The News Media
Conspiracy or Incompetence?
The News Media
What drives the Press?
The press is driven by several factors. People want to make money.
Journalists have egos to feed. These are proud people. They want to
become famous. Find the big story. Reporters are herd animals. If one of
them jumps off a bridge, they all jump off a bridge. It's not important
for them to be right as long as they're first.
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It's the MONEY Stupid!
News is a business. It's a business to make money. It's not a public service to keep society informed as to what's going on. Although the news media talks about journalistic integrity, that is just a concept and a marketing line and has no more to do with the real world than the Justice System has to do with Justice.
This country is filled with news shows, magazines, papers, and internet sites. All these sources are in competition for your business. The make money off of you and the more of you that participate, the more money they make. TV shows have ratings. Companies like Neilson keep track of who is watching what and when. That tells them about market share so that they can charge McDonalds more money to run an ad to try to get you to eat Big Macs. The more viewers that CNN gets, the more Big Macs that McDonalds sells.
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But CNN has a way around this. Lets say that a right wing "source" want's to plant a story. They go to CNN and they won't touch it because they thing the source is trying to manipulate them. But they go to CBS and CBS decides to compromise their integrity for a buck and runs with it. What does CNN do? They report that CBS is reporting the story and say what they said. Thus CNN is telling the truth. They get to report on the story without lowering their standards. Thus once one news source breaks a story, they all have to run with it. The media is controlled by whoever has the lowest journalistic standards.
It's the EGO Stupid!
Reporters are collectively some of the worlds most arrogant people. Yes, we have free speech in this country and yellow journalism isn't against the law, nor should it be. However, I have the right to free speech too and I call them like I see them. I think when the news media is wrong, they should admit it and apolpgize. Have you ever seen the press do that? Not hardly.
The example that comes to mind is the 1993 haircut hoax. The story was that President Clinton parked his plane on the runway of LA airport and held up air traffic for 2 hours while he got a haircut. For over a month the press hounded Clinton about this story. The never let it rest. Every other story about Clinton was wrapped in the hiarcut story. It became a symbol of presidential arrogance.
Then one day a reporter from the New Your Daily News called up the LA Airport and found out that the event NEVER HAPPENED. A few news casts mentioned it briefly, but most of the media failed to report the fact that it was a right wing hoax and that the press had been suckered. One commentator actually said, "Gee, you think maybe we should apologize to the President?"
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If the press is going to have the respect of the public, they're going to have to become responsible. We in the public deeply resent being suckered by the press. And if the press doesn't come clean, we're going to stop eating Big Macs.
People in the press also don't like people who are smarter than they are. Bill Clinton, a hick from Arkansas, is much smarter than the average reporter and they resent him for it. Clinton is also bad for the news business because he solves problems rather than create them and the Press likes bad news better than good news. Clinton would rather spend his time solving the nations problems and doing his job than to feed the media soap opera. And they hate him for it.
It's the Special Deals Stupid!
Rupert Murdoch offered to pay Newt Gingrich 6 million dollars up from for a book deal, while at the same time Newt slipped in a 63 million dollar tax cut for Rupert. The Republican party is the party of the rich. Not that there's anything wrong with being rich and not to say that the rich like the Republicans, it's just that the Democrats seem to hate successful people and want to take all their money away from them. But Republicans are more apt to do special deals, and the people who own the media are rich people in need of special deals.
Selling out to the Moonies
The Moonies have
agressively gone out to influence the news media. One of their projects
was the founding of The Washington Times. In one of his speeches
Reverend Sun Myung Moon said:
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"What can be the pride of the Unification Church? We know we can be very
proud of being Unification Church members, but for what? We founded a
very influential newspaper, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, and
the World and I monthly magazine. Father created all of this in Danbury,
not under normal circumstances. The Washington Times didn't start in
Danbury but during the court battle, before Danbury. Father signed the
final go-ahead on The Washington Times in the courtroom. Is that
wonderful or not? Why? America was trying to hurt Reverend Moon-trying
to do evil to him, trying to make him perish. Under this tremendous
pressure, Father still loved." "Without The Washington Times, America could not have lived. Which power can embrace and overcome the other-the power of hate or the power of love? Love can embrace hatred. That is a natural course of events."
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So, for those of you who look at the Washington Times as a respectable mainstream conservative newspaper, look at who controls it. How does it feel to realize that you're being influenced by The Moonies? The Moonies are a dangerous mind control cult. The Moonies are not your friend. And the Moonies should not be allowed to pump billions of dollars into this country to influence America's media, America's politics, influence the Christan Coalition, influence the Repoblican Party, and influence elections.
Liberal Press - Big Lie
I keep hearing about the "Liberal Press" and it just isn't true. The press is controlled by big money conservatives. That's who owns the press. The big names in the press are people who make millions a year. These are the people in control. Granted, if you polled every reporter in the United States and asked them if they are pro-choice or if the voted for Clinton, most would say yes. But Clinton is a conservative, and being pro-choice is also conservative for those who understand concepts about freedom from government intrusion into private decisions.
In order to distract the public from their right wing ajenda, the press and right wing groups keep saying over and over again, "Liberal Press, Liberal Press, Liberal Press" and hoping that eventually people will start believing it. But this is just another right wing ploy to cover up their manipulation of the press. The Liberal Press is a big lie. There is no Liberal Press.
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