Page 1 of 12

The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 18:17:52
by dissident
http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/28/the-w ... heres-why/

In 2007, when he exposed the then Bush-administration’s plans to use the Muslim Brotherhood and militant groups linked to Al Qaeda to overthrow the government of Syria – the result of which is unfolding today – the New Yorker gladly welcomed his work as a message they perceived would resonate well with liberal audiences.

But then in 2013, when Hersh brought forward information contradicting the West’s official narrative regarding a chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus, the New Yorker decided not to publish it. His report, “Whose Sarin?” instead found itself published in the London Review of Books.

The story of Hersh bringing this information forward to the public and how the Western media attempted to first discourage it, then bury it, before attempting to discredit both the report and Hersh himself is a microcosm of the dying Western media.


Anyone running around screaming about Assad and his "butchery" needs to stop and use their brain before swallowing what the "free mainstream media" is dishing out. You will note how NATO's imperial adventures are always paved with large quantities MSM propaganda and spin. If you care about democracy, then you should care about the true state of the information space that generates public opinion and lubricates government policy. We are now back in the 1930s with cheesy, ham-fisted authoritarian "freedom".

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 18:47:03
by Plantagenet
http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/28/the-western-media-is-dying-and-heres-why/

In 2007, when he exposed the then Bush-administration’s plans to use the Muslim Brotherhood and militant groups linked to Al Qaeda to overthrow the government of Syria – the result of which is unfolding today – the New Yorker gladly welcomed his work as a message they perceived would resonate well with liberal audiences.

But then in 2013, when Hersh brought forward information contradicting the West’s official narrative regarding a chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus, the New Yorker decided not to publish it.

…... If you care about democracy, then you should care about the true state of the information space that generates public opinion and lubricates government policy. We are now back in the 1930s with cheesy, ham-fisted authoritarian "freedom".


THis has nothing to do with the 1930s, and everything to do with the way the liberal MSM operates in the US.

Of course the New Yorker is going to publish an article in 2007 that would "resonate well" with its liberal audience---its a liberal magazine with a liberal readership and they want to read articles like that.

And of course the New Yorker isn't going to publish articles in 2013 that attack the obama administration. This isn't some return to the authoritarianisms of the 1930s---its just that a liberal magazine like the New Yorker has a liberal group of subscribers and readers that aren't interested in anything critical of liberal ideas or the Obama administration.

The western Media is dying, but not because of this kind of thing. Its dying because the young millennials, for the most part, don't read things like newspapers or magazines or books and instead mostly get their news from late night TV comedy shows and the internet, so advertisers no longer buy many ads in newspapers and magazines, but instead mostly spend their ad money on TV and the internet

A generation raised on Beavis and Butthead and The Simpsons isn't going to sit still for hours reading newspapers or books or the New Yorker.

Image

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 19:07:12
by Newfie
Having given up TV 6 years ago, we are now divesting ouselves from NPR.

Our news comes from online and...here, or places like it. For better or worse.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 19:23:22
by Apneaman
Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low



http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/ameri ... aign=tiles

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 19:49:14
by Apneaman
planty, the young millennials should have stood up to their parents when they were 5 years old and demanded Shakespeare. They should have refused to be shoved in front of the TV or relegated to their bedrooms with a computer, cell phone, TV, DVD. Another bad personal choice eh? All that shit is just another consumer product and every generation has more of it heaped upon them. It's good for the economy don't ch know? This is the end game of capitalism and all the degeneracy and rejection of past norms is standard in every case of past failed civilizations. Authorianism is all that is left to TPTB. You have to have your head way up your ass not to see it. The patriot act, NDAA, NSA, and all the rest - 17 or 18 agencies in the US alone? All these comments stored on server farms. For what? The NDAA has such a vague definition of who is a terrorist that everyone is if they say so. Anyone they want. Corporate personhood. Forfeit asset seizures, most people in the world in prison - over 2 million. The majority of the media is owned by TTB. Just because you are living in a gilded suburban cage does not mean you do not live in an authoritarian society. If your interests, your freedom clashes with the government or the corporate world, you will be crushed. All the checks and balances have been legislated away and the only rule of law left is the iron one. Cashless society and the few trade agreements being pushed through are the final pieces. No worries planty, because it is crumbling under it's own weight. Won't be long now. How ironic that this is exactly what Marx predicted would happen to us. Cannibalised.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Sep 2015, 22:23:56
by ralfy
Likely a global phenomenon. For example,

"How the Media Became One of Putin’s Most Powerful Weapons"

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... on/391062/

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 06:58:00
by ennui2
dissident wrote:Anyone running around screaming about Assad and his "butchery" needs to stop and use their brain before swallowing what the "free mainstream media" is dishing out.


