Why Facts No Longer Matter

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it's not damned if you do damned if you don't, because there is a work around. Take everything with a grain of salt, have multiple sources, and research everything for confirmation. Research with only one source is garbage. Garbage. And if you want reporting on your own country, and want to make sure it's clear of government influence, look outside. Any news you'll find will still have it's agenda, which may be pro-your-government, but it's better than meekly accepting government approved news.

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Byte, if this article teaches us anything, it's that people need to have a handle on their own biases - and if they don't, it doesn't matter how widely they research (though I'm all for that). For example in your post above:

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but it's better than meekly accepting government approved news.

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It's an unsubstantiated claim to say the BBC is 'government approved', and it's contrary to what people here have told you. You appear to have jumped to a conclusion based not on facts, but a worldview that government input in anything is to be deemed malign and towards the goal of controlling people.

Government funding is not sufficient proof of government control, or even influence. So I dispute the evidence (currently lacking) that the British government controls the BBC - I also dispute the theory that it could, if it tried. There are historical examples of the BBC coming into conflict with the sitting government.

Wikipedia calls the BBC an 'autonomous public service broadcaster': http://www.fireflyfans.net/replymsg.asp?b=18&t=44729&m=797119


It's not personal. It's just war.

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Originally posted by KLESST:
Do you really think that the neocons were born in a vacuum. They are a direct result of the win at all cost Clinton democrats. In the end there can be only one.

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BZZZZZT, Wrong Answer.

The NeoCons did start as Democrats, true, but long before Clinton, dude - that shit started with Scoop Jackson, and he had it all laid out, but for reasons unknown chose to abandon that path, and because his own documents were so terribly incriminating as potential evidence of pre-meditation, when those fuckheads rose to power they had the alphabet goons seize and retroactively classify all of his papers related to that.

Kind of silly, since you cannot make people UN-see something they've already read, but they damn sure didn't want to leave evidence that there was a longstanding plan to do everything they did - especially when they never got to finish it, and the next steps were some really horrific shit, but then, Ollie North spilled those beans (Rex-84) anyway, so it's not any great secret they were planning to turn our country into a militarized facism from the very start, and didn't much care which party they used to do it.

And if you REALLY wanna trace it back, and to the same people, or rather the same families, that hearkens all the way back to The Business Plot and the idea amongst the financial and corporate elite that fascism is the greatest thing since sliced bread, an idea that had a hell of a lot more traction back in 1933 when the inevitable results of it weren't as clear as they are now.

And you can keep right on goin all the back to Alexander Hamilton and his little pack of cronies pining for a New American Aristocracy....

As a rule, politicians, they just wanna change which hand holds the leash (to their own), and not a one of em ever wants to cut it.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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It's an unsubstantiated claim to say the BBC is 'government approved', and it's contrary to what people here have told you.

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Contrary to what YOU have told me, and only just now. No one else here has been discussing the BBC in this sense, I just mentioned them in the sense that they don't have American propaganda over Israel. But they more than likely are a source of British propaganda.

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You appear to have jumped to a conclusion based not on facts, but a worldview that government input in anything is to be deemed malign and towards the goal of controlling people.

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Automatically malignant? No. Intended to control people and what information they receive? Um, that's what propaganda IS. And how else is propaganda delivered, if not via the news to the public that the government, special interests, and industry is attempting to target? This isn't a jump to a conclusion, this is pretty well established with historical precedence.

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Government funding is not sufficient proof of government control, or even influence. So I dispute the evidence (currently lacking) that the British government controls the BBC - I also dispute the theory that it could, if it tried. There are historical examples of the BBC coming into conflict with the sitting government.

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...Uh... You don't think government funding anything doesn't give the government input in the end product? When that funding could be shut off at any time if something is reported that the government doesn't like? If an entity has money invested, they're a stakeholder. If they're a stakeholder, it's actually illegal to ignore the input from your stakeholder.

There is no good reason to be loyal to just one news station, and plenty of consequences. Heck, I'd even be wary of your own local news and your national news. Like I said, it's probably best to get that from an outside source.

The BBC may not have government funding like the ABC Magon's talking about, but even then there are other ways to control the media. used to be journalists generate the news. Now it's the government generates the news, and the journalists play nice or get cut off. That is if they aren't interested in furthering whatever agenda the government puts out, which, if they are, then they become pretty blatant mouthpieces for the government.

There is absolutely government influence in news media, and you can trace it through money paid and stories broken. It doesn't matter if they "come into conflict with the sitting government" or "represent opposing viewpoints SOMETIMES," if they weren't useful to people with money and power, they wouldn't get near the investment they do, and they wouldn't stay in business.

Like I've been saying, take everything with a grain of salt. And follow the money, know who's funding the message.

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Byte, you're speaking from a very biased American perspective, and applying American cultural mores and views to others who don't necessarily share them.

An institution CAN be both independent and have government funding. PBS and NPR come to mind. They get government funds AND they have pledge drives. And at times they can be downright antagonistic towards whoever is in power, regardless of where the money is, where it comes from, or where it's going.

Also, there are two sides to the "access" game as well. Sure, if you don't play ball, you don't get invited to the parties and the press conferences. That doesn't mean you can't report on them, though, but it DOES mean you're not beholden to anyone about HOW you report on those things, or what issues you pursue. Sometimes there's perceived legitimacy just in being "the outsider" at the insiders' party.

