I was later grateful that, in objecting, Mr. Tom Lowe directed my attention to the Frank Rich article in the June 16 issue of New York Magazine ("Nuke 'Em: Why negative advertisements are powerful, essential, and sometimes (see “Daisy”) even artistic"), for I based yesterday's post about political attack ads on it.
But the first part of Tom's comment was:
To which I at the time flippantly replied:Problem with that stance is—according to the recent studies I've seen—most people get their information from TV these days. So acting on this reasonable principle means ceding the advantage to Fox News and the Koch brothers.
Technically, [the post's] second suggestion ("Ignore the campaigns, don't watch advertising") covers this, seeing as how Fox News is essentially political advertising.Then yesterday I saw Jeremy W. Peters's article, "Enemies and Allies for ‘Friends’, in The New York Times, critical for the usual reasons of Fox News and, in particular, of its show "Fox & Friends":
"You can huff and puff about how outrageous [Fox News] is," Mr. Weiner [the former New York congressman who was one of the few members of his party regularly to accept Fox News invitations] said. "But they have millions and millions of people watching them. And you have to proceed under the assumption that at least some of those people are persuadable."Incestuous clan that, Fox News and its audience.
Despite all the outrageousness there is a keen self-awareness inside the network about "Fox & Friends." "We reflect who the audience is," said Mr. Shine, offering a recent example. "We didn’t spend a lot of time discussing who won the Tony Awards."
He added, "Our audience knows us, and we know them."
I took advantage of Mr. Peters's publishing immediately on the heels of my remark about Fox News's being "political advertising" to bolster my flippant reply by posting a link to his article on Facebook, commenting that,
As I said to Tom Lowe recently in a comment on Facebook, Fox News is essentially political advertising, watched by folks who don't (and apparently can't) think for themselves and want (and possibly need) to be told what to believe (so long as it suits their existing prejudices).Flippant indeed. Why single out Fox News?
Joe Story, a political observer in Kansas City, Missouri, pointed out that
The same could be said about MSNBC. Fox News is not the only channel in the political advertising, brain washing business. I don't watch either show.And the reliably well-informed Mr. Lowe, who is a close student of history and an astute social commentator out in Berkeley, California (the city of my birth), made a more general point, one particularly pointed in the context of attack ads designed to nuke Mitt Romney:
Just as ABC was known in the Reagan era as the "Administration Broadcasting Company," CBS provided press credentials to CIA operatives in the 1950s and 60s, and NBC ran pro nuclear energy stories on their news shows when owned by General Electric. No clean hands to be found anywhere when corporate interests are involved. [emphasis mine]Whose context?
Right.
His who said: "Corporations are people."
Sign at Oakland General Strike 11-2-11:
ReplyDelete"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."
I'd include the photo I took of this, but the comment section won't let me.
Addendum to above- The photo is on my Facebook page as part of the set Oakland General Strike
ReplyDeleteTom, let's try this, then. I'm entering the text: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2160673538126&set=a.2160673018113.2108289.1285198321&type=3">your photo on Facebook</a>: your photo on Facebook.
DeleteThat is, you can include a link to a photo, if not the photo itself, in a comment.
It worked! Thanks for the photo. Looks like Walt Whitman reincarnated holding the sign....
DeleteTom, regarding the sign: What a simple yet brilliant observation. Thank you for sharing that gem.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is doubtful Texas would ever harm a corporation, no matter how egregious its actions, they have passed enough favorable laws and regulations that corporations might qualify for "personhood" on the basis of the state's big-business welfare program. I recently heard an investigative news program that told of hundreds of "dummy" corporations being housed in a few small office buildings, thanks to local and state laws that were so favorable the companies fared batter being headquartered in a Texas office the size of a phone booth than in an offshore mail drop box.
Moristotle, since I refuse to own a TV, I also don't watch Fox or MSNBC, but I do cover a wide array of information sources online: from Al Jazeera to BBC, NPR and Yahoo. While I laud your decision to avoid television shows that, as you put it, may be in the "brain washing business," I worry that sometimes those on the left are just as quick as those on the right to look for "news" sources that affirm rather that inform.
Yes, Motomynd, people on the left are, like people on the right, human, and our brains seem to have evolved to seek corroboration. I try to interject some pause-and-reflect into the process, with some, if not 100%, success. I appreciate your reminder not to vacate the post whose chair might be labeled "self-regulation patrol."
DeleteFinding the right path through life (where "right" is defined as something like "as closely in touch with the way things really are as possible") is a continuous challenge to be self-aware, withholding in judgment (until sufficient evidence is in), and pure in spirit.
Hmm, I must be thinking of the Sermon on the Mount this morning; I even plan to title today's post "Good Friday" (not written yet).
I add this quotation from Paul Simon, which I saw in a local newspaper's reprint this morning of a column by Randy Lewis ("Joe Smith's candid artist talks heading to Library of Congress") in the June 18 Los Angeles Times: "In Off the Record Paul Simon told Smith, 'My theory is that every time the industry gets powerful and corporate thinking dominates what the music is, then the music really pales.'"
ReplyDelete