Out of Pod Experience

"One of the biggest changes within political journalism that has come about is what we often call 'Culture of Affirmation'. You can chose to get news that affirms your beleif about something, wether it s right wing or left wing or something in between. You can personalize your news to read what makes you feel good, what tells you that what you beleive is right."

Richard Stevenson - Political Editor, NY Times


Freedom of speech in it s purest form or twisted and fouled by different agendas?

Do people even want objective and unbiased news reporting these days or just stuff that makes them feel good about themsevles and that what they beleive in is right?

Fox News much?

"If I like it then it is good for me" = FALSE

But then, it sells more to give people what they like than try and sell them what they don't like even if it's the truth or the only way to preserve their freedom.

Which is is just like the 1,000,000th thing that is wrong with using economics as a source for ethics.

Before TV, every sizeable town had two or three newspapers, each with its own viewpoint. There would be a regular stodgy conservative one, a workers' rights/liberal one, maybe another with more right wing entrenchment or big capital slant. (This was in the days when people had real burning issues to concerned about: in the U.S., slavery, abolition, labor unions, etc.; in Europe, socialism, fascism, anarchism, etc.). In bigger cities every little political group had its own newspaper. You could easily spot a person's political viewpoint by the newspaper he had under his arm. (The interesting thing was the divisions weren't by social class. Educated young aristocrats might read socialist/workers' rights papers and workmen might read conservative papers. Seems like ideas and ideals meant more to people then). So it seems like with "pick your viewpoint" TV news we've come full circle.

(Except for one big difference-- the old newspapers got their funding from sales of the papers themselves. TV news gets its money from advertising. The old newspapers just had to attract readers. TV news has to attract viewers and keep mega-corporation advertisers happy as well. It's not much in their interests to show a lot of dirt on, say, BP or Citigroup).