Just Who Owns The Media

A pretty interesting article with graphics about the clear consolidation of media of the world into the hands of some six major players. Think about that for a while. I grew up when breaking up monopolies was the thing to do (remember the "baby Bells" as the telephone industry monopoly was broken up in the 1970's?) It's obvious why this country remains stupid -- big media wants it that way.

I'll have another cup of reality tv, thank you. H/T to The Frugal Dad.

Source: Frugal dad

OMG! My NYT Subscription Cancelled!

I guess I was one of the, oh, eight million people that got an email from the NYT that said my subscription was cancelled. Unfortunately, I do not have a NYT subscription. I gave information on the web years ago to access the FREE online NYT (which is no longer free), but I never had a "subscription."

The New York Times mistakenly sent an e-mail on Wednesday to more than eight million people who had shared their information with the company, erroneously informing them that they had canceled home delivery of the newspaper.

Plus, I do believe I have already reached my "maximum" free views allowed.

My Murdoch Take

All I can say is "what goes around, comes around."

Amen, brother!

Oh, and is THIS just a "coinky dink?"

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbusiness reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead.

[snip]

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

Yeah, right!

Why The Ill Informed On Wikileaks Should Shut The Fuck Up

I had a short discussion the other day outside of my office building with a gentleman that, although I did not know personally, we have been working in the same building for years, so we always exchanged pleasantries.

I was waiting for the bus, and it had been raining so I was not actually at the bus stop, but right in front of my building. We got to talking about Christmas coming up, the weather here in Los Angeles recently, and then a couple of political short topics came up. So I asked what he thought about Wikileaks and Mr. Assange. As is so typical with the uninformed, he immediately spouted that the man was a security threat and a terrorist for revealing national secrets! I let him rail on for a few minutes, and then I asked him if he had actually read anything that was put out there by Wikileaks, and he huffed and puffed a bit, but finally had to admit he had not actually read what Wikileaks "leaked," but got his information from the news shows that reported on what was leaked.

Typical. I find it funny that people have all sorts of opinions about a lot of things without actually having read up on or made themselves informed of the very thing they have an opinion of. I sort of left it at that with the man, and said that he should first read what Assange's website actually released before he deems the man a terrorist.

More poignant, as usual, is Glenn Greenwald, and his take on the growing trend of the oneness of journalists and politicians, such that it is apparent that one is spouting the talking points of the other as though they were actually doing their job. It is at this point that being older and wiser hits a home run for me, because I came of age when journalists actually did their job, and weren't merely mouthpieces for the government (and those that were, like the Russian media, were obvious). Today, the Rupert Murdochs of the world who are buying up all the media outlets so they can make deals with the powerful people in charge in the world, shape the news to comport with the powerful (and rich) people who control the destiny of this planet. It is in that mode that we receive our news here in the good ole USA.

From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks -- the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy -- have been . . . America's intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them -- even when you explain it -- that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.

What an astounding feat to train a nation's journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists -- of all people -- lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes -- from all eras and all cultures -- could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists -- of all people -- to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that's exactly the journalist class we have.

Read the rest here.

Take That, You Lying Sack Of Shit, Mr. Breitbart

The following letter was sent from ABC and received by Mr. Breitbart:

Dear Mr. Breitbart,

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABCNews.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News. We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

Sincerely,

Andrew Morse

Hope Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Only Anger

The funny thing is, our government, in toto, is actually very much uninterested in what Americans want. It is as if politicians have allowed politics to actually be a job, a job unfortunately, one has to lobby to keep either every two years, every four years or every six years. So, the job of a politician is to lobby, and from the first day after they are elected, they lobby their entire term to stay where they are. This, sadly, has become quite known to many Americans (although that 24% of the stupid people don't even have a clue about this).

It has become maddeningly magnified by how waste, bad governing, and inattention to the constituency is just part of the daily job. And since lobbying is the job, in and of itself, any duty that, say, our congressional leaders owe to perform on the platform they ran, or govern in the manner in which they told those that elected them they would, once on the job, all that goes out the window as the politician has begun his actual job, lobbying.

