The media has changed from reporting news to generating clicks. There was a day when journalists sought the next big story by uncovering lies and deceits - now they just focus on what will generate the highest number of clicks for profit: negativity and catastrophe. As Derek Thompson of the Atlantic states, the "audience is just about eq…
The media has changed from reporting news to generating clicks. There was a day when journalists sought the next big story by uncovering lies and deceits - now they just focus on what will generate the highest number of clicks for profit: negativity and catastrophe. As Derek Thompson of the Atlantic states, the "audience is just about equally to blame" since it is the reader's clicks that drive profitability. Sadly, the fourth leg of Democracy has succumbed to commercialization and the internet of dysfunction.
Agree. Decades ago while campaigning for POTUS, little bush refused to answer question about his use of drugs and his absences from National Guard duty. He flat out refused and the media rolled over for him.
Yesterday, NBC evening news rehashing the farce last Thursday night between President Biden and the amoral orange creature! WHY! For over 3 years Biden has delivered for the common person and the unfortunate, 3 years…how many hours is that? Yet he is now defined by a tv farce that lasted mere minutes compared the good he has accomplished!
Basta, Joe! Stop answering and apologizing for last Thursday!
The President's latest comment about last Thursday's debacle was that he was totally exhausted, having been traveling constantly for days (or weeks), and that he will no longer schedule anything after 4 pm. He gets up very early in the morning. Biden needs NO apologies. And let us not forget what Heather Cox Richardson taught us about what the former guy did that night -- The Gish Gallop. I'll not be forgetting that new term.
"The purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems." —The British Academy
The principle applies to the journalism business, the purpose of which is to inform profitably, and not be like CNN and Fox who profit from misinforming.
The media and the audience are to blame in the same way that the liquor store and the alcoholic are to blame for alcoholism.
Addiction is "a compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." In this case, the rewarding stimuli is blame. The authoritarian's message is, "Those other people who are responsible for your unhappiness will be defeated." And it works because it makes the authoritarian's supporters feel better. So, the authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization.
"[T]he authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization."
I am proud to say I am a graduate of a fine four year university. I do not need to prove my intelligence ( pretend intelligence) by having gone to an “elite” school. What we did at my school was learn. We figured out how to decide possible answers for possible problems. We shared the truths of history and built scenarios that would make change for the better.
We did not look backwards to find comfort. We looked to those who “live to lead”. We shared reality and glorified nature.
We were , and are proud of those who gambled with their own safety to tell the world the truth. Our hopes kept shining through because there were humans looking at the impossible and making things that were better.
Thank all those humans who are tethered by honesty and morality and godliness.
Wash our hands and our ears and our eyes of these morbid lying fake mouthpieces of chaos and hate.
I know we are much more intelligent than those slimy cancers think! Let’s take them on!!!!
After Samuel “Slimy Cancer” Alito’s recent association with the word “godliness” by that undercover recording and the whole Christian Nationalist Heritage Foundation’s goal to force religion down all our throats, I have to take umbrage with your word choice here. I’m also going to cringe a bit at that word “morality” because it sounds awfully subjective at this point in time, given the theocratic fascist’s fever dream of forcing their version of “morality” down our throats as well.
But I appreciate everything you wrote here and the passion behind it! Let’s take these backward thinkers on indeed!!!
The media has changed from reporting news to generating clicks. There was a day when journalists sought the next big story by uncovering lies and deceits - now they just focus on what will generate the highest number of clicks for profit: negativity and catastrophe. As Derek Thompson of the Atlantic states, the "audience is just about equally to blame" since it is the reader's clicks that drive profitability. Sadly, the fourth leg of Democracy has succumbed to commercialization and the internet of dysfunction.
Agree. Decades ago while campaigning for POTUS, little bush refused to answer question about his use of drugs and his absences from National Guard duty. He flat out refused and the media rolled over for him.
Yesterday, NBC evening news rehashing the farce last Thursday night between President Biden and the amoral orange creature! WHY! For over 3 years Biden has delivered for the common person and the unfortunate, 3 years…how many hours is that? Yet he is now defined by a tv farce that lasted mere minutes compared the good he has accomplished!
Basta, Joe! Stop answering and apologizing for last Thursday!
The President's latest comment about last Thursday's debacle was that he was totally exhausted, having been traveling constantly for days (or weeks), and that he will no longer schedule anything after 4 pm. He gets up very early in the morning. Biden needs NO apologies. And let us not forget what Heather Cox Richardson taught us about what the former guy did that night -- The Gish Gallop. I'll not be forgetting that new term.
Exactly Louis.
Andrew:
You just reminded me of a rhetorical question attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
"If you call a horse's tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?"
[pause]
"Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one!"
How often lately our political glossary has been perverted by disingenuous, cynical actors serving the interests of their sponsors!
\Vince S
Bravo
"The purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems." —The British Academy
The principle applies to the journalism business, the purpose of which is to inform profitably, and not be like CNN and Fox who profit from misinforming.
The media and the audience are to blame in the same way that the liquor store and the alcoholic are to blame for alcoholism.
Addiction is "a compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." In this case, the rewarding stimuli is blame. The authoritarian's message is, "Those other people who are responsible for your unhappiness will be defeated." And it works because it makes the authoritarian's supporters feel better. So, the authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization.
"[T]he authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization."
Well said, James.
And that Andrew is the scariest of the scary!
I am proud to say I am a graduate of a fine four year university. I do not need to prove my intelligence ( pretend intelligence) by having gone to an “elite” school. What we did at my school was learn. We figured out how to decide possible answers for possible problems. We shared the truths of history and built scenarios that would make change for the better.
We did not look backwards to find comfort. We looked to those who “live to lead”. We shared reality and glorified nature.
We were , and are proud of those who gambled with their own safety to tell the world the truth. Our hopes kept shining through because there were humans looking at the impossible and making things that were better.
Thank all those humans who are tethered by honesty and morality and godliness.
Wash our hands and our ears and our eyes of these morbid lying fake mouthpieces of chaos and hate.
I know we are much more intelligent than those slimy cancers think! Let’s take them on!!!!
After Samuel “Slimy Cancer” Alito’s recent association with the word “godliness” by that undercover recording and the whole Christian Nationalist Heritage Foundation’s goal to force religion down all our throats, I have to take umbrage with your word choice here. I’m also going to cringe a bit at that word “morality” because it sounds awfully subjective at this point in time, given the theocratic fascist’s fever dream of forcing their version of “morality” down our throats as well.
But I appreciate everything you wrote here and the passion behind it! Let’s take these backward thinkers on indeed!!!