Originally Posted by White Fox

I would agree that the media generally tires only to get people's attention, but none of the examples you have here are deliberate lies that changed the course of history.

Originally Posted by JavaBlack

I don't see much evidence that any of those other things are deliberate lies either.

The trend has been a move toward journalism that is reported with little evidence in order to make deadlines. That tends to mean that a lot of stuff is untrue.. but it's not so much lied about as reported on weak facts.

And for politician preferences, the media only amplify the charisma or lack there of. Because people usually get a visual medium as their primary source, charisma carries more and more weight... It's kind of sad.
Clinton (name recognition) and Obama (charisma) beat out Biden, Richardson... and even Edwards (who has both name recognition and charisma... but apparently not enough) largely due to the effects of mass visual media.

But I don't believe anyone in the media lied to make that so. The media overcoverage of them was a reaction to their popularity based on early impressions.
First impressions are also becoming more and more determiners of success.

Originally Posted by White Fox

Hey, ever been to Britain or watched British news?

Unbiased stuff is boring as hell.

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Originally Posted by superdude17*

f0ca1 refuses to erase my name from his signature....I believe that b/c I am a member, if I ask for him to remove it, he should. Of course, most normal and sympathetic individuals would have enough common courtesy to respect what other members have asked, but f0ca1 has again and again denied my attempts.

Originally Posted by ProfessorChomsky

Back to the business at hand. I outright dismiss any argument that it is the people’s fault for wanting info-tainment. Ethical journalism needs to still exist, and any corporation that spins, mis-quotes, takes out of context, or outright lies should be forced by the FCC or an equivalent body to correct those mistakes quickly, or face 7 digit fines and/or suspension/loss of license. I agree that on topics like the economy which is open to interpretation these rules don’t apply, but for the vast majority of what is in the news media these rules would work. There is no reason Bill O’Reily, Ann Coulter, or Chris Matthews should be allowed to pass off twisted, selective information as fact and call it news.

Originally Posted by ProfessorChomsky

My biggest beef with the whole media situation today is that in a democracy, the media is the ONLY thing that keeps it healthy. That’s the very reason why so many of our countries have allotted special powers and protections to them… unfortunately the one thing they left out was protection from the media itself, or rather, corporately controlled media.

It saddens me to see all of the problems in today’s society, and the general lack of education we all have in regard to the issues. It obviously isn’t just the media at fault; it is also our education systems which seem to have evolved into nothing more then a way to educate a good little “employee” and not “productive citizens”. By that I mean, we all learn the basics needed to work in the new capitalist corporate world; reading, writing, math etc, but when it comes to what is important to running an open democracy we are in the dark. If you want to learn the important subjects for this field, like economics, historical interpretation, the law, or politics, you literally need to mortgage the next 10 years of your life to pay for that “higher” education that the more wealthy families get consistently. Obviously on the whole Europe is better off in this regard with a more socialized University structure that makes me envious, but it could still be far better.

Anyway I digress, back to the media. In a world where we now get most of the needed information to make educated decisions from the media, they have wholly failed us. The worst part is, EVERYONE starts out the same way, not realizing that their local media is incredibly biased, or at least very selective in what they print in order to show you a world view that is wanted by corporations, the owners of the media, who are also the ones who pay for the ads that keep it going and therefore further decide which stories we hear, and how they are told for fear of losing ad revenue. Look at what happened to the Daily Herald in the UK. Some of us eventually get curious and start looking for other perspectives, and it doesn’t take long to realize if you Google the same story in 4 different countries media, you get 4 completely different stories, all of which tell a portion of the truth. The problem is, a large percentage of the population of most countries never does this, and goes on living by the accepted wisdom that has been selectively put before them. That leads to countries whose politicians are elected by the ‘selectively educated’ masses, and nothing ever changes. When someone speaks up, you are labeled a radical, or “bleeding heart liberal” by those very same masses.

Scary world we live in today. One of the worst parts is, even when you realize your local media is biased and begin looking for the “whole truth” you are often bombarded with unreliable “conspiracy theory” “hippie” websites, documentaries, and media that further promotes the idea that anyone questioning the ‘selective education’ is in fact a conspiracy theorist. Without an independent, truly free media, how do you trust anything that is written on any subject? The only way common folk like you or I can now get “the whole truth” is by researching for countless hours on every topic of concern… and that is a task that unfortunately most of us with busy lives, and long hours at the office, simply do not have time for.

To be clear, I am not saying that the media “lies” to us per say. That would be near impossible in today’s society, at least in the long term. What I am saying is, they “promote” the news they want to, and either neglect the rest, or outright suppress it.

I honestly believe that the only way to correct the path our nations seem to be on today is with a healthy, independent media. The question is, how do you create a healthy independent media that could compete with a corporately funded one?

Any ideas?