[quote]vroom wrote:
Joe, that’s a fair question.
I’m not sure I have the answer, but I think assuming it is willfully supressed is just another conspiracy theory.
It costs real money to write up a story, publish it on paper, or online, or to air it.
If your competitors are showing pictures of dead bodies and screaming wounded, while you show a picture of a new schoolhouse, you are going to lose audience and therefore money.
I’m all for a market economy, but there are things it can’t do well. It can’t resist pandering to the masses and playing on emotions. Whatever makes more money is what gets emphasized.
Balanced reporting between good and bad news is generally understood to be one of those casualties.
Whether it is a war, or your own neighborhood, the TV station shows you every single violent crime, then perhaps may stuff in a single feel good story to mollify people who bitch about the news being negative all the time.
I don’t know what the solution is, or if this is all that is going on, but it’s certainly plausible. If someone could make a lot of money showing pictures of new schools and smiling Iraqi children, don’t you think they’d be doing it?
Hell, I know I would! I’d be happy to make money off of both conservatives and liberals, the money can’t tell the difference and neither could I once it was in my own pocket…[/quote]
Okay. So now, what we have is this (I think): some of us believe–or at least think–that a lot of good news type stories aren’t reported. You say it’s because it doesn’t sell–yet the people and places where the good news is actually told, or at least featured, are places that are doing fairly well.
People are very easily led.
For the most part, if the media presented positive stories, or a balance, then people would be happy with that.
I’m not disagreeing that it’s far easier to sensationalize bad news–because it certainly is.
Add to that the sheer number of media members who admit to being liberal, or voting for liberals, and what do you have?
Ninety some odd percent of the Washington press corps voted for Clinton. Are you going to tell me that their beliefs aren’t going to color their phrasing or reporting at all?
I don’t blame them for it…my beliefs color what I say and do, and so do yours.
But shouldn’t the number be closer to 50%?
When I look at figures of 90+% voting against Bush, I tend to believe that at least half of those people would willingly make up or color stories to make the administration look bad.
Newsweek, for example.
And on the other hand, look how popular FOX news is, and Rush Limbaugh.
They’ve found a way to make money by not running America down.
Thanks for answering!
