Fuck the media

[Mythsaje]

Are you as sick of them as I am?

Silly question.

So what can we do about it? Sure, we can write and call the advertisers, threaten boycotts, and write nasty letters to the networks themselves, but how much difference do we honestly think that'll make?

They've gone to great lengths to downplay our protests, to portray us as some sort of fringe group. So maybe we're going about it all wrong. Maybe we need to start protesting THEM. Maybe folks in NY and LA should start picketing the corporate offices of the various news agencies. Maybe we could have a couple of teams designated to follow the news vans around and protest in the middle of whatever story they're trying to cover.

I know the idea's a bit crazy. But could you imagine if we could manage to insinuate ourselves into some of the stories they use to distract Americans? If nearly everywhere they sent news crews, there were people there with protest signs fouling every shot they could?

Oh, of course we'd have to use discretion to avoid any possible backlash. We couldn't just protest anywhere at all. But with a little ingenuity, we could set them up to look like complete boobs. We might even hoax them on occasion, just to keep them guessing.

This is all bouncing around in my head. They're definitely the enemy, right? They're manipulating the masses through lies and misdirection. They decide what they will and will not cover. A hundred thousand people marching on Washington? Not important. There's a baby kangaroo or panda cub that's FAR more newsworthy.

You know how that "TRUTH" organization has been going after the tobacco companies? What if we started doing the same kinds of things to the "news" organizations? Rather than doing the whole "protest march" thing, maybe change it up a little. Pull publicity stunts that get people wondering, and pique the media's interest. Then do a quick bait and switch on them. Even if they don't actually COVER the real event, whatever it might be, we're still wasting their time and energy chasing stories that are pretty much useless to them.

If we could make them look like fools, all the better.


There has to be a way to strike back at them. Imagine holding up a sign behind a reporter on the street covering some meaningless story...a sign that says "Liar!" or perhaps "The Media is NOT our friend."

I'm just tossing ideas out. I realize some of it would be a logistical nightmare. But even the occasional success would be worth the effort.

We could film some of the encounters/situations ourselves and put it up on the web so everyone could see the media being punked.

We know the "free press" has been compromised. So do a LOT of other people. So why not go out of our way to mock them? To interfere with them in any way possible?

I imagine a group of people jumping out of a car and taping a sign to the side of a news van that says "Liars Incorporated," and taking pictures or video of it.

I honestly think we need to start targeting them in every way possible. Nothing truly malicious, nothing that could actually hurt anyone. Not physically, anyway. But make them look like fools?

Hell, yeah.


If any of this sounds like a good idea to you, Rec this post. Let's try to start THIS as a kind of viral infection spreading to other liberal sites. As long as they're going to BE the enemy, we need to start treating them as the enemy. If they're going to treat us with contempt, let's return the favor. Let's "Punk the Press."

What have we got to lose?

[NC_Nurse]

1. Don't watch. That's what I do. They lose money when people turn them off.

I can find out what they're up to on here and other sites. I refuse to waste my time watching their shit.

I'd rather spend my time actually doing something, engaging in the process rather than watching other people fuck it up.

[AndyTiedye]

5. They Make More Money off the War, Anyway

They know that their shilling for the unpopular Repiggies is costing them ratings.
They don't care. It is all about keeping the war going.
The war is much more profitable for GE than NBC is!

[Mythsaje]

8. I haven't for years. Doesn't hurt them a bit. n/t

[tavalon]

27. Been off that little crapfest for a decade

I want to be more proactive. I like his idea.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Yeah... Fuck 'em

Nothing's gong to change while they control the message.

K&R

[bdamomma]

3. Just turn them off.

they are nothing but enablers for this filthy administration.

[Mythsaje]

9. I never turn them on. Not like that helps anything. n/t

[BeHereNow]

4. We could just stand in the back ground wearing T-shirts that said

"You call this NEWS?"

BHN

[Mythsaje]

10. Sure. That would be great. Something simple, but annoying. n/t

[Jade Fox]

6. I've got an idea that's a bit crazy.....

I think part of the recent orgy of grief by the media over the death of Tim Russert was in part grief for their own growing irrelevance. The internet is kicking their butt. People are increasingly tired of them deciding what is important and how issues should be framed. And with the exception of a few like Keith Olberman, media people seem clueless as to how to stop the leakage.