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There is no good reason to be loyal to just one news station, and plenty of consequences. Heck, I'd even be wary of your own local news and your national news. Like I said, it's probably best to get that from an outside source.

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Very true. As I've been pointing out for years, you have to get your "news" from all over, and you have to pay particular attention to what they AREN'T saying, not just what they ARE saying. Look for the stuff that barely gets a mention, and then only in one small story, and that nobody else even takes notice of, and you've probably got the loose thread of the real story. Remember, Watergate didn't get broken because someone saw Nixon break into the DNC HQ!

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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I think there are some big problems with news and how news is reported. I'll speak from my own perspective from my part of the world, although I have seen some bits of American news channels in the past.

There are several issues - firstly that most news is sourced from one or two international news agencies. Investigative journalism a la Watergate is almost a dying art. I say almost because there are some around but not many. None that I can see on commercial networks here and a few on ABC and SBS ( both receive tax funding to one degree or another). Basically a lot of news comes from media releases, often unsubstantiated and unchecked. What we see is another form of advertising - be it for some new wonder drug or the lastest political policy. It can get even worse on some of the commercial channels where basically we served up infortainment - and it's all designed to sell us something in the end.

The second is the sound bytes. I think this leads to a lot of ignorance and misconceptions about events. That's what you get when you sum things up in a sentence or two, what is a very complex situation. Without an understanding of some context - and you usually don't get context in news reporting - you get something quite meaningless, or downright misleading.

As news programs rely on ratings they also choose the most shocking and alarming stories, the ones that hit people betweent he eyes. As such we are treated to a nightly carnage of car accidents, child murders, and natural disasters. No wonder we are all paranoid and think the end is nigh.

The other thing I hate is the adsm slowly wearing away your brain, playing on every fear and anxiety, and repeated over and over again. I swear I can feel my IQ dropping every time I watch commercial tv.

Makes up for a stupid electorate that believes what is sees, cannot annalyse facts, cannot annalyse their own beliefs in any meaningful way. Ah democracy, you gotta love it.

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You appear to have jumped to a conclusion based not on facts, but a worldview that government input in anything is to be deemed malign and towards the goal of controlling people.
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Automatically malignant? No. Intended to control people and what information they receive? Um, that's what propaganda IS.

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Right, here is your jump to a conclusion. When did we establish that the BBC is a propaganda outlet of the British government?

You've made some arguments why you think it likely to be the case, and I've made some arguments why I think it's unlikely to be the case (and I have more). But crucially you have given ZERO evidence of this alleged day-to-day governmental control... (I'd guess you'd have to go back to the 1950s and the Suez crisis to find anything at all)

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There is absolutely government influence in news media, and you can trace it through money paid and stories broken. It doesn't matter if they "come into conflict with the sitting government" or "represent opposing viewpoints SOMETIMES," if they weren't useful to people with money and power, they wouldn't get near the investment they do, and they wouldn't stay in business.

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If you have some evidence or analysis of pervasive government influence over the news media I'd be interested to read it. I imagine there would be some receptiveness on this site. And then we could have a discussion. But until then to me these are just wild conspiratorial claims.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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I think there are some big problems with news and how news is reported. I'll speak from my own perspective from my part of the world, although I have seen some bits of American news channels in the past.

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And that is the entire reason I view WikiLeaks as a good thing. I see WL as a kind of bulletin board, a "job posting" board where Assange and his people can toss up what they've got, and anyone else can then take the info and run with it, investigate it in any way they can, vet the intel, do deep background on the stories. One HOPES for responsible reporting, but really, if we could hope for that, we wouldn't need something like WikiLeaks, would we?

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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http://emediavitals.com/blog/417/worst-idea-rescuing-journalism-rises-
dead

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The basis for his argument that Federal funding is the way to go rests on the idea that government regulation has helped media businesses in the past and the examples of NPR and the BBC. The first point is easily the weakest. He tries to draw a link (or at least mentions sequentially) between newspapers developing geographic monopolies and the Federal regulation of broadcasters. Read for yourself and see if it makes any more sense to you, because I really didn’t get that part. (“The broadcast news industry was deliberately designed to have private owners operating within an elaborate system of public regulation, including requirements that stations cover public issues and expand the range of voices that could be heard.” Yeah, like that’s worked out really well.)

Bollinger then points to NPR and the BBC as success stories of the state-sponsored model. The reason those two models worked is that they were designed to be independent from the start. The BBC actually has its own funding stream and, as anyone who has listened to a pledge drive knows, NPR now gets a very small amount of its funding from the Feds.

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Of course, this is just a blog, commenting on comments made by the President of Columbia University, but he's not wrong a bout the BBC getting government funding.

Here's one from the Times, again, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, so grain of salt again, HE has an agenda as well...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/
article6814178.ece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC

It's an independently funded corporation...

Yet it's board of governors is appointed by ministers of the government and the queen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#Finance

Household licenses are still the largest financer of the BBC, but government financing and Corporate financing of course play their role. The average household has less capita than governments or corporations, so much like in America it's not unreasonable for me to say that these probably get a large say so in the BBC, as compared to the public, which doesn't have the money to throw at anything or the organization to be particularly outspoken. The public tends to be a sponge, accepting what they are told, rather than researching inaccuracies or mistruths and speaking out against them.

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