The Glade 4.0

I haven't commented here on the shooting in Ottawa this week, and that's for a reason.

Two guys got shot -- one of them the perpetrator. I don't like to minimize any murder as being unimportant, because someone still got shot. For the family and friends of the innocent young soldier that died, this is definitely a tragedy. But these things happen every day. People get killed. This was not an act of terrorism - yes the perpetrator was a radical muslim, but he was also a homeless crackpot who had been denied a passport to leave the country to try to make contact with ISIL. It was one derranged man with a chip on his shoulder who managed to unsuspectingly kill one other person before he was taken down.

At first I was a bit irritated with the coverage of the event here in the Canadian media. It seemed overblown -- there are shootings and armed standoffs every week in Toronto (despite a very low violent crime rate, Toronto is still a very, very big city.) I felt that the whole event was a minor news story that was attempting to take over my day, uninvited. But reading the following, I have come to realize we're far from the worst offenders when it comes to sensationalism.


http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/ame ... a-shooting

The difference in the coverage between the Canadian and US news outlets was rather notable. It seemed impossible, but the event got even MORE coverage in the USA than Canada, and the coverage it got was far more sensationalized. Sure, it was front page news in both, but the same information was presented in very different ways.

Take a look:



It's obvious based on that article that it's even worse in America than it is here.

A free press is absolutely required for a free society, but how can the average person have any idea on what's really notable or important when every non-notable death is treated like a national tragedy/emergency?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I don't understand. You don't want to be treated like Americans?

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YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

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The Dude abides.

Oh this really happened? I saw something on Reddit, I thought it was just something for the third hunger games movie. Where is Awtowah?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

These media outlets are all beholden to their stockholders to make a profit.

Ratings Is King

Mother Jones agrees that there's a difference, although their emphasis was on exercising caution and restraint in the midst of a huge barrage of coverage, not on downplaying the events so that there wasn't a barrage in the first place. Their article gave props to CBC's Peter Mansbridge, particularly.

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/ ... cable-news

Yes, hence my initial feeling that even the Canadian coverage was sensationalized. I suppose the coverage itself was good, but the emphasis placed on it felt overstated. One guy shooting someone and then getting shot by police doesn't get that much coverage in the big city.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Dude, Mother Jones is sensationalist media from the word go. Them praising someone for a measured and reasoned response is like your doctor praising you for only getting the clap.

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South African doctors probably consider that a victory.

Back in the day, when I was a debate coach and doing my time in the trenches that is high school education, I remember the files upon files that people had proving Mother Jones to be a sensationalist, unreliable, and prone to publishing fringe academic nonsense rag. And it's only gotten worse since.

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The "free press" suffers, essentially, from the same problem people complain about in the Citizens United case. Money makes voices heard by more people.

The press is a bunch of corporate organizations, like anything else. It has all the vices of corporations, and all the advantages - having it done for profit is better than the alternative of having government do it.

People think that freedom of the press is something that applies to organizations and people that label themselves the press, and do things that look like "being the press". They think it's a freedom granted to perform a public service.

It isn't. We all have freedom of the press as individuals. It's just Freedom of Speech by another name. Big corporations, PACs, everyone - they are no different from the actual press. People have confused themselves into thinking the press is a public service, when really Freedom of the Press is just the freedom to use your money to say what you want.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Relevant: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/4d109s/investigating-investigative-journalism

Sensationalism and fear sells. Actual investigative journalism is too expensive and nobody wants to watch it.

I agree, with the caveat that the organized press is extended special privileges. Access to people, places, and events that ordinary people with the same "rights" are not afforded. With those privileges, in my view (and indeed in the view held by most of the industry), comes certain responsibilities that include providing that "public service" you refer to.

While this is true, unfortunately, there is no way to make sure that they do, in fact, exercise those responsibilities without infringing on (or at least appearing to infringe on) their freedom in the first place.

There's nothing about the first amendment that grants rights to access, or information, or actually gives the organized press any privileges at all. Like all other rights in the Constitution - except the Right to Counsel, and that exception is specifically stated - the protection of freedom of the press is a right not to be interfered with. There is no right to do anything any other citizen isn't allowed to do.

