I don't watch the news much anymore, it's largely depressing and I've enough of that as it is. However tonight I've been watching the BBC news and certain things struck me. Where's the news on Syria? Everything was all about Syria, we bombed them, then all of a sudden the government has the 'windrush problem' that is the be all and end all. A really serious problem no doubt, but conveniently escalated by the media? Why is there no more news on Syria all of a sudden? When watching the news pretty much daily in the nineties, there was not a day that went by without 10-15 mins of reporting on the yugoslav civil war, where we had many troops deployed under the UN. Throw a few bombs at a country now and even though they're still I turmoil, it's not news worthy??? Then there's a report later on the Facebook-Cambridge analytica scandal, but focusing on the people that review reported content on Facebook, saying how awful it is for these workers to have to view such disgusting content. Well, Yeh. That's the bloody job. I mainly manage utilities in my job, I can't go to the news saying how awful it is I have to talk to script-reading retards in utility company call centres. It's my job. Someone has to do it, just as someone has to clean toilets. I used to watch the news every night growing up to be educated in the world. Now I fear for anyone watching this politically slanted tripe. Or am I just too cynical? Honest thoughts an opposing views welcome.
I don't fully believe anything in the news anymore, its all twisted depending on which rag it is anyway.
I think we're in a world and media landscape where the defualt reaction to everything and everyone is 'I don;t believe you'. And whilst I won't claim to have a grip on the psychology of it, it seems to be intentional. 'Fake news' and misinformation seems to muddy the waters so heavily it becomes easier to convince people black is white.
It just seems so much more blatant now though. Even as a teenager I'd remark to my dad how certain things were a slight skew or (and especially) a scientific inaccuracy, but now it's like they're trying to prove Steve Hughes was right
Western governments want Assad to lose and the rebels to win. But the rebels aren't allowed to win as they include Kurds which is a problem because we need to keep Turkey happy as it is the only buffer between Europe and the Middle East and Turkey really hates the Kurds. So no matter what the media says about the conflict in Syria, they will be accused of being on the wrong side, which is an unacceptable risk especially for a license fee funded news outlet.
FWIW Imo there are no winners in Syria... both sides are several shades of awful so you hold your nose, pick a side, and hope you picked the lesser evil when the dust clears.
I literally just posted this highly related take on the topic. Almost all interactions by the electorate are corporate-sanctioned these days. Including everything in this thread.
It's the attention deficit hyperactivity ooh shiney news cycle. A crisis is good for one week's worth of news, the Syrian civil war has been going for nearly 8 years now, it only gets reported when something even more horrific than usual happens. The chemical attack and flattening of various government buildings in retaliation was the week before last. Last week was the Windrush immigration scandal, because a guy was being denied cancer treatment for arbitrary reasons and that makes a good story, nevermind that it's been going on for several years. This week nothing much important, so there's a new baby for the royal family, Labour is apparently still anti-semitic and the French president is being a little bit rude to the American president. I'm sure they will have a new crisis for the front page next week. I don't think it's politically motivated so much as the constant drive to find something new to shout about as loudly as possible. Actual politically motivated news has devlolved to the cartoonish extremes of RT network and Info Wars, it's only watched by those who already know what they think. TL;DR: Forget the tin hat and just get some ear plugs.
Not necessarily helped by the fact you ore or less have to shout to stand out from the noise that is a sea of every man and his blog.... ...idiots ranting on the internet was arguably a thing before the internet was a thing but social media, google and whatnot made it easier for like to find like. What was a lone nutter screaming into the void unheeded, now has an audience.
