Mama decided to hop online today and use Write or Die and a new writing prompt generator. Imagine Mama's surprise when she received this prompt: Is the media manipulative? My, my...isn't that a loaded question?
It really doesn't matter which channel you watch for news nor which website you read for your news fix. If you do not have a basic insight on critical thinking, you can and will get sucked in to the media manipulation.
Take the swine flu, for instance. Mama had it almost three weeks ago. Mama lived through it. Did it stink? You betcha. Did Mama wish she didn't have it? You betcha. Did Mama get it because she didn't get her flu shot? No. Mama got it because Daddy brought it home from Vegas. Prior to the swine flu, Mama hadn't caught the flu in nearly six years...and Mama doesn't take the flu shot Is it a danger to those with weakened immune systems? Mama doesn't doubt it, but just for the record...the swine flu hasn't killed nearly as many people in its almost year long run as the regular flu kills every year.
When an article or a commentator uses words such as forever, always, and similar words...the sentences are just not true. Something is not going to be "always" the same. There will come a difference in every situation. Learn about those sorts of tricks and about red herrings...learn how they try and throw you off track.
The conservative media will take every story and not only give a conservative opinion, but tell you exactly why they believe the liberal media is wrong. The liberal media does the same thing...however it is Mama's opinion that the liberal media is far worse at mudslinging. Mama is not a fan of Palin, but to call her an Ava Perone? Really? Mama can't recall a time that the conservative media said something so incredibly sexist about Hillary Clinton. In fact, quite a few liberal women look up her. That sends the message to little baby liberals every where that women should put up with philandering men.
The liberal media will take every story and not only give a liberal opinion, but tell you exactly how everyone will suffer if we don't kill babies and save the whales...but if we kill all the little liberals then who will continue to save the whales?
Mama has a running joke with a friend...if you want the unbiased side of a story you read the story on both a liberal news website and a conservative news website. You weed out the obviously biased opinions and red herrings and ta-da...you might just have the actual story. Mama's grandmama always said there are three sides to every story...his, hers, and the truth.
It is the same. TV is something we are to control; it is not something to control us. To insist the media to be responsible for itself would be like Mama putting her stupid dog in a room full of squirrels with laser dots on them and insisting he not go for the dot. They feel like they are doing their "job". There is no such thing as true reporting....it is mostly opinion with just enough facts in it to make you think you are getting the truth.
Now if you will excuse Mama - her dog will jump near up to the ceiling to get that laser dot.
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2 comments:
I would put forth that they are generally one in the same. For every time Palin is called Ava Perone, you have Fox (Hannity) calling Obama an "Uncle Tom" or heralding the tea bag protesters as heros for the modern society while calling gay rights activists "vile rapists of children and animals" (Bill O).
And as I've said many times before - modern media is owned and operated for profit. Their business is making money for investors, not reporting the truth. So long as that happens, we have no truth in media, nor a reasonable way to discern the truth from the exaggerations and opinions. Truthfully, what other sources of info do you have on events from the other side of the world? Not much. Internet chatter, occasionally a neutral reporter will say something. But we have no mechanism to separate the truth from the lies. Mixing liberal lies and conservative lies doesn't give you the truth. And face it, we don't have a good filter to separate the the truth from the lies. We can just do the best we can, but we have to realize that we don't know the truth.
True that we do not know the truth...however the mudslinging is ridiculous. In the midst of listening to a liberal give a review of Palin's book (and I am NOT a Palin fan) she enjoyed personally attacking her as a person and making fun of her instead of actually giving her opinion ON the book. I have not read the book, I have no plans to read the book, but if I did and was asked to review the book...that means book - not person.
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