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The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel. ~ Horace Walpole…

The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel. ~ Horace Walpole…

Where I worked once they brought in a writing coach to teach us how to write reports. She harped on what she called a “fog index” – it was supposedly an indicator of how easy/hard it was to understand the writing. Mine was consistently high (hard). I did a little digging and found that this index represented the grade level of the reader – she wanted it below 10. I balked – pointed out that my audience should be able to read at a level of 16-20.

Newspapers target about 8 or less. Television even lower. This all represents more of the dumbing down of the public.

It still feeds off ratings, whether it’s Pox, CNN or CBS. The ratings determine the ad prices, and the ad prices determine the profitability. You don’t have to be a slave to big media; Cox channel 204 is BBC, and a host of others, up to and including including an English edition of Al Jazeera are available online. Read it all, and somewhere between the various lines you’ll find the truth. Pointedly don’t watch what isn’t and they’ll get the message right in their bottom line!

Well, that’s always the ultimate criterion, but they specific reason is that the other networks “were waving the flag at every opportunity,” and Donahue had the nerve not to fall into lockstep.

http://www.fair.org/activism/savage-donahue.html

And we think it can’t happen here. Ha! It did.

Mr.C, is of course, correct (and the DTV issue blackout, disturbing enough on its own, serves to remind of us other chilling things left unreported–I know numerous people who know nothing about either the “torture meeting” or the paid-off “consultants.”

By the way: in my youth, the Tulsa CBS affiliate had a reporter who was, basically, a moron. He best claim to infamy: a “special investigation” on UFOs which, if I recall correctly, uncritically parroted the claims of the UFO cult industry (something the History channel, unfortunately, has also done recenrly).

About 7 years later, I saw him on as an anchor on CNN Headline News. A pleasant voice, a good delivery, nice hair. Hey, what’s not to like?

Balony.

The company execs care about one thing – profitability. Period. They’d broadcast Lenin himself, from the grave, spouting the Communist International creed, if it would get sufficient ratings and make a tidy profit. They fired Donahue, I have no doubt, because they thought other programming was more profitable.

Fax broadcasts it’s “bias” (no more than the rest, just the other way) because the saw a niche for it that would be profitable. And they were right (pun sorta intended).

In the private sector, profit always wins out over ideology.

And the LAST agency that should control media is gov’t. Gov’t money ALWAYS brings gov’t control. You have more faith in gov’t than I do; I have nearly none, no matter which party holds the White House &/or Congress. If it can be corrupted, gov’t will corrupt it. It’s fundamental human nature.

I disagree. A cable channel brought Phil Donough back a few years ago, and then cancelled him.

Bad ratings? Not at all. He was too liberal for the company execs.

Meanwhile, Fox News is run by the Reagan-Bush Smear Master, Roger Ailes, and has as its paid shills his younger disciple, the excerable and odious KKKarl Rove.

It’s not what we watch. It’s what they let us watch.

Yes, gov’t subsidized news agencies that get their money no matter what kind of stories they run–the BBC is a perfect example.

When you want to find out about the massive corruption in Iraq, for example, the only place you can find it is the foreign press.

The problem is the system itself, “news as a commodity to be sold,” rather than the way the press chooses to do its job.

Until news is no longer produced by for-profit corporations run to serve the needs of corporate advertisers, we will continue to get the crap that we get . . .”

It’s just easier to blame someone, anyone, else.

“…an old guy who still ran the linotype. That guy could SPELL anything.”

Ain’t it the truth?!

Mumblety-mumblety years ago I was a paper bow, and while waiting for our papers to come out of the press, I got to know this old guy who ran the linotype.

It was the absolute blue-collar job. He never ever admitted that he processes any of the stories and editorials he’d type-set. He used to talk about the day AP style decided it was one word: “Vietnam” rather than “Viet Nam.”

It’s kinda like the guy who know A above Middle C is exactly 440 cycles-per-second, but can’t read music.

I was a victim of Phonics. In 2nd grade I handed in a test with the header: “Fonix.” Three days’ detention.

My Dad was just the opposite. He could spell anything. He seemed to sense whether it was a word based on the Greek or the Latin or the Sanskrit… and applied the language rules’s to correctly spell the English version.

He tried to tutor me but it was like explaining Bach to an Airedale. I was impressed by the lesson but just couldn’t get it.

The government? No WAY!

Let them be for profit, its the American people who are buying the crap.

“All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.”
H. L. Mencken

More of his quotes:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/H._L._Mencken/