It's all planned and intentional. Now, I'm not a conspiracy nut who wraps my head in tin-foil living in fear of "the man" in my basement. But, it seems to me that every major news outlet tends to bathe our collective consciousness in noise and then throw some sparklies on top because everybody knows we all appreciate a happy ending. Most people, while not being actual idiots (though it is very easy to come to that conclusion at times) aren't exactly potential nobel laureates. Media outlets know this, and they have gotten very good at speaking to the ADHD generation; they know very well that most people are unable to maintain interest in a topic over any length of time, and thus they have to generate new content constantly in order to appease the masses. The news were a lot more sombre a few decades ago, but as the access to information - not to mention disinformation - new formats had to be invented in order to compete with the constant background noise of Kardashians, american commercials and cat videos. They are, in effect, using loudness and pretty colours to drown out our ability to form individual thought, and it is working. Media companies are of course using this knowledge to pull viewers in, and at the same time it would be naive to assume that the lobbyists and politicians are not also using it to further their agendas. I don't watch the news broadcasts on TV anymore, but I am an avid reader of most online newspapers. I am also completely unable to avoid reading the comments at the bottom of the page. I know I shouldn't because that way madness lies, but I can't help myself. And nary a day passes without seeing someone using youtube videos as a source of information on pretty much any topic. I understand why of course; it's quick, it's easily accessible, it's flashy and it provides immediate links to other videos which might interest you (mainly cat videos and conspiracy nuts Spoiler It's always aliens, and the Earth is flat ). The news were always supposed to be neutral and objective; report what's going on in the world, but don't take a stand. That's how it was - and is - supposed to be. Obviously this has always been an impossible ideal, and it is, obviously, even more impossible today when every single on of us gets access to content more or less tailored to our individual likes and dislikes. "Hey, we've noticed you've read a lot of articles on space technology, well; here are some more that you might find interesting". "Yo! So you like the Kardashians eh? Well, meet the real housewives of Beverly Hills." If this keeps up, if nothing changes and objectivity remains a pipedream, I fear that very soon it will become impossible to separate the real from the fake. Now why can't we all just get along? Why do Turkey hate the kurds? Why is there so much animosity towards the west in the middle east? Why can't we all just be friends damnit, or at the very least, work together? Why can't we all just accept the fact that we don't have to like eachother in order to work together, we don't have to agree on everything in order to reach a compromise on the really important bits. I think we can, but we will have to figure out how to bypass that little reptilian part of our brain that goes "nuh-uh, you can't tell me what to do!" Or, you know, we're screwed. Let's just watch the world burn together and find peace in the fact that at least we had a good run (I'll bring the beer, someone else bring the popcorn and the marshmallows).
I think the only things we know for sure is that royal bint squeezed out another little scone-goblin, and Trump said something stupid. It is mildly amusing that we look down on regimes who actively block public access to outside sources of news and information, yet we (the collective we) seem happy to swallow up whatever manipulated news article is pushed our way.
Not cynical, just less trusting, back in the day the only real source of information about the world was the news so you had little choice but to accept what they said as true. In the modern world that's true as people are exposed to more than just a single opinion or single fact, it's the equivalent of a child learning that mum and dad aren't always right.
I simply don't watch or read any news. The less you know, the better. That way no one has an opinion, and no one can argue the toss if what's right or wrong. (No drama). So stop being brainwashed by the powers of the world.
The media is a huge issue IMHO. they cannot be trusted. I gave up when ch9 ( here in australia) orchestrated a child kidnapping, sorry, recovery in Lebanon and the reporter got arrested. At what point, sat around the big board room table, did they think this was a good idea? I now refuse to believe anything a news outlet puts out.
It's all gone downhill since 24 hour news became a thing. You used to live your life then hear about news just a few times a day, now they seem to compete every 5 seconds for your attention. Mind you the other extreme can be just as bad, living in NZ for a couple of years it got weird not really hearing much about anything that was happening in the world. Well, unless it was rugby related or an instance where the kiwis had done something better than, or not as worse than, Australia. That was both a good and bad thing.
I think the reason were not seeing things such as the current actions in Syria etc is because the media are deeming other issues as "more important" such as the Facebook Vs. Cambridge Media, TSB, that Alfie kid and the Royal birth. Facebook and TSB because they impact a lot more people locally the latter being great for angry sound bites and quotes. The Alfie child issue because sick children sell papers and the media hype they have generated in stirring up the group known as "Alfies army" sells well because theres violence and its seen to be fighting the system. An then the royal birth because theres always fans/haters of the royals so they can have those arguments. News companies are always fighting each other for views ratings etc so they need the next big story, and where another media outlet has fallen foul of something they will go to town on it. Its a struggle to find any form of un bias news these days though.
Get a tin hat and one for your cat https://boingboing.net/2018/03/28/tin-foil-hats-for-humans-and-c.html
