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The Media Conspiracy... Money

Hello Friends:

I have deceided to post a comment I sent to "Grumpy Old Man" about one of his excellent posts. Unfortunately his comments section is acting up and not allowing comments, so I thought I would post it here instead. The area in italics is the original essay he displayed. My comments follow.

A cultural shift

There's been a cultural shift in my lifetime. People come home and watch the TV news, which focuses on sensational and violent crimes committed by individuals (murders, kidnappings, arson, armed robbery) and virtually ignores crimes committed by corporations (pollution, safety violations, embezzlement), which impact many more lives. Corporate media will never mention any topic that will offend a sponsor, i.e., a corporation, possibly one that committed the crime, possibly the same corporation that owns the network. (Can you say "Conflict of interest?") Stories that show people protesting the status quo are downplayed and short-lived, and usually don't even tell the story. Most protests are never even shown. Stories that show people supporting the status quo are repeated ad nauseam. People are more afraid of violent crime than ever before, even though rates of violent crime are the lowest they've been in years.

People are easily manipulated when they live in fear.

Click here to read the entire essay.

I think your repost of the essay about the news is VERY WELL FOUNDED. It is a true culture of fear that we live in.... what fills most peoples minds are things about murders, rapes, sexual abuse.... from the news... and from all those damnable talkshows like Oprah, Phil, Sally Jesse etc. They use the fear and titilation of murder, abuse, infidelity to garner ratings because it is the easiest way to capture our attention. Yet, the rate of these problems (although not as low as we might like) are extraordinarly low. A case in point... the sex abuse scandal in the US Roman Catholic Clergy. If you were to look at the statistics.... what you find is that the rate of sexual abuse in the RCC clergy is THE SAME as it is in the rest of society.... a very, very miniscule fractional percentage. If we were to pull out the data for Lutheran ministers the rate would be the same. If were to pull out the data for Jewish Rabbi's the data would be the same. Even if we were to pull out the data for the "holier than thou" Southern Baptist preachers, the rate would be the same.

The point is the media wanted a "sexy, captivating, controversey" to rile up people's emotions about. And because their is already still an anti-catholic bias in many parts of our country, and further still because being anti-catholic is one of the few ways people are still allowed to act bigoted about without negative repercussions, the media created a SCANDAL!!!!! Low and behold their ratings improved, they made more money, and the people were generally happy because people like personal scandal that is not happening to them.

At the other extreme, scandals such as what the gas companies do(gouge us dry), the chemical companies do (pollute us until we are sick or die), what the goverment does (lie and manipluate us to vote against our nation's best interests)..... ARE NOT as widely covered by the media.... BECAUSE:

1. They are not as "sexy and provocative"
2. They affect a WIDE RANGE OF PEOPLE and not just a small cluster (like the sex abuse scandal, Michael Jackson's Trial, etc)...if too many people are affected, then too many of them will turn off the news... because they lose that feeling of superiority (it didn't happen to me) and start to fear it could be something that is happening to them.
3. They cause introspection and thinking in people.... which the media and government damn well DO NOT WANT US TO DO.

They would prefer us to continue to be nonsense consuming, quiet little
mice who follow the lead of those in power.

It is bullsh*t and it infuriates me.

PipeTobacco