Why Americans are so uninformed
Not sure if this says more about the media, or the markets.
It's easy to blame Time for dumbing down the public but they're in the thankless business of selling magazines. I'm not sure who reads Time in the paper version these days but my anecdotal experience is far too few Americans care about world politics anymore. Time's US cover stories reflect what they think the US market will buy. I'm not sure they're wrong.
Each week, TIME Magazine designs covers for four markets: the U.S., Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. Often, America's cover is quite, well – different. This week offers a stark example. [...]Click over to see more.
This is not an isolated incident, for perusing TIME's covers reveals countless examples of the publication tempting the world with critical events, ideas or figures, while dangling before Americans the chance to indulge in trite self-absorption.
It's easy to blame Time for dumbing down the public but they're in the thankless business of selling magazines. I'm not sure who reads Time in the paper version these days but my anecdotal experience is far too few Americans care about world politics anymore. Time's US cover stories reflect what they think the US market will buy. I'm not sure they're wrong.
Labels: declining America, Media, World politics
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:16 PM
8 Comments:
Yes, that cover is not an isolated incident and I think you're right that America doesn't care. Maybe it's got something to do with the years of outrage/calamity/scandal mongering. Maybe it's the feeling that there's nothing we can do about anything, the feeling that everything is getting worse.
This is a country that simply and denies facts, not matter how scientifically persuasive, because we simply don't want to think about it.
Too hard to think about that today, we'll think about that tomorrow. Roger Waters was right, we're becoming amused to death.
Have you ever watched CNN International? It's the same thing, a completely different news station. I think it's embarrassing.
I hear CNNi is a good news station. Sadly, I don't have cable so haven't seen it.
Actually, I prefer the network nightly news. CNN, like all of the 24 hour drive through news vendors give you one or two stories a day and chew them to death while important things may or may not make it to the 'crawl' Panic mongering, sensationalism and endless speculative rambling is what you get.
BBC is better and so is Public Television, but I prefer to read.
BBC is still gratefully a pretty good station but I also read most of my news.
The Fourth Estate is a fucking shambles.
No argument there but they're not solely to blame. There is an element of "giving the people what they want" that drives the dysfunction.
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