For a fun follow up, go check out Wonkette’s piece on the Infowars-lovin’ jackasses complaining about George Soros making the news readers share that script: https://wonkette.com/632067/wingnuts-so-mad-george-soros-made-sinclair-spread-conservative-propaganda
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The comforting aspect of all this, is that “conservatives” are so incredibly ham-handed at this stuff – and that they have no earthly idea just how stupid it makes them appear. Americans, we must remember, are on the whole nowhere near this dumb. The sad and depressing aspect is, of course, that so many immoral TV air “talent” are more than willing to prostitute themselves before their “local communities” just to hold on to their pathetic little news-star jobs – at stations that fewer and fewer people are actually watching. When Sinclair Broadcasting buys a TV station, every decent news professional at that station should resign rather than allow their souls to be bought as part of the deal. On your feet, or on your knees. The air “talent” in this video have made their choice. Their families, and folks in their “local communities” must be very proud indeed.
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(Mostly CNN fed locals)
Collected here: http://newslab.org/whats-wrong-with-local-tv-news/
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Remind me again who is president?
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Could this be the end of live news readers?
I mean it could be purely organic. They may have told two friends, who told two friends, and so on…
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Of course he did.
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I probably shouldn’t have replied to you, but to Paul. Or the general mutantship. TBC: I honestly think you don’t.
Hm, that’s something I’m not completely sure about, or rather: I have some nagging doubts. I think the propaganda and the still growing apparent division between supporters of neo-fascists and supporters of democracy is not something which is going away, even if actions fail. Or the politicians in charge fail to “deliver” their bullshit.
Sidenote: I’m consciously not only talking your president here - the Visegrád Group, but also Austria and even the UK are bound to go haywire politically, and I’m very, very nervous about Italy.
I think the damage done by action, but even more from propaganda prominently including the narrative “the establishment fought against the will of the people and thus stopped our guys from doing the right thing” will haunt us for years and years. If you allow the slightly weird comparison, by international standards: like the bogged German ‘unification’ is still haunting us. (Fuck, the time since then is now longer than The Wall stood.)
The actions I’m seriously worried about in case of the current US admin are, often, inactivity. Or something I see as sabotage of institutions. Internationally, the deliberate dismemberment of the state department (including embassies) is hard to look at without flinching. And don’t get me started on the consistent undermining of the DoJ. How the fuck is anyone going to fix the loss of credibility of the office - and the law?
As to the question agenda or not - I sometimes think the damage Trump is doing is the agenda. Just dismantling enough of the government to get things really cooking, and then profit.
I hope this is the farce, then.
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Unfortunately, that piece runs afoul of Poe’s Law. It’s just too deeply recursive not to.
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Generally legitimate criticism of mainstream political media is in @Doctorow threads. This is a Beschizza thread, so you will get a better reception by talking about the President’s physical appearance, preferably without accuracy or restraint.
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Just like my father told me in the 70s that corporations would never knowingly do any harm to people or the environment.
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Ha, I’ve been handed that one too. “Of course they wouldn’t do that, they’re in business to make money, and that would harm their business!”
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Up next, mouths for eyes AND nares.
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Nope. Please show an actual example of multiple news networks (as you claim, every major network plus CNN) using exactly the same word-for-word script dictated by a single owner who requires them to read it, unedited. That’s what we’re talking about here.
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To anyone who thinks that the on-air talent should have quit before parroting this garbage, ask if you and your family can afford these kinds of penalties:
Read through the contract clauses shown. It’s not just the lost paycheque, it’s having to pay not-yet-earned money back, when you no longer have a paycheque. Mortgages don’t go away for newsreaders any more than for anybody else. Children still need food and clothes. Emergency funds (if you can afford to build one) are usually only meant to cover temporary lost income, not massive penalties on top of that.
Sinclair is evil. No doubt there. But blame them, not the ones whose families Sinclair is basically holding hostage.
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From The New York Times:
The station had to air “must-run” segments that came from Sinclair…
Sounds similar to the old “Video News Release” segments although the reasons why they “had to” may very.
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Also: support unions. Support politicians who support the rights of unions.
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I think it’s a tragic farce, if you want my opinion. It’s a farce because some of this shit is just so insane. But it’s a tragedy because it’s having real world consequences.
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Bland informational television reporting is preferable when the medium of television tends to hypnotize viewers. The way people gawk at their televisions spewing mindless drivel without stopping to filter what is being presented through their own mind is frightening, like telescreens in 1984 frightening. At least with newspaper you usually had to engage your brain enough to be able to go through the process of reading.
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