. My analysis is that Current is not intended to be news TV

Actual truthful news might come out of Current, but it's not intentional. (In theory)

[PATRICK]

5. Remembering when

CNN came to be, the simple contrast with network news gave it a boost way above mere competition and highlighted many of the aggravating flaws of commercial TV news. FOX went another way and also was alone in what it did and how. Now all those outlets, known together as corporate owned media, have simply abandoned real journalism to niches within their bloated systems or to sneered at outsiders. Now as when CNN and FOX came to be the big guys were in decay with quality, aiudience share, investment and especially poor attitude.

Without a single rival or alternative outside of foreign news or comedy, they still have been shaken by the crumby slanted job they are doing and the Internet, reaching out where no alternative paper or radio had been able to do, easily picking up the ignored jewels of real facts and truth and investigative journalism out of the mud.

A real, courageous and original ACTUAL news network could literally stun the MSM, who cares if they "change" or not. They have always changed too little and too late and never their nature. To change they would have to massively fire their overpaid "news" celebrities, fire editorial staffs en masse, hire and fund real investigative journalists, lose a lot of their advertising, alienate hooked audiences, sever all influential ties, sever corporate influence over the running of the news department, lose money on world wide coverage and rebuilding, give up the race to the bottom with their comrade networks, get out of useless filler fodder for the 24/7 Walmart news coverage.

And then they still have to work for the quality journalism objectivity and pursuit of dangerous truths they have no will or understanding of now.

Why try to force them to do all this when real competing, non-commercial news can simply be added as a new channel? Many Internet sources and real sources(NOT more corporate partisanship via their funded think tanks!) are widely available, often ahead of the 24/7 filtered news.

Instead of bemoaning horrors and bailing out sinking ships we could instead be critiquing the human flaws and varied points of view of a REAL news station. Since that is not now the case, nor perhaps really ever was that good, the opportunity is wide open for taking the ball right down the abandoned center.

[radio4progressives]

8. IWT will be launched in 2007 - Here's link - Check it out

http://www.iwtnews.com/

after you listen to the promos, check out who is on the advisory panel - Gore Vidal, Naomi Klein, Laura Flanders and so many others...

It's going to change the News Media as we see it now...

Personaly, it can't happen soon enough...

[Crazy Dave]

11. Thanks for the link.

Definitely not soon enough but at least it's before 2008

[guidod]

12. Thanks for the link radio4progressive...

I just signed up and donated.

[AtomicKitten]

15. I think Dems should concentrate on the incompetence of the GOP regime.

Absolute incompetence: 9/11, WMD, the "war on terror," Katrina, etc.

Just pound it mercilessly over and over again. If we've learned nothing else from the Republicans, repetition works on the masses.

[NativeTexan]

16. True, but.....

.....remember, the Republicans have been repeating LIES and DISTORTIONS over and over. That is something THEY learned from the Nazi's, and Hitlers Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels!

[AtomicKitten]

17. so, we'll just tell the truth, over and over again. n/t

[BrendaStarr]

18. Yes, we must. Mustn't we?

If we want to have our democracy back.

Rank and file liberals need to get off their duffs and stop hiding in liberal groups and go out to the rest of the nation either in real life or online and tell people.

Get your fact together and go argue.

We aren't going to win until we stop hanging around solely with each blaming our elected officials and get out and actually do politics.

There will still be plenty of time to connect and pick up news at DU.

But if we want to win we must actually play the game.