...But if it's out in public for all to see, is it actually corrupt or merely just a plan? Although unlikely in this cynical age, it remains at least theoretically possible that agenda does not necessarily imply a negative.
Whenever political candidates debate it is a serious debate. As opposed to academic debate competitions which are never very serious.
You would have to stretch that idea quite a bit to include Trump. I guess we'll see if you are right very soon...if we survive that long
Antitrust laws must be used to split mass media companies. Chicago Tribune is owner by Tribune Publishing, which owns newspapers in New York, Baltimore and Orlando. Why is Chicago company in a mass media market of another city? Why does AT&T own CNN? I hope eventually this will become a re-election slogan.
Language is a tool and an art. Those who master it manipulate those who don't. Protests or riots? Our reactions to certain words are fairly well known. The media uses that to sell data, politicians use it to get votes. It's nothing new, but it's become the accepted way to do business. I'd call it unethical, but that would assume that we are not capable of recognizing the manipulation. I'd say I'm able to tell what's real from what's BS, but that would suggest I'm not a critical thinker. Ultimately, the blame all this mass manipulation should not fall on media or politicians. We need to not accept trusted sources. We need to accept that relying on our trusted sources opens the door to our manipulation. Is it fake news or news reported using words that manipulate us? Is Trump good or bad? Protests or riots? Do we know the whole truth, or do certain words shut down our critical thinking and trigger emotions?
The behavioral techniques that are being employed by governments and private corporations do not appeal to our reason; they do not seek to persuade us consciously with information and argument. Rather, these techniques change behavior by appealing to our nonrational motivations, our emotional triggers and unconscious biases.” “That research eventually yielded heuristics, or rules of thumb, that have now become well-known shorthand expressions for specific flaws in our intuitive thinking. Some of these seem to be linked by a shared emotional basis: the “endowment effect” (overvaluation of what we already have), “status quo bias” (an emotional preference for maintaining the status quo), and “loss aversion” (the tendency to attribute much more weight to potential losses than potential gains when assessing risk) are all related to an innate conservatism about what we feel we have already invested in.” Quotes taken from this article…. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/invisible-manipulators-of-your-mind?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Trump is a very serious president. Hence all the desperate opposition from the corrupt bipartisan ruling political class in Washington. OTOH, Biden is obviously not a very serious challenger.
Is RT funded by "red states"? PBS/NPR and RT are examples of state-funded media. There should be a warning label on them.
Actually my wife takes it every day..she still swears by it. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers...-MSM-Nutritional-Supplements/zgbs/hpc/3773901
LOL! MSM = Mainstream Media = Fake News = NPR/PBS. The supplement sounds good. NPR/PBS, like RT = State-Funded Media
"It (RT) is registered as an autonomous nonprofit organization funded by the federal budget of Russia through the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation." "Public broadcasting stations (PBS) are funded by a combination of private donations from listeners and viewers, foundations and corporations. Funding for public television comes in roughly equal parts from government (at all levels) and the private sector." "On February 26, 1970, the CPB formed National Public Radio (NPR), a network of public-radio stations. Unlike PBS, NPR produces and distributes programming.[6] On May 31, 2002, CPB, through a first round of funding from a special appropriation, helped public television stations making the transition to digital broadcasting; this was complete by 2009." CPB Board of Directors
Virtually all Americans would probably agree with your assessment of the MSM. Trump would not have beaten 17 Republicans to win the RP nomination if voters had trusted the MSM, and the 'Big Blue Wall' states would still be blue.
The media is not so much corrupt as blinkered, it is a profession which naturally attracts the left leaning (as does education, the arts etc) whilst right wing people go into the military, police, big business etc The internet age is a blessing as it allows the common man to take on and challenge the educated and moneyed elite who either don't realise everyone is not like them or cannot accept it, the Pauline Kael effect.
“Pauline Kael famously commented, after the 1972 Presidential election, ‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.'”
Virtually nobody still trusts the MSM and Fox News is MSM. Of course, now, but not in 2016, most Americans consider Fox News a more reliable source of information than the rest of the MSM, but that is a very low bar.