Watch countless American news anchors mindlessly intone the same propaganda script

Gosh. It’s almost like they are manufacturing consent!

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Always check to make sure it isn’t just one station saying something. If it’s on all of them, it must really be true. :frowning:

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This is interesting. Presumably one can automatically detect the same text in different sources, and create videos like this. At first, this might give us some idea how many independent sources of news there are. However, the stations want to appear independent, so they could re-word their tex without changing the content. Then someone might make a tool that automated this process. Or something that changed the expressions and intonation so they sounded a little less like a chorus in a Greek Tragedy. And then you get better forensic tools that might detect these edits. And so on.

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Don’t we get exactly the same message from “liberal” media complaining about “Putin’s trolls”? (I am not a conservative, and by “liberal” I mean phony progressive.)

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When ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN do the exact same thing, it’s ignored. Why is it only bad when conservatives do it?

Welcome to BoingBoing! Show us the supercut video of ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC doing the exact same thing, and we’d love to engage in a meaningful discussion of actual things that happen.

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What, like this?

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This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

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Pffft.

Please come back when you’ve graduated from Apples vs. Oranges 101.

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The thing is, the regular local-news-watching Americans who saw this spiel live probably nodded their heads in agreement, but whether they thought it was directed at Fox News or MSNBC depends on their own politics.

Blue viewer: “Yeah, take that Fox News!”

Red viewer: “Yeah, up yours liberal media!”

The basic words here are nothing I can fault-- yes, pushing false stories and treating opinions like fact are bad-- but hearing that come from a conservative corporation is what’s weird, since that’s the bread and butter of conservative media (birth certificate, Seth Rich, Benghazi, blah blah blah), plus it’s the same script they were all forced to read, handed down by a powerful “elite”, so it’s crazy ironic.

If someone high up at Sinclair Broadcasting was actually directing this at the people making excuses for Trump’s obvious incompetence and the mounting evidence of collusion and corruption, I’m all for it, but I have my reasons for doubting that.

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But people brought onto TV specifically to speak for a candidate are the same as people paid by the station to appear impartial, aren’t they?


This was something they got right.

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You’re welcome to produce your own video. See if you can’t produce the same effect.

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So now that there’s an actual example posted, do you want to have a meaningful discussion or just hold your fingers in your ears?

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Yes, but if you see the rest of the shit they push it is horrible.

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That’s not a meaningful example. It’s political operatives for Clinton saying the same thing repeatedly, not those doing the reporting on said operatives. (Not that I find the corporate media all that much better than Sinclair outlets on reporting news that matters, let alone fairly.)

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It’s a crap example of CNN etc doing the same thing. It’s a few explicitly identified spokespeople for a politician repeating the same talking point, and a bunch of reporters quoting said politician’s spokespeople.
That’s just part of stock standard journalism, and has already been pointed out twice - what else is there to say about it? [ETA: three times, or four if you count me]
Frankly, if you guys want to keep arguing the point, you’ll need to find a better example. Or explain why you think that super cut is even remotely the same thing as what the Sinclair group is doing.

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My response is much the same as the others. The original ‘power through’ line is clearly being repeated by a Clinton spokesperson. Spokespeople’s job is basically to blindly repeat the talking points no matter what happens. It is annoying and sad, but not a corruption of journalism.

And it is also not at all the same thing as a wide array of so-called journalists parroting the same lines as if they are an unbiased party.

So, if you can find a supercut of CNN, CBS etc anchors all saying the same lines, please bring it forward.

Or perhaps we can all agree that journalists should be impartial, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted etc. etc.

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The major networks have been pushing an anti-Trump narrative since the election, unprecedented in the history of network news. I would welcome a return to relatively unbiased news, but all networks are now the paid mouthpieces of the elite ultra-rich, yet the BoingBoing echo chamber merely joins the chorus instead of calling it out when either side does it.

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