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November 23, 2005
Hmmmm, yet again. . . .
By now you've probably heard of the big black 'X' that CNN ran over video of one of Vice President Cheney's last speeches. CNN has claimed that the superimposed X was merely a "glitch", but I am not quite in agreement with that.
Personally, I'm not convinced it was a "glitch", in college I spent a lot of time developing a campus television station and while we had our share of "glitches" they resulted mainly from jury-riggin' off the shelf consumer, professional and home-made components together to put a single feed out. As I understand modern television broadcast control boards, the event as CNN describes it would be a one in a billion shot, more prone to happen when coming into or out of a another feed and not just popping up in the middle of a feed as a glitch.
It's my opinion, and only my opinion, that someone in the control booth had the 'X' up on another feed source and thought it'd be a good funny to superimpose the two together. I do not think it was "official policy" or "commentary" on CNN's part, nor do I think it was intentional beyond those few misguided souls who sought to tarnish the Vice-President by taking advantage of the power of the media they "control".
I've got more links, but I'm gonna force you through this little rant first (scroll down a bit if you like).
The media today is seriously "out of control", now on the surface, that statement may rankle some. I encourage you to bear with me though; by "out of control" I'm not suggesting that there be some sort of outside over lording oversight or manipulation of the media. I'm as big a First Amendment supporter as you're gonna find. What I'm suggesting is that the media has become DRUNK WITH THEIR OWN POWER. They've taken the instantaneous and simultaneous effects of mass media and the internet as a junkie would take hard drugs straight to the vein. In their drunken state they've stumbled into a position where the media seems to believe that it is "making the news" rather than "reporting the news."
Objective "reporting" seems to be a lost art form in America AND the World. Gone are the lessons I learned in Journalism classes where the reporter should actively guard against becoming PART of the story, gone is the desire or nay, RESPONSIBILITY to present both sides of the story objectively. It's so easy to use the Mary Mapes/Dan Rather/CBS Memos (link is to animated gif showing the "1972 memos" and an identical copy created in minutes using a modern version of MS word with default settings) story to illustrate this point, and the recent creation of "false but accurate" reporting as legitimate journalism. The mass media tries to deny that it's practicing "false but accurate" reporting, but the cat's out of the bag. There are too many sources for news consumers to verify and fact-check with today to keep the FbA strategy a secret. Whether it's Koran's (not) flushed down toilets or memos created in MS Word to try to affect the outcome of a Presidential election, the media has openly begun to take sides on the issues, crafting their reports to actually "create" news out of whole cloth that will change the direction of political and national action throughout the nation and world.
The media has given up the ghost of objectivity with its recent discovery of instant media delivery and the ability to instantly correct, re-write, embellish and re-direct its stories. Today we see the most inflammatory, incredible and offensive images and reports broadcast immediately upon receipt of often very flawed information. In their race to scoop, the media has bought into every crackpot conspiracy theme and accepted any lunatic with a crumpled up photocopied "memo" as gospel. The media speaks all day long about their supposed "fact-checking" and their commitment to the truth, but the reality shows a much different picture.
The picture we're presented with as consumers of mass media is one of despair, lies, manipulations, half-truths and downright lies. Reporting from Iraq is overwhelmingly focused on suicide (homicide) bombers (insurgents (freedom-fighters)), the casualty counts (for the American side) are a mantra of despair in the mass media, and there was downright elation on the part of the media when the count hit 2000. CNN prepared special theme music and graphics to tout the 2,000th death in the Iraq War and spent considerable time in their celebration of the death to degrade the efforts and successes our troops on the ground were making in their struggle to bring freedom to 25 million Iraqis.
Abu Grahib is another example of the media's desire to present the worst and gloss over the best. The accusations against the Secretary of Defense and the President as the orchestrators of the Abu Grahib travesties was touted far and wide, but when those actually responsible were found to be guilty of crimes by the Department of Defense and the American Justice System, hardly a peep was uttered by the MSM. Today though, the left (and leftist media) love to drag out Abu Grahib and blame it on the President, when the actual perpetrators are sitting in prison.
Why? I'm sure you're asking, I sure am. I can't begin to pretend that I know all the answers, but I suggest that it really comes down to my suggestion that the media is drunk with power. In their drunken state they are acting just like a traditional drunk by becoming belligerent, dishonest, aggressive and overly loud in spouting off about whatever popped into their drunken minds, without regard for the truth, their perception in the eyes of others and the consequences of their actions.
