[ExI] the myth of the US "liberal media"

[Kelly Anderson]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 7:08 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9 July 2011 10:04, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The best the real world can achieve is a balance between the two, like the BBC.

Bill, I don't think that is the best we can achieve... It is better
than the two alternatives you suggested, so you're not wrong. It's
just that I think we can do better than mass media altogether.

> A balance between two evils in real world is not even a second best.

Balance is good, but not best. When I mixed all my paints together,
all I got was mud. Let's go find a new color!

> The prob today, however, is mainly IMHO self-censorship. In the United
> States the First Amendment is already a good starting point, in legal
> terms.

I totally, 100% agree here! The problem isn't so much that CBS itself
is liberal, or that FOX itself is conservative, but that they hire
liberal and conservative people because they are the kind of people
who would be conservative there. Take for example Glenn Beck... who
started his television career at CNN, a liberal leaning channel. It
did not take long for FOX to see that he was a conservative star, and
he naturally migrated there. It's just the gradient magnetism that
attracted him away from liberals towards a more like minded place.
When Beck went from CNN to FOX, it made CNN more liberal, and it made
FOX more conservative. Separating oil and water, so to speak.

This kind of separation is happening more and more these days because
people want to hear stuff that supports their world view. With FOX's
ratings, a lot of people must have that world view.

> If on the other hand entities controlling *mass* media not only serve
> their own corporate interest, but are also in the business of
> complying with intellectual terrorism requirements *and* of pleasing
> the establishment which serves them in anything which be not in direct
> contrast with said corporate interest, one cannot really expect
> subversive opinions to be submitted to their public.

Agreed. Probably one of the best counters to this we have today is
youtube. Every now and again someone in a crowd in Tunisia posts
something to youtube that changes the world as we know it. This
consumer broadcasting is probably a big part of the future of news. If
everyone is a broadcaster, then you are sure to have a good cross
section of ideas.

Someone today could put together a news cast built up of just the
youtube videos posted today that supported a particular interest or
point of view. Commentary mixed freely with facts. You don't have the
professional fact checked news that you get from NBC, but just how
important is that in today's world? Very few people, I would guess
trust what they see on ABC or FOX, let alone what they see on youtube
without doing their own fact checking. It's a side effect of the
Internet that people have become naturally more suspicious of the
sources of their information. I think that is a GOOD THING. Especially
when that person lives in a country with state controlled mass media
(e.g. China) and their only source of real news is the Internet.

> As Ezra Pound used to say "freedom of speech without freedom of radio
> speech is nothing".

Or Internet free speech... :-)

> We can just be happy that the Net exists, but of course background
> noise takes there the place of active censorship.

The signal to noise ratio on the Internet is indeed very high.
Fortunately, we have many modalities of filters such as this mailing
list and thousands like it to help reduce the noise and get to the
vital information. Some people like Facebook filters, and that's OK.
Some like web pages or youtube channels or whatever... the point is
that you can be your own network now. You SHOULD be your own network.
It's the only way to get past the propaganda from all sides.

The thing I like most about this list, and why it's part of my
network, is that here there is a group of people who can disagree
without being disagreeable. There aren't many groups with the level of
political diversity we have here from near communists, to anarchists.
That's pretty special. I'm glad you guys are part of my personal
network of news.

-Kelly