Fall of America Will Not be televised - or why CNN cannot cover impending Doom

[truedelphi]

I grew up in an era when the predominating slogan was:
The Revolution will not be televised.

Times have changed, and yet the slogan's truth prevails - the economic revolution going down is being poorly televised. You can learn a whole lot more on the internet than on TV about the economic collapse of the United States.

There is an interesting article on BoingBoing (boingboing.net) by Dale Dougherty. IMNSHO, He doesn't stress enough the concept that this is a heist and that the major players are the top people in the banking and financial cartel - who always have enough sway over the media that the real story is rarely told if it involves nasty facts about the Big Money, Big Oil, or Big Pharma concerns. So maybe it is not a mystery that the realities underlying our current predicament will not be discussed fully on TV.

Here are the first three paragraphs plus link to the article
Why CNN Struggles to Cover The Economic Panic
Posted by Dale Dougherty, November 25, 2008 10:06 PM | permalink
The current economic collapse is a difficult story for TV.
It's a peculiar period in between an election and an inauguration. This most important story, this great-or-not-so great depression, is also the hardest for CNN to tell. I have more than enough reasons why in this late-night rant.
1) It's not a hurricane so Anderson Cooper of CNN is unable to position himself in the middle of the storm for optimal drama. In other words, TV anchors can't get wet and windblown, while viewers worry about their safety. The state of the economy is a disaster but not a natural disaster. Nobody's leaving the studio for this one. There's no place to go.

2) It's like a war and we keep losing ground each day. In the place of casualties, we have falling stock indices but it's hard to show the real damage. There's only so much you can do with oversized charts to tell a story. The war on terrorism featured a real enemy. We've just never been able to find them, no matter who goes after them. (Maybe it's not so different.) Campbell Brown ("No Bull, No Bias") should say that what the capitalism's finest did to themselves and to us was worse than any terrorist could have imagined.

3) Few CEOs, fewer economists, and almost no one in the financial industry, want to step forward and say with conviction what will happen. A year ago we couldn't get them to stop telling us what great things to expect in the next quarter.

<snip>
Full article at:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/25/why-cnn-struggles-to.html

[daninthemoon]

1. I wonder how/if we will know that the economy has hit bottom.

[struggle4progress]

2. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Gil Scott Heron)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNyYTHR7qc&feature=related
http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html

Revolution is not an AOL keyword
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-CsNAuFE_c&feature=related

[KharmaTrain]

3. And Don't Forget Their Other Conflicts...

Most important, CNN is owned by Time-Warner, a publically traded corporation that benefits from a booming stock market and were among the biggest cheerleaders of "The Street" during the go-go 90's and even today their "financial" coverage is pro-Wall Street as their financial futures depend on a rebounding market rather than a closer look. This corporation, like so many others, used and abused deregulation to devour competition, a failed capitalist/corporate system is their greatest fear.

Also, cover the economy isn't "sexy"...it's not an issue that you can put into 15 second soundbites or control and manipulate. It's an issue that doesn't lend to bloody pictures or constant drama...no blue dress, either. The networks have gone from reporting news to attempting to manufacture and control it...downscaling their investigative and reporting staffs and filling airtime with the "usual suspects" of pundits, "experts" and personalities...it's newfotainment...and that's what sells.

I was a long-time CNN viewer but within the last year, I've almost tuned them out altogether. The only exception is when there's international events...the other American networks have all but ceded this ground to CNN as the others have downsized any foreign coverage...at least CNN knew Mubai wasn't Bombay and had a team on the ground while the others tried to find plane tickets.

Cheers...