It's the responsibility of the public to enforce these responsibilities on the press through social pressure and market forces, but the public doesn't do so. The public wants to be entertained with sensationalism and outrage, and it considers this "being informed" - like someone who mows the lawn once a week and considers that "keeping in shape".

The press and the public continually reinforce each other's negativity through a feedback loop - the more the press reports on sensationalistic outrage, the more the public piously shakes its collective head, decries the state of things, and tunes in for more outrage. Thus rewarded, the press serves up the next helping.

If people want "fair and balanced" reporting, they're going to have to resign themselves to listening to a lot of boring but important details on many matters, turning off the TV when the talking heads start screaming at each other, and most importantly, listening to more than a 4-5 minute spot or a 1-page article on a subject prior to forming an opinion. As long as the public keeps rewarding the behavior of the press, it will continue to behave that way.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is true about more issues than just the press.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Well, privileges can be revoked; but that only works if a small portion of the industry is not living up to the stated responsibilities. When the entire industry is screwed up, you can't effectively do that - otherwise you're limiting information to the public.

This would also set a dangerous precedent. The government doesn't like how you report the news, so they revoke your access? How could that be abused?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That would be punished swiftly and severely by the remaining news outlets with or without access. Take something easy like the white house press corps. The white house cannot invite in every news outlet imaginable. It is a privilege to be there, and I'm sure it's based on some fair system - regardless, they couldn't throw everyone out, but they already limit their interviews, questions, etc. to those news agencies they like. So what you're concerned about is already being done.

That's the most likely defense - news agencies, even if they disagree with each other, will tend to protect their privileges for fear it might happen to them. The press freaks out any time it can't get the information it wants from any source - it's a daily event that they will talk about someone "declined their request for an interview, almost always when that person is in some way in question.

People know perfectly well that the press is in total control of how their comments will be presented to the public, which is why they decline, but the press doesn't like that so it portrays such declinations in a negative light. It's not really any different with the government - in some cases the government is trying to hide something; in others it just doesn't want to have its position negatively sensationalized. The press is very good at pretending that someone else is engaging in censorship.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't think that's negative, how else would they say it? If they say nothing, I'd think they didn't even bother to ask the other guy for his side of the story. Declined to comment tells me that they tried to be fair and get both sides, but one individual didn't want to go on record.

I have found that the rest of the presentation of such stories implies that "asking for both sides" is purely pro forma, and the story is almost always presented in such a way as to imply the issue is already closed - the better to fit into a 3-or-4 minute spot. Ostensibly, yes, asking for both sides is being "fair" but in such cases even the side that DOES interview is so clearly truncated as to be nearly worthless.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The prime problem with the American audience causing the sensationalism feedback loop between the "public" and "press" is the grand lack of critical thinking skills. What isn't said is as critical as what is said. As DE points out, news has been compressed into easily digestible servings, whether it's written articles on the Internet or in printed periodicals, radio news, or on any number of the god forsaken TV news networks and affiliated syndicates.

If you examine almost any piece of information published in the aforementioned mediums, under even modest scrutiny, even a person unfamiliar with the subject matter could provide a list of questions the article doesn't answer, whether from be absence of details or the abbreviated scope of the "investigation".

The choice to digest this garbage as a substitute for being informed is the critical flaw maintains the current state of affairs and it stems from a lack of ability and appreciation for critical analysis.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

This goes back to the fact that being informed is work. You do not become informed about a subject by simply being aware of it, or through short articles or soundbites, or even longer articles and pieces that are simply re-hashes of the same basic information. Being informed about a subject involves taking the time to read at least some material that's boring, pedestrian, and not what you find on the front page of the CNN website.

People want to be entertained. They want all their news to be like their sports - and that's really what TV news is; it just turns everything into sports where people root for their favorite team (i.e. they simply cheer loudly for whatever side of an issue strikes their fancy, and take umbrage at anything that doesn't go their way).

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This...is an excellent analogy.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █