Should 24-Hour News Cycles Be Constrained?

[Silhouette]

The obvious is that if you own a franchise who makes money off of advertising by how many viewers you can attract to your nonstop news coverage....would you be tempted to "make news" out of nothing and sensationalize violence and upheaval in order to make profits?

Long and short answer is "yes". And that's exactly what we see day in and day out on all the 24 hour news outlets that are in it for the money (you know who you are). MSNBC has even taken part in ramping up racial tensions in order to spark new spinoff stories to feed their media machine. Fox did similar things (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). CNN seems to be the only outlet that maintains a shred of journalistic integrity, except they obsess too much on the big authentic stories...but I suppose that's the other side of the coin of not manufacturing the news and still trying to keep viewers excited 24 hours a day for commercial revenues.

The trouble with manufacturing the news is that society spirals quickly into chaos. Homo sapiens is a creature of imitation. You flog a school shooting bit on your station for a week straight, discussing all the facets of the shooter, sensationalizing it and getting people to drool; other would-be shooters get the idea "hey! How come that guy gets all the attention!?" And so a phenomenon is born of the 24 hour news-for-profit.

There are a thousand stories that are better left untold for the sake of homo sapiens not playing "monkey see, monkey do". A passing mention and a stern look of digust/disapproval would do. But instead each deplorable human spectacle gets its own float like a twisted Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that never stops.

While experts scratch their heads at why our public keeps getting weirder, wilder and more violent by the day.

 

[toxicmedia]

Silhouette,

The poll questions you always create are maddening.

They never provide rational questions, just loaded questions designed, by you, to elicit the response you want.

Having said that..

I have 4 words.

Freedom...of...the...press

It's up to the people of this country to simply tune out pseudo journalistic crap like you see on Fox and MSNBC

 

[Silhouette]

I have 4 words.

Freedom...of...the...press

It's up to the people of this country to simply tune out pseudo journalistic crap like you see on Fox and MSNBC

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway. Taking the metaphor further, it's like the 24 hour megaprofit news stations are yelling "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" 24 hours a day in a crowed stadium.

And I do need to point this out...your name "toxicmedia" ...? You DISagree with me? Choose a different handle then fer crissakes.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Which answer is the homophobic one ?

 

[toxicmedia]

I have 4 words.

Freedom...of...the...press

It's up to the people of this country to simply tune out pseudo journalistic crap like you see on Fox and MSNBC

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway.

Yes, true...but you CAN write "Fire in a crowded theater" and publish it

Or write about that happening in real life

 

[g5000]

The obvious is that if you own a franchise who makes money off of advertising by how many viewers you can attract to your nonstop news coverage....would you be tempted to "make news" out of nothing and sensationalize violence and upheaval in order to make profits?

Long and short answer is "yes". And that's exactly what we see day in and day out on all the 24 hour news outlets that are in it for the money (you know who you are). MSNBC has even taken part in ramping up racial tensions in order to spark new spinoff stories to feed their media machine. Fox did similar things (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). CNN seems to be the only outlet that maintains a shred of journalistic integrity, except they obsess too much on the big authentic stories...but I suppose that's the other side of the coin of not manufacturing the news and still trying to keep viewers excited 24 hours a day for commercial revenues.

The trouble with manufacturing the news is that society spirals quickly into chaos. Homo sapiens is a creature of imitation. You flog a school shooting bit on your station for a week straight, discussing all the facets of the shooter, sensationalizing it and getting people to drool; other would-be shooters get the idea "hey! How come that guy gets all the attention!?" And so a phenomenon is born of the 24 hour news-for-profit.

There are a thousand stories that are better left untold for the sake of homo sapiens not playing "monkey see, monkey do". A passing mention and a stern look of digust/disapproval would do. But instead each deplorable human spectacle gets its own float like a twisted Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that never stops.

While experts scratch their heads at why our public keeps getting weirder, wilder and more violent by the day.

You can't possibly be a right winger.

 

[Silhouette]

I have 4 words.

Freedom...of...the...press

It's up to the people of this country to simply tune out pseudo journalistic crap like you see on Fox and MSNBC

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway.

Yes, true...but you CAN write "Fire in a crowded theater" and publish it

Or write about that happening in real life

Read the OP again. I said that these news stations ramping up OLD stories (as immediate past or distant past) are spinning off new ones by the level of fervor they're whipping up in their viewers. They are creating news out of news by their very disproportionate focusing and sensationalizing.

You can't possibly be a right winger.

I'm not. I'm a registered democrat for the last 34 years.

 

[g5000]

Tocqueville: LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES

In America there is scarcely a hamlet that has not its newspaper. It may readily be imagined that neither discipline nor unity of action can be established among so many combatants, and each one consequently fights under his own standard. All the political journals of the United States are, indeed, arrayed on the side of the administration or against it; but they attack and defend it in a thousand different ways. They cannot form those great currents of opinion which sweep away the strongest dikes. This division of the influence of the press produces other consequences scarcely less remarkable. The facility with which newspapers can be established produces a multitude of them; but as the competition prevents any considerable profit, persons of much capacity are rarely led to engage in these undertakings. Such is the number of the public prints that even if they were a source of wealth, writers of ability could not be found to direct them all. The journalists of the United States are generally in a very humble position, with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind. The will of the majority is the most general of laws, and it establishes certain habits to which everyone must then conform; the aggregate of these common habits is what is called the class spirit (esprit de corps) of each profession; thus there is the class spirit of the bar, of the court, etc. The class spirit of the French journalists consists in a violent but frequently an eloquent and lofty manner of discussing the great interests of the state, and the exceptions to this mode of writing are only occasional. The characteristics of the American journalist consist in an open and coarse appeal to the passions of his readers; he abandons principles to assail the characters of individuals, to track them into private life and disclose all their weaknesses and vices.

