Our broken media
If you read him regularly, he doesn't really say anything you probably haven't heard in this post, but Jay Rosen gets the quote of the day for this graf:
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
Political journalism should help us get our bearings in a world of confusing claims and counter-claims. But instead we have savviness, the dialect of insiders bringing us into their games. Nothing is more characteristic of the savvy style than statements like “in politics, perception is reality.” Doesn’t that statement make you mad? Whenever I hear it, I want to interrupt and say, “No, no, no. You have it wrong. In politics, perception isn’t reality. Reality is reality!”Me. I don't stop myself from saying it. I harangue the media about it as often as I can. I don't care if I sound like a lunatic because it's true. In these times, we could certainly more of that kind of lunacy.
But then I stop myself. Because I realize I sound like a lunatic.
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:21 PM
5 Comments:
I won't bring up poor, worn out McLuhan, but reality is an archaic concept. We're back to an almost prehistoric level of voices in the head; rumors, fables and fantasies that spread like the Black Death. Witches (liberals) are everywhere for the burning and our ears are filled with the shouts of the gleefully oppressed.
Political 'journalism' is good for something, it's sending reality based readers to the internets where they can still find it. I'm still aghast at a lead to a CNN article;
'Trying to avoid criticism the President cut short his vacation...'
Complete fiction, assumes knowledge of motivation... fail.
The only thing that pisses me more than the media assigning motivation to the President, is when they claim to be speaking "for most Americans." As if they even associate with the little peeps anymore than the political class does. They have no idea what people really think.
what the media reports as the p.o.v. of all of us is usually the result of the press releases they've been sent by the orgs that depend on them to appear to be reality.
I think it's partly that, and partly that they live in their own bubble and are convinced that what happens within their limited sphere of contact with "teh little people" actually reflects the "real world."
Maybe we can call it Applebee's salad bar syndrome.
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