Terrorists

Atrocities · #1 July 9th, 2005, 03:57 PM

One thing bothers me about this whole terrorist thing. Why is it when they cut off some inocents persons head, blow up police stations, and slaughter women and children no one seems to care or even get upset in the slightest. Yet some poor dumb GI accidently pees on a Qoran and OH MY GOD! its a world crisis and a media feeding frenzy! Call out the investigators and hang the poor sap from the nearest flag pole! What a horrible unforgiveable thing to pee on a Qoran! Yet they behead another inocent person and nothing is said. I mean What The [censored]?

Ed Kolis · #2 July 9th, 2005, 04:51 PM

Because we EXPECT them to do that sort of thing...

Leslie · #3 July 9th, 2005, 05:03 PM

The Media is about "selling" the news, not making it.

They only "sell" news that sells, and I often think they will ignore anything if it is limited in potential to "sell".

That said, I think it depends on your audience.

In addition, it depends on where it lies on the PC meter.
Because PC is a major factor in what will or will not "sell".

Atrocities · #4 July 9th, 2005, 05:31 PM

So our media is selling the negative war pill while costing US troops their lives? Personally I think it is high time to pass new laws that call for intergerty and honesty in the news. Force the media into abiding by ethics laws.

Jack Simth · #5 July 9th, 2005, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:
So our media is selling the negative war pill while costing US troops their lives? Personally I think it is high time to pass new laws that call for intergerty and honesty in the news. Force the media into abiding by ethics laws.

One problem is that pesky little "freedom of the press" ammendment.... and that it would be almost impossible to pass any such law (after all, the press is the ones that would be reporting on it.... what kind of a spin do you think they would put on something that could seriously hurt them, financially?).... and that they are already pretty much required to not lie (defamation of character laws, slander laws; and seriously, what you gonna do - require them to cover the stories the government wants them covering, in the way the government wants them covering it? Really, really bad idea, that).

Atrocities · #6 July 9th, 2005, 06:05 PM

It just pisses me off that people are exploiting the news to spew their own personal political and idological views as if that is the only point of view that I should listen too.

Jack Simth · #7 July 9th, 2005, 09:45 PM

And I find it quite worrysome when someone's first response to something they don't like is that it should be illeagle. Sometimes they are correct - it should be illeagle to randomly shoot people on the street, to name a fairly obvious example - but the vast majority of those are already covered, and more often than not such reactions are a step towards a totalitarian state.

It's surprisingly difficult to not do so when attempting to advance a viewpoint (of whatever sort), and trying will usually water-down the presented viewpoint to the point where people will complain that it is "wishy-washy" or that the presenter "isn't really trying to make his case", and will usually end up convincing fewer people. It is much easier and more effective (in most circumstances) to present only one side of an argument.

Sure, it's possible to get someone who espouses the opposing view on stage as well and have a debate, but again, with both sides present, not as many people will be convinced. Many who honestly believe that their position is correct will find that quite unpalatable.

If those signing a reporter's paycheck (by whatever method, with a rather loose definition of reporter - a buisiness advertising in a newspaper, say - the buisiness is signing the paycheck, the newspaper counts as the reporter) have a position to send forth and the reporter is harming the sending of that position, then they are unlikely to continue to sign that paycheck, if there is an option that would appear to work better.

If it's any consolation, the news was, at one point, balanced within reason. It's just that, over time, those news centers which were reasonably balanced didn't get quite the funding that those news centers which were not quite so balanced did. So now, the massive news outlets are almost exclusively slanted to the same side. It's even gotten to the point where something that is reasonably balanced appears to be horribly slanted the other direction.

You can still find some reasonably balanced news sources - the only problem is they don't have much in the way of recources to gather news....