Currently viewing the tag: "Media"

I’ll Say It Until I’m Blue In The Face

by Metavirus on 17 April 2013
As we all know by now, you’re as likely to be injured in a terrorist attack as much as we are likely to ever suffer an appropriate reaction to a mass killing after 9/11. Just sayin’.
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Step Right Up! It Cures Gout, It Cures Scurvy, It Even Cures CANCER!

by Metavirus on 29 March 2013

I thought TIME sank to a new low with its cover story claiming that cancer is now curable, but now they’ve really jumped the shark:

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(via)

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Um, News Flash: The NRA Is An Industry Lobbying Organization Dedicated To Selling More Guns

by Metavirus on 21 December 2012
Just a random thought that seems surprisingly absent from a lot of the discussion surrounding the NRA lately:  They are a lobbying organization dedicated to increasing the profits of their members, i.e., gun manufacturers, by selling more guns. I know, it seems elementary, but it amazes me that people/journalists don’t take what comes out of the NRA piehole with the same grain of salt that they normally use when evaluating statements from, say, Big Tobacco. Drumming up paranoid fantasies of the coming race wars among insane white reactionaries?  – Sells more guns. Calling for a couple of armed guards in every school in the country? — Sells more guns. Suggesting that we repeal gun-free school laws? — Sells more guns. It’s pretty simple folks. We need to bear in mind that they’re not some dispassionate think tank that has studiously evaluated the issues surrounding gun violence and come to a set of reasoned, deliberative conclusions. They’re out to sell more guns – no matter the cost.
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Everything New is Old is New Again

by Matmos on 10 December 2012

I’m fairly sure years’n'years ago I read a cyberpunk story describing/based on reporter-for-hire services; perhaps Mona Lisa Overdrive? Seems relevant to Sully’s current musings on the fate of the media industry. Cyberpunk had the current media situation pegged; not least, Max Headroom.

Max Headroom link via Disinformation; video embed via the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. (Do have patience through the Max Headroom video clip at the start; the rest of the presentation is quite interesting).

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Same Song, Different Band

by Matmos on 9 December 2012

As Lev mentioned in the recent past, sometimes the Obama administration does stuff — or at least makes noises about doing stuff — that seems completely unconscionable on the face of it. Bill Moyers’ recent interview with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dealt with another item: a pending FCC proposal to change restrictions on media ownership.

From Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders’ letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski dated 30 November 2012:

Despite the extremely low levels of female and minority ownership, we understand the FCC is again considering relaxation of its cross-ownership rules, which include limits on ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market. The changes appear to be very similar to the rules changes that former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin proposed in 2007 and that the public, the Senate, and a federal appeals court resoundingly rejected.

Senator Sanders’ letter via savetheinternet.com; H/T Leahy, Sanders challenge FCC’s media consolidation proposal on the Barre Montpelier Times-Argus.

In a separate interview, Moyers talked with CEO of Free Press, Craig Aaron:

Moyers: Why the rush? Aaron: I have no idea, to be honest, Bill. These are rules that they have tried to push through in the past, back in 2003, again in 2007, and it has failed at every turn. It simply has not gone through. It’s been thrown out by the courts, rejected by Congress, and all of the sudden at the tail end of Obama’s first term, we’re seeing it again. Moyers: But the chairman of the FCC is President Obama’s own appointee, his own choice to head it. Why would the president be wanting to approve a greater concentration of media? Aaron: Well, that’s the $64 million question. Barack Obama as a senator was one of the leading voices against the exact same rules that his FCC chairman is pushing forward now. He wrote op-eds, he co-sponsored legislation to throw out these exact same rules, legislation that passed in the Senate. And yet, his own FCC chairman, his appointee, is suddenly in a huge rush to get this deal done, and if these reports are to be believed, they’re going to try and do this by Christmas, before the end of the year.

Moyers’ Aaron interview via Free Press — along with an additional article, FCC Spin vs. Fact.

Senator Sanders’ homepage has posted his and Senator Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) Thursday press conference on the FCC’s media ownership rules change: they compared and contrasted the current FCC board trying to sneak the change in under the radar with the much more public efforts to do basically the same thing during Bush administration in 2007.

According to Senator Cantwell, the FCC postponed ruling until after the new year.

Not to get all Firebagger or anything, but reading/watching all this just gives me a raging case of the what-the-hells-Mr.-President. Senator Sanders has a petition available on his site “to tell FCC Chairman Julius Genaschowski [sic] to protect media diversity.” Free Press has another.

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OMGz! Romney/Ryan LIED About The Impact Of Their Medicare Plan!? (faint)

by Metavirus on 15 October 2012
Anyone think this will generate more than a relatively minor chirp amongst our esteemed pundit class?
A new study [] by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation confirms [that] the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan would result in six out of ten seniors paying substantially more for the same Medicare benefits they receive today.
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Why Fact Checking Doesn’t Do Much Good

by Metavirus on 30 August 2012
This election cycle yet again reminds me of how useless fact-checking really is.  It’s simple:
  1. GOP pol spreads a lie; and people listen.
  2. Fancy fact-checker fact-checks; and none of the “low information voters” who matter pay attention.
  3. Success.
If a fact-checker fact-checks in the middle of a forest with no one around to see him fact-check, did he really in fact fact-check?
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