News Media
It doesn't seem to matter what certain protected businesses do, they know they can count on a bailout. For an example we've already noted: General Motors (GM). Like certain other manufacturers, it produced millions upon millions of junk cars. It was willful in its disdain for the consumer. But it skated clear, dumped a bunch of obligations, and poked its ugly head up again, thanks to government. It is legally a different company, but with mostly the same old gang of idiots at the helm, so what's changed?
Quick & Dirty Summarynewspapers don't provide news
more shameless moochers at the public trough
problems of monopolistic control
Struggle
The once-important newspaper business is struggling in ingenious ways to survive, and has sought "government relief," like the automakers, but is ultimately doomed. A media that would rather go out of business than tell the truth.
So that, at least, is the good news. It is pleasant to see that newspapers and most print magazines will go the way of the dodo, except for giveaways (and even those seem to be waning — I'm seeing fewer and fewer littering the streets and floors of the train and bus). It is all just part of normal business life cycles, though, of course, all businesses that go through the death part of the cycle do so kicking and screaming. They're so tenacious, it's a surprise we don't see horse-drawn buggy makers still mewling for handouts because cars are becoming so popular.
All the major papers have circulation fall impressively year-to-year. New York Times is looking to lease out several floors of its New York City office building to raise money.
What will likely happen is that these organizations will troll around and buy up promising Internet sites with many readers — the same sites they're trying to discredit by labeling "fake news," to have a continued outlet for their propaganda. No need to wait: they're already doing just that, then watering down the content to the same pap they were pushing before.
Another old trick is to loosen the shackles a bit and report honestly once in a while to try to recover their readership by signaling their truthy virtue. And of course, appealing to prurient interests with salacious tales always perks up the buying public.
The big scary is down the road: They will claim to be vital public interests. And, again, out come the grovelling hands for the big bailouts. but this time for a real score. Once one gets away with it, it'll go across the board. NYC, LA, San Fran, Chicago, Toronto, Dallas, Montreal, Vegas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Seattle, all the cities with over a million in population, and more. Despite the inevitable bailouts, or because of them, they'll have no incentive to report truth and real news, so they'll continue in the same way they already are: as blatant propaganda, so in the long run, they'll have to fail anyway, perhaps living on only as an online presence in most cases. They also may become cheap enough that they are purchased for a vanity project, by a religious organization or corporate entity.
But those big presses have a lot of overhead, so they'll mostly have to go. It's nice to hope that they will soon be dismantled, sold for scrap. And the world will breathe a sigh of relief.
Why the Hate?
A simple online search reveals the many lies told by official news sources — there are even top ten lists of the biggest frauds. If a witness lies on the stand in a trail, the jury is instructed that it may disregard all of the testimony from that witness. Why doesn't that apply to "official news?"
Or they ignore stories, sins of omission as well as sins of commission. It's difficult to understand what people get out of the news anyway, since there is seldom any background, nor follow-up to stories. This makes "news," not information, but titillation. I'm in favor of the odd titill, but you can't make it a steady diet.
Look: Hinckley, who shot Reagan, the U.S. president, was buddies with the Bush family; Bush Sr.'s son Neil was about to have dinner with Hinckley's brother the same day Reagan was shot. George Bush Sr. was, of course, the VP at the time. The papers covered this briefly and then the story disappeared, with no follow-up! And if that doesn't worry you, you worry me! It's like a UFO landing on Trafalgar Square and Klattu coming out, and the papers running with, "Tourists Still Visiting Trafalgar," and not a further peep.
Since it is profitable to lie, and there is no profit in the truth, the lie has become institutionalized. A long and complex process has been applied, to centralize and monopolize the news, and make it feasible to turn it into pure nonsense and propaganda, something that could never happen in a "free market" system. Through constant repetition, almost everyone has been brainwashed and bamboozled into a false view of reality.
Monopoly Control
It's an open secret that so-called "news"papers are almost all owned by one of six companies, and garner their information from two sources: Thompson-Reuters (Reuters) and Associated Press (AP). Besides that, newspaper honchos are owners of AP, and probably Reuters, too, so it's all intertwined. For example, Michael Golden of the New York Times Co. (NYT) is on the board of directors of AP. There's no "independent" aspect; it's all a crony setup.
Now, they say there are two sources, but, were that true, would not the two diverge, disagree or conflict in some cases? Never happened. It's blatant that even the "two sources" baloney is a fairy tale. If you're going to lie and keep your story straight, you can only have one single source for all "news."
The Purpose
The papers are there to lead you down dead ends, lie and obfuscate, but it isn't usually in a blatant way, or it didn't seem to be before. A few tricks:
- reveal, after the fact, something they wanted concealed but that has already leaked out, and take credit for the revelation (then they can commandeer the handling of the story)
- similarly, they can "leak" by telling a few truths to lessen the potential shock if something big does manage to escape their control, so they can pretend to be perfectly honest, occasionally
- reveal part of the truth, and follow that down fruitless paths
- distract: talk about horrors in other countries, or past irrelevancies
- stimulate with sexual references or violence, or other "human interest" cranks, crocks, skanks and pranks (that is, muckraking)
- make people think they are well informed, to suppress curiosity, and make alternative news sources sound like "cranks" or "crackpots"
- make something appear overly complicated, or overly simple
- make up or set up stories altogether, like when Hearst and Pulitzer dragged the U.S. into the Spanish-American war with their yellow journalism, and thereby serve the war machine
- set up "controversy," showing "both sides of the story," (that is, provide a defense for an indefensible position, a way of muddying the waters when a favored person or group is caught with pants down)
- use fear porn to scare people into inaction, complacency or frustration
Once you have set up control of the press, you can use it to influence other industries, do favors for government, push society in a particular direction, push your agenda or political candidate. It's a vast array of mischief at your disposal, so it's no surprise it's come to this.
As its influence wanes, it has to work hard to suppress the truthful information out there. We watch as the legacy news media industry seeks to control the alternative sources of news, leading to an ever-increasing political push to control the Internet.
Of course, we mustn't forget that elements of the news media are often simply CIA owned or controlled, and this is undisputed. Or, it co-opted journalists. There has always been tight control over the news.
I Have to Wonder
Have the papers always been this bad, and we just haven't noticed?
The Telegraph, a big Brit newspaper had, "in tact" for "intact" on its website in a recent article, and "encryted," for "encrypted." So these Bozos can't even run a spell checker on their pathetic attempts at news? They can't even do their alleged jobs at a minimal standard.
The so-called news exposes itself as a sham with its incompetent reporting. And not just incompetent, but fully malicious. It will tell any lie, ignore any real news, to serve its foul agenda.
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