Okay, what's *so wrong* about media coverage of this election?

[mojowork_n]

The focus on individuals and personalities obscures what's not covered. What the media *never* wants you to think about.

From, "There's nothing mainstream about the corporate media"

by Harvey Wasserman

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12742

Excerpt:

"As we stumble toward another presidential election, it's never been more clear that our political process is being warped by a corporate stranglehold on the free flow of information. Amidst a virtual blackout of coverage of a horrific war, a global ecological crisis and an advancing economic collapse, what passes for the mass media is itself in collapse. What's left of our democracy teeters on the brink.

The culprit, in the parlance of the day, has been the "Mainstream Media," or MSM. But that's wrong name for it. Today's mass media is Corporate, not Mainstream, and the distinction is critical...."

In the same way that we're inundated by 24 hour ParisTalk, or BrittneyChat, news people (Keith Olberman, Eugene Robinson, & Rachel Maddow as well as Tweety & Buchanon?) have a *free pass* to talk about the perceived quirks, or individual, human qualities of the candidates. So Barack becomes the "Pied Piper", and Hillary is compared to "Madame DeFarge", by Tweety. But what are we, as Americans, supposed to think about their real policy positions?

The "sizzle" is OK to talk about, but not the actual cut of meat.

Pundits aren't as free to probe for real substance or depth as we'd like to pretend they are. It's the exact opposite of the "camel in the tent." Call it the "black hole" news filter.

I'm not so sure how, exactly, it's been institutionalized or how it's enforced (black holes are invisible, astronomers have to perform calculations on the rotational speed of neighboring astronomical bodies to verify their presence), but the end result is usually universal avoidance of substantive discussion.

Honest, incisive, thoughtful analysis of the fundamental problems facing the country is too often "self-censored," by the pundits themselves. And to a greater degree than we'd like to admit, too often, the candidates public pronouncements are part of that problem. Unless you're talking about the "un-electables", like Kucinich, or Gravel, or that Bizzaro World counterpart to Kucinich from The Other Side, the Republican anti-war candidate from Texas.

[mojowork_n]

1. Shameless kick of my own thread, this needs to be discussed. n/t

It's been a long day, it's kind of late and I'm checking out and shutting down my notebook, but I'd really like to wake up tomorrow and see this post had some kind of reaction....

[opihimoimoi]

2. Fear not the Shameless kick....Whats Wrong you ask??? The Media is now tainted from many

reasons/purposes.....Much of what we see/read lends toward social engineering/framing/steering....

As a Whole, America suffers from flawed voting....the systems has been comp'd with voting out of sync with Reason/Logic/Common Good.

[Alexander]

3. Here's a large part of what's wrong with media coverage in this election:

[Greyhound]

4. The Republik Congress and the Clinton administration.

While in the past, there have always been dominant media organizations, never before has the entire media been controlled by so few.

Collusion is much more profitable than competition.

:kick: & R

[HuffleClaw]

5. the same corporate media that decided to annoint hillary and obama

and exclude all others from contention.

[Initech]

6. Actual election coverage is buried under 23.5 hours of Britney Spears surveillance