And I would disagree with the zero figure.
For people with room temperature IQs who get caught up with sentimental bull and think it has substance, yeah, it's a legitimate response.
I hate to break it to her parents, but remembering the fact Allison's favorite color was pink and that she liked eating frosted flakes for breakfast is absolutely meaningless. A month from now, all these people pretending to care will forget all the random Allison trivia being shoved down their throat by CNN.
A parent gripped by the news of a dead child is hardly the room temp IQ demographic you seem to think they are.
Guess what? We ain't a herd, regardless of how much BD states it. I wouldn't think you'd buy into that nihilstic bull .
"We" aren't catering anything. "The news" is a television program that will cater to the demographic that will return the highest ratingsm just like every other show on television does, regardless of content.
Also, I don't think the average American parent is any more of a ing moron than the average American non-parent is. Most shows on tv are trying to cater to ing morons.
A parent who's gripped by Allison's favorite color or Allison's love for barbies does have a room temperature IQ. It's meaningless bull that smart people don't care about because it carries zero value.
Is regurgitating random facts about dead kids somehow less meaningful or less substantive than keeping up with who Snooki is ing or how the local sports team is doing? It's television. It's all emotional rhetoric in one form or another. Everybody is seeking out the information that they're interested in.I'm mocking people who think regurgitating random facts about the dead kids because we need toremember them
I get that you feel for them, and that's cool.
But would you rather NBC nightly news start their broadcast with 13 minutes of crying parents and mushy remembrances, or 13 minutes of reporting on the banking practices of HSBC and the subsequent actions of the Justice Department?
No, it's not less meaningful. The difference is, CNN isn't trying to pass Snooki's sex life off as actual news people should care about.
Thanks for proving my point.
And yes, DoK is right that our beloved free press should hold itself to a higher standard and report NEWS. Leave the mush for the talk shows where it belongs
If they're doing hard stories on gun legislation, mental health, or other related topics, I have no problem with it
I understand your point and agree. I reject DOK's flawed characterization of a parent's emotional connections with external events. These are not the playthings of ing morons no matter how little he actually understands regarding this phenomenon.
CNN is just a TV show like every other TV show out there and they all try to pass off their content as something people should care about. We're in complete agreement, TV is crap. That's why I don't watch much of it.
It's just DoK being DoK,
He likes to use a bazooka when a slingshot is necessary
Last edited by symple19; 12-19-2012 at 12:39 PM.
I don't either, especially not TV news.
I just go to Reuters and AP when things are happening. About as bias free as it gets, unless somebody knows someplace better?
Sadly, what they show simply reflects a majority of our society... People who care more about "human interest" stories than about the corrupt nature of our government
If somebody already posted this, sorry
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...re-settlement/
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, reported the Dec. 3 sale of between $250,001 and $500,000 in HSBC stock on forms he filed with the Senate on Dec. 8.
these parents who I guess are actually really smart are gonna forget all this information that makes them feel a connection to Allison's family a month from now, that's the part of this that makes it funny
It's ridiculous to suggest that the news is in the business of trying to get the highest ratings. The news is in the business of maximizing revenue from advertisers under the constraint of not harming their own parent company. Pretty sure NBC could get some massive ratings with in-depth coverage of stories like this, but no way they'd do this since they're a bank (General Electric) and since they'd lose all their advertising dollars from Chase and Bank of America.
"highest ratings. The news is in the business of maximizing revenue from advertisers"
ads prices are based on audience ratings, duh.
Tell me, if the news goes in-depth on the quality of our beef, are they more or less likely to have Ronald McDonald's clowny ass hand them a fat check for Happy Meal ads?
Life Sentence for the Poor, Immunity for the Wealthy
he US is the world's largest prison state, imprisoning more of its citizens than any nation on earth, both inabsolute numbers andproportionally. It imprisons people for longer periods of time, more mercilessly, and for more trivial transgressions than any nation in the west. This sprawling penal state has been constructed over decades, by both political parties, and it punishes the poor and racial minorities at overwhelmingly disproportionate rates.
But not everyone is subjected to that system of penal harshness. It all changes radically when the nation's most powerful actors are caught breaking the law. With few exceptions, they are gifted not merely with leniency, but full-scale immunity from criminal punishment. Thus have the most egregious crimes of the last decade been fully shielded from prosecution when committed by those with the greatest political and economic power: the construction of a worldwide torture regime, spying on Americans' communications without the warrants required by criminal law by government agencies and the telecom industry, an aggressive war launched on false pretenses, and massive, systemic financial fraud in the banking and credit industry that triggered the 2008 financial crisis.
This two-tiered justice system was the subject of my last book, "With Liberty and Justice for Some", and what was most striking to me as I traced the recent history of this phenomenon is how explicit it has become. Obviously, those with money and power always enjoyed substantial advantages in the US justice system, but lip service was at least always paid to the core precept of the rule of law: that - regardless of power, position and prestige - all stand equal before the blindness of Lady Justice.
It really is the case that this principle is now not only routinely violated, as was always true, but explicitly repudiated, right out in the open. It is commonplace to hear US elites unblinkingly insisting that those who become sufficiently important and influential are - and should be - immunized from the system of criminal punishment to which everyone else is subjected.
Worse, we are constantly told that immunizing those with the greatest power is not for their good, but for our good, for our collective good: because it's better for all of us if society is free of the disruptions that come from trying to punish the most powerful, if we're free of the deprivations that we would collectively experience if we lose their extraordinary value and contributions by prosecuting them.
This rationale was popularized in 1974 when Gerald Ford explained why Richard Nixon - who built his career as a "law-and-order" politician demanding harsh punishments and unforgiving prosecutions for ordinary criminals - would never see the inside of a courtroom after being caught committing multiple felonies; his pardon was for the good not of Nixon, but of all of us. That was the same reasoning hauled out to justify immunity for officials of the National Security State who tortured and telecom giants who illegally spied on Americans (we need them to keep us safe and can't disrupt them with prosecutions), as well as the refusal to prosecute any Wall Street criminals for their fraud (prosecutions for these financial crimes would disrupt our collective economic recovery).
http://readersupportednews.org/opini...or-the-wealthy
Okay, fair enough, but I still think that it weighs out in favor of ratings. All of the News channels more or less are showing the same things, and not all of them are owned by banks
I just used NBC as an example because it was the first one that came into my head
In the context of ratings, even if you lose one or two (advertisers) because you did a story that slams their industry, plenty more will step in if you're averaging 10+ million viewers.
I also don't have faith in the American people that they would deliver a comparable amount of viewers to an expose' on the financial system than they do to human interest stories that involve kids. , I bet more people would watch a "cute kitty" story than a hard hitting piece on government corruption
Could be wrong, though
media won't do anything to expose their advertisers, and will accept ad purchases from just about anybody for anything.
what's really hilariously sad is that people think "60 Minutes" is "hard hitting"
McDonalds probably wouldn't want one of their ads to air during that specific in depth special, but if that news program was consistently delivering high ratings amongst potential McDonalds customers then McDonalds wouldn't hesistate to cut that check. If that news program would air something that would make even more potential McDonalds customers tune in McDonalds wouldn't hesitate to cut an even bigger one.
I completely disagree. Exposing American society as a system where justice is determined by class lines is bad business.
McDonalds isn't going to pay a network to scare parents all across the nation into not buying their kids Happy Meals.
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