P R O P A G A N D A -- Corporate Media fighting back against the truth

[libertypirate]

Liberals wage many battles, but have you heard which one is the major struggle now? Brace yourselves: It's the campaign "against the established media and its bizarre relationship with the right wing and the truth." That's from the Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog. No, it's not a satire. Just when conservatives thought they were getting somewhere against the entrenched liberalism of the newsroom culture, it turns out that the newsroom has been reactionary all along. The real lonely insurgents fighting for media balance and truth are liberals. The mind reels.
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Some on the left -- media columnist Eric Alterman, for one -- acknowledge that journalists tend to be reflexively liberal on social issues, but not on economic matters, where the values of the media's corporate ownership usually prevail. Maybe so, but that is not what is being said now. In its anger and frustration, the left, led by its Deaniac base, is loudly arguing that the news media reliably reflect the values of Washington Republicans. Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review, summed it up: "The left has the MSM (mainstream media) squarely in its sights."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucjl/20060130/cm_ucjl/theleftnowjoinstherightinattackingmainstreammedia

I think we are seeing a bit of desparation... If your a guilt junkie this is like the bullshit for you!

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. LOL They are finally starting to get it

Two skirmishes are under way, one against The Washington Post and its ombudsman, Deborah Howell, the other against Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball." Howell's offense was writing that the sleazy Jack Abramoff had given money to Democrats as well as Republicans. That was inaccurate. A tide of angry and exceptionally abusive complaints flooded into the Post. Howell then corrected herself, writing that she should have said that Abramoff "directed" a considerable amount of his clients' money to Democrats, though he never gave any himself. That was correct, but vicious and amazingly obscene e-mail kept pouring in, so the Post shut down its Web site. (Not a good idea, in my opinion. It would have been better, though more expensive, to let readers vent, while editing out obscenities.)

The campaign against Chris Matthews has escalated into talk of a boycott, though the would-be boycotters prefer to call it an "appeal to advertisers." Matthews is accused of being soft on Republicans in general, and in particular, of comparing Michael Moore to
Osama bin Laden. On Jan. 19, Matthews said on "Hardball" that in his new audio message, bin Laden "sounds like an over-the-top Michael Moore." Matthews was citing bin Laden's mention of "the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars to the influential people and war merchants in America." The next night, Matthews suggested that bin Laden was picking up the lingo of the American anti-war left, and asked, "Why would he start to talk like Moore?" Bloggers turned quickly against Matthews, a Democrat, calling him "a broadcasting neo-con," "stupid Bush lover" and "man whore for the GOP."

Liberal press criticism goes well beyond Howell and Matthews. Cable personalities are under attack, particularly Wolf Blitzer of CNN. Two or three New York Times reporters are catching flak. Two Times staffers made one left blogger's 2005 list of the 50 most loathsome people in America. Many critics seem less angry with Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh than they are at mainstream journalists. Salon ran a testy article arguing that "the traditional media, the trusted media, the 'neutral' media have become the chief delivery mechanism of potent anti-Democratic and pro-Bush story lines."

[Demit]

2. If John Leo has seen the "vicious and amazingly obscene email" the WaPo

got, he ought to share it with us. So far we only have Jim Brady's word for it, that that's what it was. This author is proving our point--he's swallowed the story he was given without demanding any verifiable proof. And I love his breezy "that's correct" on Deborah Howell's assertion that Abramoff directed money to Democrats, another dishonest construction belied by the facts. I've never heard of John Leo but his column here is a shining example of what we're up against.

[libertypirate]

3. This shit just stinks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guesss I can finally empathize with Shitflower, I just want to see these people fucked and when they think the fucking is over they find out we are just getting started!

[dusmcj]

4. media support what's good for business

just like government usually does. The exceptions, in both cases, are just that, exceptions. It's not right-wing, it's not left-wing, it's boardroom.

Find your target demographic (subset of the population you want to reach). What determines that ? Who your advertisers are and what they're selling.

Optimize your content to keep your target demographic tuned to your channel rather than someone else's.

Fox provides more news items, but with a heady brew of rightist swill.

CNN and increasingly MSNBC serve the 'soccer mom and minivan' set, who mostly don't want to worry too much so they can keep being good consumers, and like having Carol Lin interrupt her interviewee victims to squeak "how did that make you feel, what were the emotions you were feeling at that point" ? (Since sellers want buying decisions to be made on the basis of affect, i.e. subjective emotional responses by the buyer to the seller and product. Maintaining a tone centering around subjective emotional responses in the 'info' part of infotainment establishes associations between the product and the artificial emotional experience manufactured by that tone.)

In the 60's, pop and hippy were commodified so that every dork under the sun was wearing bell-bottom pants and sporting a bad haircut. The media analysis by McLuhan and also McDowell was right on the mark.

Today, being a Firm and Resolved Connected Leader with Character and Confidence is believed to be the affect which sells the best, and so the media panders to that income potential.