Saturday, March 14, 2015

Fast talking media pundits hate scrutiny

The commentators in the Mass media spend an enormous amount of time talking at a rapidly escalating speed. This should raise some serious questions about how serious they are about reporting the news. I suspect that many people may agree but think it is so obvious that it hardly needs to be debated. This would be a mistake; we need to keep reminding ourselves that whenever they use this tactic that their objective is to get us to jump to conclusions without thinking things through. They almost certainly understand that many people will recognize this but if people just become so accustomed to it will become routine and people will stop thinking about it and then the tactic will become more effective.

This is also a common advertising or propaganda method. When you see them play one clip after another of the days media pundits, as they often do, this seems very dramatic and it may have a certain appeal but it is repeating things in your head in a manner that they may have studied very carefully that seems to happen very quickly so the average viewer won’t have time to think things through. This is especially true if people watch TV for extended periods of time. The Mass Media can’t be trusted to stop doing this anytime soon but there are simple things that can be done to avoid being manipulated more than necessary. One is to simply not watch too much. Another is to be certain to use other sources and discuss things with others. The traditional Mass Media has turned into such a blatant propaganda machine that no one should rely solely on it. Media studies that are taped could help understand how they’re trying to manipulate us. By replaying them at your own pace you can take the time to think things through.

Perhaps the most important thing that could be done is that people could attempt to think about how things could and should be done starting with the basics or fundamentals. This is what I have attempted to do in a relatively short series of posts, so far, about fundamentals. This includes Why I’m a fundamentalist (not to be confused with more widely known pseudo-fundamentalists) Semi-secret fundamentals of economics and the Fundamentals of psychology.
 
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The following are the original replies when this was first posted on Open Salon.

That’s it!

I thought I would provide a nice short post for a change and give you plenty of time to think about it and see if I’m the one that is a fast talking media pundit. I won’t even check for responses for a few hours if not days so take your time thinking about ways to improve it. If you think this post needs more content add it in the comments section.

However in defense of the longer posts that I usually write; at least I give you time to think things through instead of pressuring you to jump to conclusions and I will be writing more of them for you to read or ignore, as you choose.

zacherydtaylor September 29, 2011 02:36 PM

Zachd, I hold mass media so accountable for the paralysis of Americans to the profound crimes being perpetrated on them. The cronyism with corporate media puppet talking heads, whether they be Dem or Republican-biased on the tube, keep us locked into the will of Reaganomics and oligarchical strait-jackets. The fast talking, low information reporting. Such little role-modeling of critical thinking on the television. Such little attention to human VALUES and decency. War is a given, and war itself is never analyzed and examined, but treated as a sporting event between winners and losers. Atrocities instead of being communally stopped are exploited as just another chip in ongoing political gamesmanship. We are at the mercy of political and corporate gangsters. Profits uber alles. And evil and greed prevails. [r] libby

libbyliberalnyc September 29, 2011 06:19 PM

Zachery as far as FOX and CNN are concerned I do not watch them at all, period! I am 52 years old this was not always the case. I was a news junkie not that long ago. I can remember coming home early from work everyday for a week straight to watch the coverage the tidal wave in the Indian Ocean. Gradually since then I have become aware that they are lying in just about everything they say and when they are not lying they simply just are not reporting it. I have no use for them. I would sooner run a bayonet through each and every one of them before I share another drop of my air with them, from Rupert Murdoch and the painted whores on the TV screen on down to the paperboy. As far as I am concerned they are the ones who are principally responsible for the condition of my country.

Jack Heart September 29, 2011 06:41 PM

Oh my! Blaming the messenger, gentlemen?

Perhaps they’re just talking fast to make room for more commercial messages.....! Nah. In ‘Merika? Never happen.... (*snerkle*).

skypixie0 September 29, 2011 11:29 PM

Nice piece... rated.

Stephen Guy Hardin September 30, 2011 07:38 PM

Libby, this is true for any given subject including war and economic oligarchy as you indicated. They have turned into a propaganda machine whose job it is to sell products for the profit of a bunch of scam artists and sell war for whatever reason they do this for without scrutiny for either. They don’t allow any voices that haven’t been approved by the corporate oligarchies to be heard if they have a choice and if they don’t they take them out of context so that they can distort the perception of the majority and make them appear in a bad light often by ridiculing them.

Jack, I don’t blame you; this will probably make you better informed than most. However, it is worthwhile for some open minded people to do so to a point so that they can scrutinize the press, point out their flaws and provide alternative views. I try to do this to some extent, sometimes, but there are many that do far more of that than me. Although most of the times I usually try to focus on some things that aren’t getting enough attention.

Lyn, I don’t remember much about Aaron Brown but I do know that the commentators that they used to have were much better than the ones they have now. However, after looking back and considering other material that was researched by certain “wild men in the wings” as McBundy called them it is becoming increasingly obvious that many of the commentators I used to think were more rational were also ignoring many things.

Sky, Stephen, thanks for responding, right um never happen in ‘Merika?

zacherydtaylor October 01, 2011 10:44 AM

Also since I posted this Fox has done at least a couple of reports on the Occupy Wall Street including one on the Maximum Spin Zone and this morning with Squeaky in the morning and friends. In both cases they used ridicule to dismiss the protestors and it seemed pretty obvious that they were taking things out of context to me; this would almost certainly only fool the most thoroughly indoctrinated ditto-heads. For most rational people this would almost certainly serve as reverse psychology and backfire; however there is an enormous amount of mostly complacent people in-between and whether or not they buy it may depend on how it is spun in their own lives by those close to them.

zacherydtaylor October 01, 2011 10:59 AM





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