Waste is an interesting topic. One of the reasons the government can never trim the waste is because those that cause the waste pay the politicians the most money to be able to continue to waste. So when The Washington Post does a three piece spread (here) concerning the "secret government" that virtually controls American lives (by "spying" illegally and legally), no politician jumped on it. The point of the piece was that this vast "secret government" which started out to be of national security importance, has turned into an unmanageable and poor functioning apparatus of the government such that hundreds of billions of dollars are being wasted.

Now, in this time of recession bordering on depression, and the mantra of the entire Republican party centering on "balance" with regards to budgetary ideology, you would think that someone would address this form of waste. Unfortunately, for Americans, our politicians figure that "waste" is helping those out of work, those unfortunate "teachers" who educate the majority of American children (because none of the politicians whose job is lobbying actually have children in public schools, so they don't care that teachers just don't make enough to live on), or in any jobs bill, or further stimulus package, or proper health care (remember, many of our elected lobbyists are actively lobbying funds to repeal the help to average Americans for affordable health care).

No, and that is because the people affected by those choices are American people, not the corporate people, a class we now have thanks to the Citizen's United decision. Even though actual American people are the only ones that can line up outside a voting booth, and put a mark down for a candidate, the corporate people have control over which politician will be elected, and what that politician's agenda will be. And so, as for the Washington Post expose, the very people involved in the "secret government," like AT&T and other surveillance giants, pay far too much money in kickbacks and in seeing that the lobby job of our politicians is carried out, such that the elected lobbyist would not actually try to cut this source off, regardless of how much American tax payer money is used to funnel the money to them. Nary a peep from our representatives in Washington except how irresponsible the Post was for actually doing the piece. No waste here. Move along. Nothing to see.

The sad part of this is that it is not exclusive of the Republican party. Democrats, Independents, and yes, some Progressives, once they get the "job," they realize that it is not to do the bidding of the real people that elected them, but to do the work of the corporate people who will see that they are still in their job and who will fund them quite handsomely to stay there.

The corporate people running the war that is destroying the lives of the real people in America will never give up their free line at the soup kitchen of the American government's tax monies. No sireee. And, thanks to all the tax breaks many of these corporates get from that same soup kitchen, the relationship is so symbiotic that neither side really is able to cut the other side off, for risk of dying.

It has come to that. We had that one moment of light that "a change is gonna come" feeling, in 2008,


when led by a grassroots coalition made up mainly of American people networked through the Internet, elected the first African American president, and overwhelmingly placed the Democratic party in charge. But after 18 months, and an upcoming "two year" job election by our elected lobbyists on the horizon, the focus from day one of Obama and the rest of the Democrats, Independents and Progressives the real people put in charge, things have not only not changed, some of stayed the same, and many have become worse. There are a small cadre of real people and corporate people that have something on the line in trying to highlight what the 2008 elected lobbyist actually did for the real people, but most of us already know what was done to us, because our collective asses really hurt.

And many of us with sore asses just won't get up come this November to stand in a line and punch a hole, when we already know we are screwed. Hell, the gas money alone to get to the polling place could probably feed a family of four at McDonalds.

At some point, this recession will turn into the depression, as the haves continue to hoard, and the have nots continue to be mislead, mistreated, maligned and ignored.

Hope doesn't seem to live in America anymore. But, anger, certainly is on the rise.

Addendum: Funny, after I put up this piece, AMERICAblog links to this article by Judy Woodruff, who addresses the same sentiments in my post, but takes the "change" part and gives it more "umph" as well as links and actual "changes" that have not come about, or just barely made a dent.

When "it" is in the air, "it" is in the air everywhere.

Another Fox Faux Pas

An interesting post over at Daily Kos. Seems that Fox News, after they spent an inordinate amount of time condemning President Obama for bowing to the Emperor of Japan, decided to conduct a poll to prove their point that Americans want their leader to spit in the eye of other leaders. Problem with the poll, though, was that 67% of Americans said they had no problem with "the bow" or with an American President bowing to the leader of another country, if that is the country's custom. So, although commissioning the poll, Fox News has not aired the results -- obviously because the results did not support their ridiculous contention in the first place. The poll appears on their website, but it seems to have gone by the wayside in promotion on their programs.

As the poster states:

Perhaps Fox should change their slogan: we report and you decide, but only if it's something that we think will make you hate President Obama.

And You Thought Michael Invented The Moon Walk!

(If music is automatically playing, just scroll down to the podcast and hit pause).





