Tell me, what do you think about the news? How much do you trust the newscaster? I’d bet you trust him/her a lot. I mean, they’re not going to lie to you; “Baby trapped in building!” when it never happened. But what if it’s not a matter of out and out lying as it is about deception, misrepresentation, and spin.
Gasp! I know. For any of you who know me personally this sounds shocking because I love the news. I watch the news every day- CNN. Minimum I’ll watch Wolf Blitzer’s Situation room and my favorite, Anderson Cooper 360. I don’t watch CNN because I agree with their views, it’s in fact because I disagree with them. I’ll explain that later.
It would be a nice thought (also read naive) to assume that each news station only wanted to give us the cold hard facts and let us, the viewer, decide how we feel about the story. Back in the olden days when things were simpler, I bet news anchors did just that- they reported the news. However, even then I’m sure the cultural morality and populist views colored the stories. After all, how hard it is to explain the day to day events of the presidential election without showing some bias. Fast forward to the present and any façade of ‘fair and balanced’ (the motto of Fox News) is long gone.
New stations are not run by the government, but by business interests. They want the maximum number of people to watch their shows so that their commercials and advertisers pay big bucks. Ratings and the bottom line. It’s not a charity, it’s a business with the same motivations as any other corporation: churn a profit. I know my blog isn’t a news station, but i still get ratings by way of ‘hits’ or number of people who visit my site because of a particular story. I write about a lot of stuff that matters to virtually no one but myself- it’s like a journal entry. But the stories that get the biggest number of hits (highest ratings) are when I talked about Obama v. McCain back in February, and when I wrote an article on the FLDS polygamy scandal in the heat of it. Those stories are popular, so I drew in a lot of people to my site. If I advertised here and got paid correlated to how many people come, it would be very tempting to cater to cover what is popular (not what is right). You may already know that the liberal CNN was founded by Ted Turner. A brisk glance at Wikipedia is all that is necessary for a cursory look at his stances. He’s called a philanthropist.
As a philanthropist, he is well known for his $1 billion gift to support UN causes, which created The United Nations Foundation, a public charity that builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN through advocacy, public outreach, and grant making. Turner serves as the Chairman of the board of directors for the foundation….He also created the environmental education/action animated series.
So. Knowing nothing more about CNN than that the founder made the show Captain Planet(!!!), how do you guess they present the ever-more-controversial story of global warming? They present it as scientific fact of course. Every once in a while they will mention that some scientists don’t believe it, but usually they quickly dismiss the topic to erect a golden statue of Al Gore, or they present a straw-man argument against global warming and then CRUSH it with their statistics. See, the problem with the ’science’ of human produced global
warming is that there are eminent climatologists on both sides of the isle presenting very well thought out hard research that produce conflicting results. The news station just has to endorse one side over the other and give it much more air time. According to Wikipedia, “Ted Turner once called observers of Ash Wednesday “Jesus freaks”, (though he soon after apologized) referred to Christianity as “a religion for losers” and dubbed abortion opponents “bozos.” So a story on CNN that discusses abortion right- which agenda is it going to push? Pro-choice or pro-life? Don’t get me wrong, if I owned a news station it would be spinning so hard my way your head would spin. Every day on the show Anderson Cooper (First order of business once My News Network, MNN, is legalized is steal Cooper), would hit a pinata of Al Gore. Next he’d explain to the audience why human-caused global warming is the most inflated and exaggerated problem ever, then we’d cut to a special on ANWAR and why we should drill there as well as off the coast of California (screw you hippies! I want that oil), and why the government of the state of California should cut all funding to the city of Berkley. It would be a fantastic show. Blow Bill O’ Rilley out of the water. So I’m not making a judgment call on Ted Turner, I’d do it in a heart beat. I’m just proving a point that today’s news stories are not run by altruism or public interest, but self interest.
In my current read, Confessions, I read last night about one time when John Kroger (Assistant United States Attorney in New York City) had to pick a jury. The judge asked questions of potential jurors and the defense attorney and prosecutor (Kroger) would listen to the answers and can kick off anyone they don’t like. One of the questions Judge Trager always asked is what newspaper the juror reads on a regular basis. Kroger says,
“…if Trager asks about newspapers, pay close attention. You want readers of the New York Post, the simplistic conservative tabloid. If a juror reads the New York Times, she is probably a thoughtful liberal, and you want to boot her off the panel. “
I thought this was funny but true. On campus they give out the New York Times for free and I’ve picked it up once or twice. Very well articulated. Intellectually stimulating. Liberal garbage. I do not read the NYT on principle. The stances they take are so far left it makes me sick. The last article I read wasn’t the most liberal, but for a conservative LDS member it was the last straw. It was a very well written article defending why parents should let children watch movies that are too grown up for them– PG-13 for children and R for older children. The argument is that it helps the child to develop and learn to be an adult. It’s like in school, you’re continually taught what you don’t know so that as time passes it’ll make more and more sense to you. Apparently, showing children rated R movies will be a real world learning experience. HA! Garbage. Liberals don’t care about morals, principles, or family values (exaggeration). So I don’t read it on principle.
I’ll conclude on a personal note. As I said in the beginning, I watch CNN because I disagree with it. See, I’m very much conservative. My parents are, but for myself I’ve looked at the views of liberals and conservatives and my own values line up much more with the ‘conservative view’. I watch CNN to balance my views. The way I see it, if I watch Fox News all day I’ll be so inbred republican that I’ll think Obama is Satan incarnate based simply on what O’ Rilley tells me. I’d rather watch a show that leans left, combine that with my predisposition to lean right and decide for myself. For example: Obama wants to hike the capital gains tax. I think that’s about the worst idea I’ve heard out of his mouth. Yes, I’m a capitalist, welcome to America. I want to watch a show that defends his views and explains them for me. CNN is just the station for that, they have a platinum statue of B. Hussein Obama right next to that gold one of Gore. Once the commentators explain his view of why it would be in the nations interest to raise the capital gains tax, I usually go ‘huh. I never thought of it that way, that is a good point’. After careful consideration, I usually continue to continue with my original hunch (by the way, raising capital gains taxes is indeed a bad idea) but am now able to see why he believes it’s a good idea even when it’s flawed. I believe people should always be given a chance to explain themselves. It is simply illogical for me to learn about Obama’s ideas from Bill O’ Rilley. I may be interested in his opinions, maybe Bill or Rush’s rant on why Obama’s a fool will bring up a conservative point I hadn’t thought about, but until I hear Obama and his cronies (CNN) explain his side, I will try and reserve final judgment. It would be like asking a southern Baptist about what Mormon’s believe. Just doesn’t work. If you want to know what a Mormon believes, ASK ONE!!! You’d be shocked when it’s not at all what the other group presents. I also don’t watch Fox because when I flip from Fox News to CNN and back comparing them, CNN is just much better done. It’s a very weak reason, but it’s true- Fox News graphics look like it was done in the 80s while CNN has cutting edge effects and is much more pleasing to watch.
P.s. Government run news stations (aka unbiased giggle) are even worse. Even if the news were run by the government, who’s to say it would be any less biased?! I’m sure the pro-government spin would be absurd. The only kernal of hope I’d have for that system is when we have elected officials split between Rep. and Dem. In which case it would be a constant fight over how to spin the issues this week.
Filed under: POLITICS