The "Koran flushed" story by Newsweek was exactly akin to a drunk getting behind the wheel of a car. The drunk thinks he has it all in control, and so did the Newsweek reporter. The drunk thinks that despite his weak physical condition his superiority over others in the same or inferior states will protect him. The reporter enters into this same mindset when he gets a particularly sensational story, the story becomes whisky and in drinking the story over and over again the reporter becomes intoxicated with it. The reporter disregards authentication, counter-point or opposing views, instead relying on their own superiority and their "ability" to see beyond the facts to protect them.
Just like the drunk, the reporter is more and more often waking up to a hangover, only in the reporters case, the hangover is caused by critics, opposing news agencies and the newly emerging blogosphere to deliver the headache and that sickly feeling. The incorrect news item has a lifespan of a few days at the top of the heap, then the fact-checkers tear it apart, presenting the true facts and the true events in sharp contrast to the drunken reports pushed out to grab headlines.
Unlike the drunk however, there's not an force of police officers out there to catch him and throw him in jail for actions that can be just as dangerous as a drunk driver (sometimes even more so, in the case of the "Koran (not) flushed"). Instead the reporter has a series of enablers who will help him weather his hangover, as series of very responsible and honest looking attorneys and executives who will trot out their "overwhelming faith and confidence in the veracity of the reporting", they will play this enabling dance for as long as need be, wearing down the public and their appetite for the story until such time as everyone has given up on the REAL TRUTH, instead having to settle for a cloud of disinformation, untruths, false reporting, cover-ups and then the inevitable one-sided book deals to promote the idea that the drunken reporter was unfairly attacked for the substance of their "false but accurate" reporting.
It's ridiculous but it's understandable. Why is it understandable? Simple, the mainstream media is made up mainly of morons, simpletons who only find value in the negatives because it sells papers or captures viewers. These simpletons are reinforced by an army of accountants and executives who are so afraid of the shadow of the truth that they embrace the fuzzy facts and encourage sensationalism by condoning the use of "many say" "sources close" and "some say" as ways of getting around having to actually find the truth of the matter. In the modern world, if you can find one person to expound falsehoods or truths publicly, that's great, but if you have a conspiracy theory that you can't back up, it's now become perfectly acceptable to create false documents, create false reports and more, only to attribute them to secret sources, "some say" and other such ambiguous and deceptive sourcing methods.
The media has failed, just as certainly as the drunken fool will fail, but unlike the drunken fool, the media is propped up largely by the vestiges of the media monopoly, which in my opinion can't crumble fast enough. The major networks still hold their edge and the cable media outlets are scooping up the masses that want more, but other forces are beginning to emerge, the power of instant communications helped the media until it fell into the hands of the masses, where the power of the internet is being harnessed by individuals to create a worldview that is tailored to their interests and needs. The spoon feeding of America is over, although in their final throes the MSM is trying to poison the very nation that gave her such freedom, in their last gasps, they are doing whatever they can to disrupt and increasingly peaceful world and create the drunken fools love of chaos.
I suggest that if a major media source were to begin focusing on the realities of the world today from a factual objective viewpoint, they would become immensely successful. If they coupled that factual objective news with financial analysis and education, they'd find their advertisers and profits soar as millions upon millions tuned in to find out what the truth actually was and how they could benefit from seeking and knowing such truth. I suspect that if a major news agency were to shift away from "analysis" and turn more toward "raw facts" they would see a substantial increase in viewership or readership. I suspect that any return to a responsible and OBJECTIVE media would be embraced by those that hold the middle of the American divide (and we all know there are more "consumers" in the middle than on the fringes).
I know at least my TV would be turned more to a network that practiced the ojective reporting of truth and abandoned the false but accurate themes of the MSM today. Which for me would be an improvement because C-Span and C-Span2 are getting mighty boring this time of year.
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So that's it for the rant, now I promised you some links on the 'X'. First we have this audio clip I found at Daily Pundit who doesn't quite vouch for its authenticity, and neither do I but I'll leave it to you to be the judge. The clip comes from an outfit called Team Hollywood who appear to be somewhat partisan in their own right. That doesn't exclude them as a valid source; it only casts doubt on it. After all, one would hardly expect a left leaning group to call up and complain about the 'X', they'd be too busy laughing and cheering CNN, and no one who's "neutral" would necessarily be phoning up CNN either. Listen to the tape and then read the updates at Daily Pundit, you can make your own decisions from there.
Others talking about the 'X' include:
American Daughter - CNN says X was intentional
Brutally Honest - CNN, can we get an explanation for this?
The Political Teen has the video - which looks more like a cross-fade dissolve or lap-dissolve than a "glitch".
Wizbang chimes in with the Team Hollywood audio clip and has links to much more commentary.
Cake or Death - Now that's why I don't watch CNN
Stop the ACLU offers some subliminal images of their own. They also are all over the Team Hollywood tape now.
--Jason
Posted by JasonColeman at November 23, 2005 10:20 AM