[Psyop Samurai]

23. I would like to believe that...

...but there's the "glass half empty" view to consider as well...

The recent orgy had Democratic Underground chasing its tail for a week. A week! Over what?

Time and again, they set the agenda, and we react in our free speech zone, going over and over things that shouldn't even have to be said.

A more pessimistic interpretation might be that it was a attempt to ingratiate themselves, inviting us to personally identify with them. That would come in handy, now that their complicity in crimes is becoming more widely accepted. After all, they're family!

[tavalon]

28. Ouch, you're both right actually

[Jade Fox]

36. Good points all, but

when the very people who lies you lapped up (McClellan) are chastising you for being dumb enough to believe them, I think it's safe to say it's not your finest hour. And I believe the media's complicity in crimes is becoming less accepted by their former trusting audience.

In the end, Tavalon is probably correct: we are both right.

[ixion]

7. I unplugged the cable years ago...

I never miss it. Life is much quieter without commercials and broadcast news.

[Mythsaje]

11. Maybe if we ignore it, it'll go away? I haven't watched in years.

Somehow that hasn't made anything better.

[ixion]

13. If enough people would cut their cable, it would make a difference

but sadly, I think most people won't do that.

[tavalon]

29. Which is why we need to make them look foolish to the people still watching

Punk the Media!

[stillcool]

12. They aren't going away..

and they aren't going to change. I like to email them, or call them when I read something that pisses me off. For the most part I think of them as the military channel, or one of the God channels..not my choice for entertainment.

[Mythsaje]

14. Ignoring them isn't helping. I don't watch and haven't for years

but the effects are felt everywhere anyway.

[stillcool]

20. I don't know..

as my shrink would say, we give them the power to influence our lives.

[ben_meyers]

15. If everybody here turned them off

at least everybody here would be happier.

[Mythsaje]

16. Happy as a goat being led to slaughter.

Turning it off is NOT a solution. It's ignoring the problem. Accomplishes nothing.

[ben_meyers]

18. It was really a reference to the fact that if everyone on

Du was to turn off the media, they wouldn't even know we were gone.

[Mythsaje]

19. Nope. They wouldn't.

Sucks, don't it?

[Swamp Rat]

17. Obey the images on your Jesus Box.

[chill_wind]

21. They wield power and influence elections and enable the criminal

WH by refusing to cover the depth of the criminality.

And they are gaming the next election for McCain. They are doing it right now.

It's easy to say "Unplug the TV" but most don't and won't. American voters' attention spans may be short, but they watch Fox news and the other Fox-lites-- and they vote.

[Mythsaje]

22. We need to do SOMETHING...n/t

[chill_wind]

24. I couldn't agree more.

I really wish we coud hurt them in the purse. Like the notion of pressuring and boycotting advertisers, but I don't know how often effective that has ever been. Although it probably helped get Imus off the tube.

[Psyop Samurai]

25. I think you're on the right track...

The media should have been targeted long ago.

Everyone keeps waiting for the media to break the story, but the media IS the story.

I don't know what tactics would have any leverage, but if I had, say, a hundred thousand people together, I damn sure wouldn't be taking them for a leisurely stroll around the Washington Mall.

[tavalon]

31. I went to Washington DC in 2004 with 600,000 of my fellow citizens

but with a very easy hand, the media turned our protest into "tens of thousands". I saw it with my own eyes and I've never been able to get up the oomph to go again because they bury us and in fact, I learned that weekend that if a tree falls in the forest and no one broadcasts it, there really is no noise, no impact whatsoever.

Affinity groups. Local groupings. Guy Fawkes masks. Getting some of our own into positions in the news organizations and having them send us information on where the news trucks are going and so on. Make utter fools of them as they have tried to make us.

[Psyop Samurai]

33. This is what kills me about the question, "why aren't people in the streets"?

We WERE in the streets! But we saw the sham that it turned into; we saw the forces arrayed against us, which was more than we could have imagined (duplicitous media and law enforcement), and we were deflated in our sense of what normal avenues of conscience could accomplish.

For many of us, years have since been consumed just trying to arrive at an authentic narrative -- where are we?..., how did we get here?..., how could a stonewalling of truth be so inpregnable?... These are no small questions.

And we gradually come to see that the answers lie in the nature of hierarchical systems themselves, and that, devastatingly, people at every level are dedicated preserving those systems, no matter what, regardless of what's in their best interests, or how shockingly immoral the whole thing is.