As many of us that were alive when this infamous walk took place, I remember where I was, and who I was with.

I was in between junior and senior high, and with my aunt and uncle and cousins in Burbank, CA, watching it on television (of course, in black and white), like everyone else.

And, for the record, I am not part of those conspiracy theorists that think this was all staged on a back lot in Hollywood!

Thank Goodness For The Blogs

From David Neiwert writing for Crooks and Liars:

I left newsroom work in large part because people like Ziegler and his movement-conservative counterparts have no tolerance for any point of view other than their own -- and holding such views, or moreover even merely being properly skeptical of them, is evidence of a "liberal bias." By the late '90s I realized the reflexive fear of being accused of being "librul media" by these mau-mau masters was preventing me from reporting thoroughly, accurately, or honestly. Good thing blogging came along.

Although I was/am not a journalist, I stopped watching Mass Media television (and reading print newspapers) for the same reason. It has cracked me up for years that the right wingers continually claim "media" is "liberal," which belies the fact that the major corporate and individual owners of most of mass media are -- right wing nutjobs! And these owners have over the past 15 years, slowly but surely, tightened the noose around the neck of mainstream media's ability to shed light on real and important topics and issues. Instead, mass media has turned into a circus of performers who shout, scream and berate people, who fail to report the "news" or when they do attempt to do so, they lie. Or my favorite, taking a truth and pairing it with an untruth, and masquerading it as "just telling both sides, folks."

Yup, thank goodness for the blogs.

The Evil Coulter Silenced!

From the New York Post:

THAT although we didn't think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reactionary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut . . .

I wonder who finally had the guts to slug her in the face ... or who pushed her down the stairs!

The Numbers Just Don't Lie

I find it interesting all the complaining over the Bush administration’s term in office of the so called "left" or "liberal" media, which any educated person knows does not exist. But, aside from that, and without arguing the merits of such ridiculous statements, let’s just take a step back and examine the breadth of influence of the news media, in general.

When you take into consideration the population of the United States, which according to the 2008 census is around 305 million people, the news organizations, television (network and cable) combined, along with the top print news groups, account for circulation and/or viewership of roughly 30 million (NBC-7.5 million; ABC-7.3 million; CBS-5.6 million; FOX-2 million; CNN 2.1 million; MSNBC-1.2 million; HCN (hispanic communication network)-395,000; CNBC, 274,000; WSJ-2 million; NYT-1 million; LAT-815,000; W.Post-635,000; W.Times, 95,000; AJC-318,000, Philly Inquirer-338,000 – figures can be Wikipedia checked for accuracy).

That’s less than 10 percent of the entire population of the United States. TEN PERCENT. That means that 90 percent of Americans do not get their news information from any of these media outlets, whether they be left leaning or right leaning.

To a certain extent, that scares me, because that means that 90 percent of the American population is making their minds up about events, based most likely on their local news and just their own feeling of what they believe to be common sense. Many, I am sure, are influenced by friends and neighbors that hold certain views and opinions as well.

But, the bottom line, and it is funny in my opinion, is that all the shouting and screaming on television, and all the bald face lying that goes on in the media, print or otherwise, is pretty much meaningless. None of these media outlets influence the vast majority of Americans, plain and simple.

The numbers simply do not lie.

UPDATE: Interesting tidbit:

But now there's additional evidence that casts doubt on the bias claims aimed -- with particular venom -- at three broadcast networks.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

You CAN Change DNA Make-up

Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

That is pretty amazing, when you think about it. What them damn hippies have been saying all along, proven to have some credibility! Eat healthy, exercise and meditate (or for me, medicate .. lol) Of course, if you are of the intelligent design persuasion, move along, nothing to see here.

Getting Political News Off Net Increases

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans dissatisfied with political sound bites are turning to the Internet for a more complete picture, a new study finds.

In a report Sunday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that nearly 30% of adults have used the Internet to read or watch unfiltered campaign material — footage of debates, position papers, announcements and transcripts of speeches.

"They want to see the full-blown campaign event. They want to read the speech from beginning to end," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. "It's a push back from the sound-bite culture."

Google Inc.'s YouTube and other video sites have become more popular. Thirty-five percent of adults have watched a political video online during the primary season, compared with 13% during the entire 2004 presidential race.

It's about time, considering all the crap they try to pass off as news on traditional media.