One Hundred Thirty-Three

Posted on May 13, 2015 by John Swinburn
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One distinctly negative effect of the internet is the fact that the definition of  “news media” is coming apart at the seams. Where does one find “news” versus opinions and active partisanship masquerading as news? In Hot Springs, AR, a “news” outlet is unapologetically right-wing, as in nut-case Tea Party right wing, yet it claims to be fair and honest; even while reporting bigoted opinions as indisputable facts. I’m not suggesting the right-wing corners the market on hijacking the “news” for its own purposes. Left-wing propaganda, too, washes through the media like water through a sponge. I hate it. With a passion.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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6 Responses to One Hundred Thirty-Three

  1. I think. I write. I wish. I wander. says:
    May 14, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    I appreciate as real that phrase, “truth is a statistical value,” yet I excoriate what it says about humankind, I suppose truth is a statistical value. Truth is what we believe it to be. Facts, on the other hand (if not interpreted through a biased lens) help us achieve belief that more closely parallels reality, as opposed to our perception of what reality “ought” to be. Back to my original point, though, the internet gives free reign to everyman to become a journalist, albeit one with no journalistic ethics; and it allows each of us to don the robes of judge and decide cases and then report how we decided, as if clothing is what enables us to speak with authority.

    I like these convoluted conversations, Juan!

  2. jserolf says:
    May 14, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    PBS? Are you referring to the Petroleum Broadcasting Service, of which some critics have dubbed PBS because it’s so largely subsidized by such “houses”?

    And what does resemble“truth”? Was Cronkite (old fatherly fellow) really speaking objectively when he cried reporting JFK’s death? And so was that the sentiment of the nation? Truth takes other forms is what I think I’m pondering with you here.

    Agreed on “hundreds” but the critical reader doesn’t have to read hundreds; there should be a select repertoire of materials of maybe 5 or 6. For example, comparing Colburn Reports and that of O’Reilly – equally laughable, but despairing, too, and so then there must be three others, serious or comical on the net?

    Leadersonfire is partially correct, “[p]eople are pronounced guilty by the media before they are tried in court, but when has that not been the case?

    I seem to recall reading somewhere that Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus was “And what is truth?” To which the accused said, “A changing law?”…. or maybe the other way around (which would make the story even more appealing, anyway).

    The point is that the Jesus (or Socrates for that matter or any of us) has already been judged by media, hence, the truth is that. Right? OJ Simpson eventually got his comeuppance? 😉

    Who spins the truth? I’m really coming to realize that truth is a statistical value. Mark Zukerberg actually knows more of the truth than I do.

  3. John Swinburn says:
    May 14, 2015 at 8:00 am

    Juan, I see the parallels, but I think the hope for more truthful news may be wishful thinking. At some point, we have to trust the news readers to be telling us something that resembles the truth, rather than evaluating a hundred different sources of “news:” and making a determination from among them. Perhaps, though, that’s how we came to depend on NBC, CBS, and ABC? Were there others that were shunted aside for one reason or another? The only news source I really trust, and I have to admit my trust is on shaky grounds, is PBS. I fear that so many people accept only the sources of “news” that correspond to their personal politics and biases, which portends ugliness down the road.

  4. jserolf says:
    May 14, 2015 at 7:19 am

    I’m not too sure what to make of this era that is similar in many ways to the paradigm shift of the 19th and 20th century Modernism, e.g., the proliferation of small purchasable printing presses that fostered new publishing companies like Hogarth (Virginia Wolf) and City Lights (Ferlinghetti and Beats), perhaps similar to the 140 million blogs on the net. FB, Twitter, Free-Lance news and wanna-be paparazzi killed Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite. But does this collective pursuit initiate means and modes for better, more truthful news, so that as readers and/or propagandists we get a better understanding from many rather than 1 or 3 (agents of NBC, CBS, Viacom, and ABC and so forth)? 140 million blogs on the internet; direct publishing through Amazon or other forms of vanity press at affordable fees; 500 million Tweets per day….

    For me, the question has to do with its effects running roller-coaster fast and “with no end in site[s]”), and we like interactive riders contributing to “this singularity” so that every individual is summed up into statistical patterns.

  5. I think. I write. I wish. I wander. says:
    May 13, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Exactly, Pauline!

  6. leadersonfire says:
    May 13, 2015 at 1:32 pm

    I, too, am sick and tired of hearing news opinions. People are pronounced guilty by the media before they are tried in court. The news is populated by people who think their opinion is fact regardless of their experience or knowledge. We now are inundated by newsarazzi – people who take a minor issue and make it world news. People who enforce their own political views on the innocent viewer. Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him.

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