And so it becomes a grueling, anxiety-ridden exercise -- waiting for something to "break" -- some chink in the armor -- some reversal or inroad at some level of the hierarchy. This, when the simple truth could end it all in a day. The way I see it, all they've ever had was deception and threat of force. But they rely on a citizenry divorced from its intellectual and moral foundations (which they largely accomplish through television).

Now that I'm long burnt out, I would agree that it seems like people are gradually more willing to entertain something approximating truth, and that the internet has made inroads. But the pace is glacial, and obviously inadequate to what is and has been an ongoing emergency. Now I get to beat myself up because I'm not patient enough, and cooler heads are more effective.

[tavalon]

26. Thought provoking

You are completely right. They are a greater enemy in some ways than the Beltway folk. We need to make an end run around them. And, we are actually, already. Not, dissing your idea at all. I think this meme needs to get out there in a great variety of ways. And we need to do it local, with local affinity groups, a la, WTO. Going viral is a good way to put it.

I just wanted to make sure you are aware that what's happening on the web in the last couple of years is already making a mockery of them and making sure real news gets out, despite them. Two years ago, I remember chastising someone on this very website about getting too full of themselves, of believing that the internet was really that influential but as it turns out, I was wrong. Maybe not wrong in that minute, but wrong overall. The internet has become the liberals' place to make our stand and we are in fact, kicking the media's asses and the politicians asses on a daily, sometimes hourly basis! Even if we did nothing more than we do right now, we're winning and I don't think they're going to be able to ramp up fast enough to stop us.

That little uplifting piece aside, it is important that we seize the day and make absolutely sure that the media is reduced to a harmless yet annoying, gnat.

Guy Fawkes, anyone?

[redstate_democrat]

30. There should be a concerted effort for people to "Turn off the Tube and get on the Tubes"

That'll teach em. Seriously. Some rich guy who agrees with us should start a national campaign for people to just turn off the fucking television "news" networks and get on the net and read blogs and PARTICIPATE in the discussion instead of being fed disinformation by corporate owned media.

TRULY UNPLUG.

"Turn off the Tube, Get on the Tubes, and Really Unplug".

[Mythsaje]

32. A kick for the morning crew. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

34. I always refer to them as the GOP-controlled media.

Not the Bush media or the McCain media, or even Rove's media.

The GOP controls the media.

No matter who is in office, the Party controls the media.

No matter which face they put out there to appease the frightened, it is the GOP that controls the media: the stories they cover, the amount of time they spend on stories, the ones they avoid.

The GOP controls the media.

[Spike89]

35. Television is one medium

I couldn't agree more that television "news" is horrid. Mostly because of the high costs/barriers to entry, it is dominated by corporate entities. Beyond that though, TV is and always has been a very poor medium for news. It has a few things it does very, very well, but its limitations and flaws more than compensate.

The Internet is a great medium for news. It is flexible enough to handle various formats (video, audio, text), has a very low cost of entry, and world-wide accessibility. The problem is that it hasn't grown into its role as a journalistic delivery system. The big corporate media have news sites that actually do a fair job of leveraging much of the Internet's advantages, with a couple glaring exceptions--they are still mostly one-way communication, and coverage is mostly a subset of their television coverage. The problem of course is money...there isn't a good model yet for making money off being a Web-based news agency. Therefore, most news pages on the net are either teaser-filled or cash-starved.

In the 1800s (and before), printing technology was expensive enough to be a barrier to citizen participation and paper barrons controlled the message. Lower cost presses and automation helped open the doors by the turn of the century, but by then radio and television were coming on...again, with huge cost barriers. Cable promised (relatively) cheap national television exposure, but the big networks quickly bought up the successful cable channels until getting your "upstart" cable channel syndicated (carried by cable and/or sattelite providers) became much more difficult.

Finally, the Internet arrives and almost immediately some people understood that costs were no longer a barrier to getting started. You can create a Website with virtually no capital at all, it can be accessed virtually worldwide, and its almost censure-proof. The problem is that you need to put something on that Web page, and news costs money to produce. Almost all "journalistic news" on the Internet is really just reposted from the older (revenue positive) mediums.

The Internet has all the talking heads/commentators of television, and then some. It still doesn't have what we desperately need from it, a model to support the 1000s of actual reporters and editors needed to break the corporate control of our news.