Terror Bomb in London

Jupi · Post by **Jupi** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:00 pm

Mojo wrote:The arguments don't look very informed and they look biased, they look like the same arguments I have heard, seen and read a hundered times over. No one is quoting new information with sources to that information. It's just old information delivered in a way that suits the persons who is posting own political, religouse and moral leanings.

The problem with the media is that it's pretty narrow, yesterday morning here was a great example of how bad it is, given all the nations represented in the ongoing chatbox there was seemingly only 2 sources of news, it didn't matter which news site you read or in which country you were getting one of 2 news copies 1 seemingly sourced from the BBC and the other sourced from Rupert Murdoch (or rather one of his 184? news organisations) the later being more speculative but essentially the same.

We had people from 5-6 countries all quoting the same information and the same sources, were all reading the same thing over and over and this doesn't just apply to news media, books magazines they are all sourced from the same places, by the same people and this is very rarely being questioned (because people just don't notice?)

I read news sites all day, it's what i do, i read books i read news and i watch documentries and i do it lots and lots. i have 3-4 news sites loaded from 8am to 5pm, when i get home i have those same sites loaded and i turn on the news, i dont watch regular TV and i dont read regular books and I dont subscribe to any single line of thought (except trying to keep an open mind always).

So when I see a bunch of people discussing things I have been reading all day or week, or year, with all the same slants, angles and biases I know I am not reading an informed opinion, I am reading the opinion of a journalist author (or maybe even PR man) re hashed, yet again with a little touch of new bias.

I am incredibly cynical by nature I am loathed to beleive anything said by anyone in power, in the media and certainly not a forum, I try to source my own information and make my own mind up and I generally keep that opinion to myslef because it ends up being so ambiguouse it's scarey. We live in a very complicated world, these issues you discuss are being prodded and poked by very very powerfull people and organisations with very different agendas and it get's simplified beyond stupidity, if you keep an open mind and (try) to soruce your own information you will get very sacred about what you see indeed.

holy shit batman, u got mojo to write more than one line, i gotta read it now

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:04 pm

Congrats, that makes two of us. Cos thats pretty much what I do every day and I sure as hell dont bother with the big media.

edit: Media is full of lies so to find the truth you need to compare facts from quite many sources to find any truth at all. So thats why I read several papers, sites, forums etc etc.

/Ankh

Jupi · Post by **Jupi** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:09 pm

Jupi wrote:holy shit batman, u got mojo to write more than one line, i gotta read it now

kk read it now, yep the media is the most powerful weapon available today, those that control & manipulate it influence billions of people, it got the most powerful man on the planet elected and it can even destroy countries

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:13 pm

Jupi wrote:kk read it now, yep the media is the most powerful weapon available today, those that control & manipulate it influence billions of people, it got the most powerful man on the planet elected and it can even destroy countries

Aye, that it sure is. It's also responsible to many of the problems we got in the world now since they usually arent as neutral as they claim to be and often give incorrect news based on non-confirmed sources.

/Ankh

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:15 pm

Jupi wrote:kk read it now, yep the media is the most powerful weapon available today, those that control & manipulate it influence billions of people, it got the most powerful man on the planet elected and it can even destroy countries

So why then do people use what they see in the media to make point of discussion? If we all know it's flawed why do we still use it and quote from it and make our arguments based on it rather than trying to find out some truth?

It's all very well knowing that loaded guns are bad, but you actually have to stop playing with them

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:20 pm

Ankh Morpork wrote:they usually arent as neutral as they claim to be and often give incorrect news based on non-confirmed sources.
/Ankh

Often (fox news is great for this) news is delivered straight to print (or picture) from public relations teams, alot of what you see as news (any tech breakthrogh might fall inot this) is actually written by pr men/women and delivered as news unedited. So its gone beyond bias news, it's not actually news at all but an advert dressed as news.

BTW, and intersting fact (apparently)

The number 1 employment oppertunity for Journalsim Graduates, is in fact

PUBLIC RELATIONS!

The number 2 Job is

Journalsim

Takitothemacs · Post by **Takitothemacs** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:22 pm

Mojo wrote:I am incredibly cynical by nature I am loathed to beleive anything said by anyone in power, in the media and certainly not a forum, I try to source my own information and make my own mind up and I generally keep that opinion to myslef because it ends up being so ambiguouse it's scarey. We live in a very complicated world, these issues you discuss are being prodded and poked by very very powerfull people and organisations with very different agendas and it get's simplified beyond stupidity, if you keep an open mind and (try) to soruce your own information you will get very sacred about what you see indeed.

... all too often people are too content with the media diet that they are spoon fed that they are too apathetic to bother looking for their own information.

Jupi · Post by **Jupi** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:28 pm

[quote="Mojo"]So why then do people use what they see in the media to make point of discussion? If we all know it's flawed why do we still use it and quote from it and make our arguments based on it rather than trying to find out some truth?

It's all very well knowing that loaded guns are bad, but you actually have to stop playing with them ]

biggest selling daily in Uk is... The Sun.... end of story tbh

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:28 pm

Mojo wrote:Often (fox news is great for this) news is delivered straight to print (or picture) from public relations teams, alot of what you see as news (any tech breakthrogh might fall inot this) is actually written by pr men/women and delivered as news unedited. So its gone beyond bias news, it's not actually news at all but an advert dressed as news.

Aye, Fox News is a perfect example. You seen the documentary about Fox News? It's quite scary tbh.

/Ankh

Argyleyn · Post by **Argyleyn** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:12 pm

I think that basing not having an opinion on the fact that the media generally spread false news or propaganda is plain wrong. Yes, they do that, but still it's not that difficult to filter the information. 'Finding the truth on your own' means nothing, you could even go to Iraq and spend a few months there and not find any truth. Yes, FOX news is bad, but is FOX your only source of information?

I certainly don't know the exact details of what's happening in Iraq or anywhere apart from my back yard really, but that doesn't stop me from at least knowing the necessary basic information to be able to comment on that. I know there is an american occupation, i know people are getting killed because of it, i understand it was done for a variety of reasons, from there on it's a matter of judgement and opinion, which -surprise- gets influenced by other people, as much as everything else in this world. There are no other or new things being told by people about Iraq, simply because the situation has been the same more or less for more than one year or so? What else should you know about it that is so important that's stopping you from forming an opinion?

Same thing about the London hit, there was a hit, people got killed, there's a speculation and a logical assumption about who did it. Pretty much everyone reported the same, their interpretation of the event was different. There's not much else info you need to know to comment on it. And the reason you only get 2-3 interpretations of the event is not because the media are brainwashing the people out of their so unique ideas and forcing them into mass-media ideals, it's simply because in reality there are only 2-3 line of thoughts with enough cohesion and logic to produce a reasonable system of analysing events. The media are not above that and don't create their own logical system, they just reflect the existance of those lines of thinking.