Yeah, our mistake. Assad is really an angel. The question isn't whether Assad is a butcher or not (he is). Just as Saddam was a butcher. The question is what kind of policy we should have.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 07:01:14
by ennui2
Plantagenet wrote:A generation raised on Beavis and Butthead and The Simpsons isn't going to sit still for hours reading newspapers or books or the New Yorker.


Sorry, redneck kids in the Bible belt don't read newspapers or books or the New Yorker either. Your attempt to cast this as left-wing culture-rot is a fail.

As for bias, people see the bias they want to see. Just look at RussiaToday for the worst propaganda since Pravda.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 07:53:46
by davep
ennui2 wrote:
dissident wrote:Anyone running around screaming about Assad and his "butchery" needs to stop and use their brain before swallowing what the "free mainstream media" is dishing out.


Yeah, our mistake. Assad is really an angel. The question isn't whether Assad is a butcher or not (he is). Just as Saddam was a butcher. The question is what kind of policy we should have.


Quite. And history has proven that just removing the bad guy leaves a power vacuum filled by chaos and Islamists.

But it's odd that we don't speak of KSA in the same terms. Our faustian pact means we've just given them the Human Rights gig instead. You couldn't make it up.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 12:42:24
by Plantagenet
ennui2 wrote:
Plantagenet wrote: Beavis and Butthead .....


Your attempt to cast this as left-wing culture-rot is a fail..


Beavis and Butthead are left-wingers? Who knew?

I assumed they were typical Hillary Clinton supporters :lol:

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 22:52:23
by dissident
ralfy wrote:Likely a global phenomenon. For example,

"How the Media Became One of Putin’s Most Powerful Weapons"

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... on/391062/


The Atlantic a two bit NATO propaganda rag here engaged in projecting what the NATO media is all about, corporate and elite control, onto Russia. Putin this, Putin that. Putin has more legitimacy than Obama and Harper. But of course the NATO mass media engages in the typical two minutes' hate demonization. BTW, I can find diametrically opposed positions in the Russian mass media (for example from the pro-NATO Dozhd TV, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Kommersant, etc). I can find no such thing in the NATO mass media. The NATO media is a chorus that sings the same tune at exactly the same time. Alternative media is not relevant to this point as it exists in Russia as well. And Russians don't have a culture of trusting their mass media unlike NATO where the media is given the benefit of the doubt.

Right now the NATO media, specifically the dominant American one, has lost the plot. They are actually calling Al Qaeda militants in Syria "moderates". But this says more about the gullibility of the NATO media consumer than about the retarded propagandists peddling nonsensical narratives to them. Perhaps it is time to "question more".

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 00:04:39
by Keith_McClary
ennui2 wrote:
dissident wrote:Anyone running around screaming about Assad and his "butchery" needs to stop and use their brain before swallowing what the "free mainstream media" is dishing out.


Yeah, our mistake. Assad is really an angel. The question isn't whether Assad is a butcher or not (he is). Just as Saddam was a butcher. The question is what kind of policy we should have.

