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Know what the networks are showing and saying...it makes you more informed...especially when you have to confront wingnuts. It will give you a good clue as to where they're coming from and how to counter the spin that's out there.
I've done countless posts about the political games going on with the major media corporations and how much they have riding on this election. Some, like Clear Channel and Faux are blatant in their support for this regime to the point Pravda during the Soviet era...while Viacom/CBS/Infinity definitely shows a lean in our direction and is slowly allowing its various media arms to take aim at this regime. Disney, remember, has championed gay rights and its news presence is limited compared to the other networks that have fulltime cable outlets (Disney's biggest Cable holding is ESPN).
I always suggest people to be curious and not a snob. The "I don't watch TV" line is an elitist one, IMHO, as it's like ignoring something you don't like. If that's the case, the networks say "screw you"...and go for the audience that does watch...and if that's wingnuts, it's wingnuts.
Lately I've been surfing through the Faux spin (I go through cycles where I just can't stomache it), and it's quite entertaining when you critique what messages and buzzwords are coming out and whose saying them. Their little TV treehouse offers us a valuable insight into how poisoned they've become and a window to show others, who are now questioning what they're seeing or hearing, to see how one-sided it is.
Thank goodness for the internet...and DU. I find scanning the LBN every couple hours (or more if something's breaking)...or making a bee-line to it when I see a newsflash on CNN...that you can get linked to a lot of different sources and perspectives. Hell, it only takes a few minutes before someone here's got the Freeper's spin on things, and from there you can really go into the abyss :evilgrin:.
Yes, TV News is very biased right now, but in the mindset of the powers-that-be, a "reflection" of popular thought...or at least the popular thought of research that's now several months old in the tooth. New data is starting to stream out...and certainly the popularity of F911 and The Daily Show are raising some corporate eyebrows. It's still too early to expect a big turn-around, but if it's sensed that the ABB audience is the money one, you'll see a lot more programs spotlighting on this regime's failures rather than playing appologist.
We had the same occurance during the Vietnam days. The Huntley-Brinkley report was almost a nightly commercial for the U.S. Army...until Tet and the constant reports from the field that showed us things weren't what we were being told. By the end of the war, the media was hyper critical of any government claim which opened the ground for the Watergate era that followed. But enough for now...
Cheers!
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