News media - thriving on bad news, doing its best to kill the movie theater industry

[Marcel Birgelen]

A private company can do whatever they want with respect to censorship, the US Government can not as they have to abide by the constitution. When Facebook and Twitter moved from flagging to outright censoring, I closed my accounts and refuse to visit them because I know there is no chance I am getting "balanced" coverage or discussion of anything.

The only reason I checked Twitter sometimes in the last 4 years was to get an early warning about when it would be time to head for the nuclear bunker. I've considered both Twitter and Facebook tools of mass-retardation and it looks like I wasn't completely off...

By this time and age, I wouldn't care if any big government would ban them outright, no matter what constitutions or their amendments that would incur. Those companies were complicit in wreaking havoc on humanity on a never before seen scale, while raking in the billions and billions. To hell with them.

[Lyle Romer]

I think if the fairness doctrine was reinstated that Faux would be relegated to running Green Acres and The Three Stooges. And honestly I have no problem with that, I enjoy those. Canada has a similar law in effect and Faux can't even broadcast there or be on any cable networks.

Are CNN or MSNBC considered unbiased and allowed to broadcast in Canada?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Well, neither of those news outlets have been.classified as "Entertainment News" like Faux has. So they probably can. But you may want to check the Canadian TV Guides to be sure!

[Frank Cox]

This is the television channel lineup from the cable tv outfit that serves Melville:

https://www.myaccess.ca/fileadmin/myaccess/storage/services/residential/tv/brochures/RT002-TV_Lineup_YorktonMelville_WEB.pdf

Fox News is available. It's listed as part of three or four package deals.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This is the television channel lineup from the cable tv outfit that serves Melville:

https://www.myaccess.ca/fileadmin/myaccess/storage/services/residential/tv/brochures/RT002-TV_Lineup_YorktonMelville_WEB.pdf

Fox News is available. It's listed as part of three or four package deals.

Yes, US, Fox broadcast channels that are FCC licensed for airwaves are the ones that have to State Entertainment News. CRTC kept Fox out of Canada for a long time until the Canadian conservatives complained enough, I think it was in 2004 they allowed it to be on Canadian cable channels. But cable TV is subscriber supported where ever it is, and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC. So if you watch those US broadcasts form FCC licensed stations wafting over the border in Canada, you will likely find them labeled a little different than the one on Canadian cable. Note also that there are no accredited news outlets in the USA.

[Bobby Henderson]

Are CNN or MSNBC considered unbiased and allowed to broadcast in Canada?

Well, neither of those news outlets have been.classified as "Entertainment News" like Faux has. So they probably can. But you may want to check the Canadian TV Guides to be sure!

They're two sides of the same coin. You have CNN & MSNBC on one side and then Fox and its upstart rivals (OANN & Newsmax) on the other side. They're all selling the same thing: fear and outrage. The content is distilled and flavored to appeal to a specific viewer bias. The other remaining 24 hour cable news networks have their own built-in slant to some extent. Even The Weather Channel sells fear and outrage, maybe not so much on the outrage part but they make up for that with the fear component. They even took it upon themselves to name winter storms.

Back in the 1990's the cable news networks seemed a little more normal. By the end of the 1990s, with certain political scandals and then the 9-11 tragedy, cable news networks evolved into their current form. Prior to 9-11 it was possible to turn on one of those 24 hour news channels and see a completely graphics-free shot of a news anchor talking. The Chyron ticker at the bottom of the screen, displaying all-caps headlines and talking point phrases arrived with 9-11 and stayed for good. Now any cable news channel looks like a fucking web page blown up on the TV screen. There's one, two or more tickers on the bottom of the screen, maybe a column of some other shit plastered on the right end of the screen or there might be multiple video windows of talking heads trying to shout over each other.

Even local news has become visually infected with this shit. The three of our four OTA local network affiliates that have a local newscast all now have various layers of ticker spam constantly hogging the bottom third of the screen. One could get a break from that by picking up a copy of the local newspaper. But our local paper is a mere shadow of its former self. The paper is now remotely-owned by some media group from I don't know where. Most of the local staff was cut loose, the production work is done out of town, and there is very little local content in the paper itself. It's mostly a re-gurge of day-old wire stories from elsewhere printed on dead trees.

Regarding the Fairness Doctrine, I agree with others in this thread who've said it would be difficult or impossible to implement such a thing effectively. The genie was let out of the bottle long ago.

All of these "news" outlets are distributing their content on multiple platforms. Media bias and the tactics of using sensationalism to sell advertising has always been around. But the rise of social media, always-on Broadband Internet connections and proliferation of mobile devices (phones, tablets) has allowed these outlets to weaponize their content for faster, more immediate impact.

As easy as it is to blame the TV networks, Facebook, Twitter, etc for the gangrene rot in America's political discourse and our nation's overall sense of manners, the real bad guy is US. No one is forcing anyone to tune-in to CNN or launch the Facebook app. The TV networks and web sites know their ratings numbers and web traffic levels. They experiment with the formula and routinely focus-group ideas how to improve those numbers further. They're giving people what they want, even if there are dangerous long-term consequences of doing so, perhaps years or decades from now. Make that extra ad money now.