Yah, we should give Assad proper USraeli cluster munitions so he doesn't have to drop those nasty "barrel bombs" on ISIS and our "moderate" Al Nusra pals.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 02:58:28
by onlooker
Do not trust any "big" media or media company. I prefer if possible to get news from bloggers or a small fringe media co or website. Says much of the world we now live in that news is hardly "free" anywhere around the world. It is used as a tool of governments and corporations to transmit a message favorable to them.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 06:41:38
by ralfy
dissident wrote:
The Atlantic a two bit NATO propaganda rag here engaged in projecting what the NATO media is all about, corporate and elite control, onto Russia. Putin this, Putin that. Putin has more legitimacy than Obama and Harper. But of course the NATO mass media engages in the typical two minutes' hate demonization. BTW, I can find diametrically opposed positions in the Russian mass media (for example from the pro-NATO Dozhd TV, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Kommersant, etc). I can find no such thing in the NATO mass media. The NATO media is a chorus that sings the same tune at exactly the same time. Alternative media is not relevant to this point as it exists in Russia as well. And Russians don't have a culture of trusting their mass media unlike NATO where the media is given the benefit of the doubt.

Right now the NATO media, specifically the dominant American one, has lost the plot. They are actually calling Al Qaeda militants in Syria "moderates". But this says more about the gullibility of the NATO media consumer than about the retarded propagandists peddling nonsensical narratives to them. Perhaps it is time to "question more".


Yeah, I'm sure what happened in Georgia and elsewhere were all part of some morality tale.

Again, what we are looking at is nothing more than military powers taking advantage of weaker countries by arming one group or another.

Pro-NATO and pro-Russia are nothing more than two sides of the same coin.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 07:04:01
by Ulenspiegel
Keith_McClary wrote:
ennui2 wrote:
dissident wrote:Anyone running around screaming about Assad and his "butchery" needs to stop and use their brain before swallowing what the "free mainstream media" is dishing out.


Yeah, our mistake. Assad is really an angel. The question isn't whether Assad is a butcher or not (he is). Just as Saddam was a butcher. The question is what kind of policy we should have.

Yah, we should give Assad proper USraeli cluster munitions so he doesn't have to drop those nasty "barrel bombs" on ISIS and our "moderate" Al Nusra pals.


No, Assad is an asshole. However, replacing him (unintentionally?) with worse assholes is not an improvement. The issue is that US foreign policy is dysfunctional and it hurts to see that Russia is much more rational. The concept of lesser of two evils is not longer understood in the USA.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 07:54:11
by onlooker
Again, what we are looking at is nothing more than military powers taking advantage of weaker countries by arming one group or another.

Pro-NATO and pro-Russia are nothing more than two sides of the same coin.

Yes what we are looking at is basically a continuation of the cold war, in which proxy wars and conflicts existed between the two superpowers. Only now we have this so called "War on Terror" which is a smoke screen for an imperialistic US which refuses to accept a more balanced planet economically and politically. So I have to agree that the US is the main culprit given its already aggressive stances and actions ie. invasion Iraq and intrusion into Afghanistan. Of course at some point either Russia or China were going to react. It is helpful to see the world as uni-polar after the USSR ceased to exist. The US has been and is currently still acting with imperialistic tendencies only now it is not just about maintaining Empire but maintaining viability of the country. I may add all countries now are seeking to retain a measure of "normalcy" in this world in descent.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 10:26:44
by efarmer
Traditional print and electronic media, being advertising driven, always had to balance their real journalism efforts with enough fluff and sensation to make it sell and attract adverts. With the web gathering individual needs and preferences and delivering targeted adverts to individuals, the power supply is removed from what used to provide a bit of real journalism. Both before and after the internet there always was nationalistic propaganda from every direction that was construed to cloak or misdirect things, E.G. invasions cloaked as liberation, and so on a so forth.

The Western Media is alive and thriving IMHO, the content has just assumed the common denominator to achieve maximum advertising revenue, which is sensation of every sort that can be conjured.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 11:13:24
by Keith_McClary
ralfy wrote:Pro-NATO and pro-Russia are nothing more than two sides of the same coin.

I've noticed that the terms "pro-American" and "regime change" have disappeared from the media vocabulary lately.

Re: The Western Media Is Dying and Here’s Why

Unread postPosted: Fri 02 Oct 2015, 18:58:50
by ennui2
onlooker wrote:I prefer if possible to get news from bloggers or a small fringe media co or website.


The problem with bloggers and small "fringe" media is that they are nothing but opinion-pieces. Just because a blogger says something doesn't make it anymore true than the MSM. Bias has both a macro and micro component.