The American public is a willing partner in this circle-jerk of a "dance." So many are going down their chosen rabbit holes, not bothering to take a moment to think how kooky an idea might be that they're validating and using to fuel their emotions. Some people worry that Americans are becoming "too fragile." I'm worried we're turning into a nation of gullible idiots.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Many years ago, when the Fairness Doctrine was discontinued, I wrote an article called "The Fairness of the Fairness Doctrine" for Radio World. I probably still have it buried on some computer around here. As I recall, the idea was that when the doctrine was established, there were far fewer broadcast outlets, so, it was reasoned, each had to present various viewpoints on "subjects of public importance." When the doctrine was discontinued, there were far more broadcast stations. So, it was reasoned, people could hear or see various viewpoints by tuning to various stations. It was not necessary for one station to carry all viewpoints. Also, it was pointed out, that a "fairness doctrine" on print media would be unconstitutional (I think there was an attempt on one in Florida that was thrown out by a court). t the time the doctrine was discarded, there were far more broadcast stations than newspapers, so it did not seem appropriate to impose it on the more diverse media.

From the beginnings of the US, we've had print media each with their own viewpoint. I do think print does a better job than broadcast at keeping news separate from opinion, but bias can show up in what is deemed important enough to print and where to print it (above the fold on page 1).

Harold

[Bobby Henderson]

I think one of the big problems now is that the general public will listen more to the loudest, most charismatic, most interesting voice rather than listen to the person who actually knows what the fuck he is talking about and has the qualifications and credentials to back it up. We're now a nation telling esteemed scientists to go fuck themselves. That's where we are now. In America we literally have a war against truth and reason taking place. And I find it absolutely baffling because all of our nation's political enemies and economic rivals have to be loving the living shit out of this self-destructive drama.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Reminds me of the movie A Face in the Crowd..

[Marcel Birgelen]

As easy as it is to blame the TV networks, Facebook, Twitter, etc for the gangrene rot in America's political discourse and our nation's overall sense of manners, the real bad guy is US. No one is forcing anyone to tune-in to CNN or launch the Facebook app. The TV networks and web sites know their ratings numbers and web traffic levels. They experiment with the formula and routinely focus-group ideas how to improve those numbers further. They're giving people what they want, even if there are dangerous long-term consequences of doing so, perhaps years or decades from now. Make that extra ad money now.

I think a comparison to tobacco companies is quite appropriate here. In the end it's the people smoking the shit they produce, but it's the companies that knowingly kept selling their poison while they knew their shit was bad for the people. Not only that, they knowingly made their products more addictive. Same with soft-drink manufacturers that started to put caffeine in all sorts of stuff. Those media companies sell their own form of addiction. People want the drama, people like seeing news being formatted "black and white", "right and left", "good and bad"... remind you, religion sells itself the same way. It works, it has the power to manipulate people, both in subtle and not so subtle ways. It's easy to blame the people, but how many of them realized that they slowly got brainwashed, got trained to think a certain way? If we need government for something, then this is probably one of the things we need it for, especially if we want to keep any resemblance of democracy in the western world...

I think one of the big problems now is that the general public will listen more to the loudest, most charismatic, most interesting voice rather than listen to the person who actually knows what the fuck he is talking about and has the qualifications and credentials to back it up. We're now a nation telling esteemed scientists to go fuck themselves. That's where we are now. In America we literally have a war against truth and reason taking place. And I find it absolutely baffling because all of our nation's political enemies and economic rivals have to be loving the living shit out of this self-destructive drama.

I can tell you that your economic and political allies have been scratching their heads for quite a while now, starting to look for alternatives, as the once mostly reliable economic and political partner started to act like a schoolyard bully.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think a comparison to tobacco companies is quite appropriate here. In the end it's the people smoking the shit they produce, but it's the companies that knowingly kept selling their poison while they knew their shit was bad for the people. Not only that, they knowingly made their products more addictive.

I agree with the analogy and I'm certainly not letting 24/7 cable news outfits or social media companies off the hook. They know what they're selling is toxic to our society yet they're choosing to sell it anyway. That behavior is evil.

Nevertheless, those companies and their consumers are willing dance partners. It takes two to tango. And the general public should know better. When these people tune-in to watch their favorite hyper-partisan hero rant and rave on their cable news network of choice it's as if they're deliberately opening themselves up to allow a con-artist to rob them.

I can tell you that your economic and political allies have been scratching their heads for quite a while now, starting to look for alternatives, as the once mostly reliable economic and political partner started to act like a schoolyard bully.

We're a society that is elevating stupidity and ignorance into virtues. This is happening across different racial and socio-economic groups. I don't know the trick how to do it, but we somehow have to make things like the truth and being intelligent "cool" again. I do beta testing work for a certain major graphics software company. They have online video meetings around once a month to go over the latest application build, discuss the roadmap for future releases, etc. None of the software engineers in California leading these meetings are white Americans. That's interesting.

I'm afraid the social media companies, 24 hour cable news networks and other digital rabbit holes are creating a monster and they're fixing to lose control of it. America is in a moment not much different than Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, where he transformed the Roman Republic into a dictatorship. Numerous times in just the last 100 years the world has seen political extremism transform into organized hysteria and lead to genocide. As bad as the situation was on January 6 the potential is there for things to get so much worse.