 

[Arianrhod]

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway. Taking the metaphor further, it's like the 24 hour megaprofit news stations are yelling "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" 24 hours a day in a crowed stadium.

And I do need to point this out...your name "toxicmedia" ...? You DISagree with me? Choose a different handle then fer crissakes.

Here are four more words for you to consider:

Turn.
The.
TV.
Off.

No one's forcing you to watch and listen to this tripe.

 

[g5000]

 

[NYcarbineer]

[

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway. Taking the metaphor further, it's like the 24 hour megaprofit news stations are yelling "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" 24 hours a day in a crowed stadium.

And I do need to point this out...your name "toxicmedia" ...? You DISagree with me? Choose a different handle then fer crissakes.

Oh really? So there are unwritten yet acceptable limitations to free speech despite the unequivocal nature of the text in the 1st Amendment?

Tell that to the 2nd Amendment nuts on this board.

 

[BlindBoo]

No, impossible unless you change the first Amendment.

 

[toxicmedia]

I have 4 words.

Freedom...of...the...press

It's up to the people of this country to simply tune out pseudo journalistic crap like you see on Fox and MSNBC

Yes, but freedom of the press is freedom of speech. And the courts have found that freedom of speech DOES NOT include the right to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because someone lit up a cigarette in the hallway.

Yes, true...but you CAN write "Fire in a crowded theater" and publish it

Or write about that happening in real life

Read the OP again. I said that these news stations ramping up OLD stories (as immediate past or distant past) are spinning off new ones by the level of fervor they're whipping up in their viewers. They are creating news out of news by their very disproportionate focusing and sensationalizing.

And their freedom to sensationalize should be restricted?

 

[mdk]

Get to the point, Sil. What does your nonsense have to do with queers this time?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Most of a typical cable news channel's programming for any given day is not news. It's comments and opinions about the news. It would be as if your local paper had one page of news and ten editorial pages, not the other way around.

 

[Silhouette]

Here are four more words for you to consider: Turn. The. TV. Off.

No one's forcing you to watch and listen to this tripe.

It's not on now and usually isn't until the night, especially for viewing news. It's just I got the flu a couple weeks back and was in bed for a week. And I noticed. But point well taken. Maybe the monsters will devour themselves by overstimulating the herd into boredom. I for one am beyond sick of hearing the name "Donald Trump". I've gotten to where if I hear his name I instantly change the channel.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The obvious is that if you own a franchise who makes money off of advertising by how many viewers you can attract to your nonstop news coverage....would you be tempted to "make news" out of nothing and sensationalize violence and upheaval in order to make profits?

Long and short answer is "yes". And that's exactly what we see day in and day out on all the 24 hour news outlets that are in it for the money (you know who you are). MSNBC has even taken part in ramping up racial tensions in order to spark new spinoff stories to feed their media machine. Fox did similar things (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). CNN seems to be the only outlet that maintains a shred of journalistic integrity, except they obsess too much on the big authentic stories...but I suppose that's the other side of the coin of not manufacturing the news and still trying to keep viewers excited 24 hours a day for commercial revenues.

The trouble with manufacturing the news is that society spirals quickly into chaos. Homo sapiens is a creature of imitation. You flog a school shooting bit on your station for a week straight, discussing all the facets of the shooter, sensationalizing it and getting people to drool; other would-be shooters get the idea "hey! How come that guy gets all the attention!?" And so a phenomenon is born of the 24 hour news-for-profit.

There are a thousand stories that are better left untold for the sake of homo sapiens not playing "monkey see, monkey do". A passing mention and a stern look of digust/disapproval would do. But instead each deplorable human spectacle gets its own float like a twisted Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that never stops.

While experts scratch their heads at why our public keeps getting weirder, wilder and more violent by the day.

Maybe what the US needs is our own version of the BBC.

 

[Auld Phart]

Which answer is the homophobic one ?

Yours

 

[toxicmedia]

The obvious is that if you own a franchise who makes money off of advertising by how many viewers you can attract to your nonstop news coverage....would you be tempted to "make news" out of nothing and sensationalize violence and upheaval in order to make profits?

Long and short answer is "yes". And that's exactly what we see day in and day out on all the 24 hour news outlets that are in it for the money (you know who you are). MSNBC has even taken part in ramping up racial tensions in order to spark new spinoff stories to feed their media machine. Fox did similar things (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). CNN seems to be the only outlet that maintains a shred of journalistic integrity, except they obsess too much on the big authentic stories...but I suppose that's the other side of the coin of not manufacturing the news and still trying to keep viewers excited 24 hours a day for commercial revenues.

The trouble with manufacturing the news is that society spirals quickly into chaos. Homo sapiens is a creature of imitation. You flog a school shooting bit on your station for a week straight, discussing all the facets of the shooter, sensationalizing it and getting people to drool; other would-be shooters get the idea "hey! How come that guy gets all the attention!?" And so a phenomenon is born of the 24 hour news-for-profit.

There are a thousand stories that are better left untold for the sake of homo sapiens not playing "monkey see, monkey do". A passing mention and a stern look of digust/disapproval would do. But instead each deplorable human spectacle gets its own float like a twisted Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that never stops.

While experts scratch their heads at why our public keeps getting weirder, wilder and more violent by the day.

You can't possibly be a right winger.

This, and every other site like it, always has righties saying they are former lefties.

I believe none of them. You can tell they could NEVER have been liberals

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

The obvious is that if you own a franchise who makes money off of advertising by how many viewers you can attract to your nonstop news coverage....would you be tempted to "make news" out of nothing and sensationalize violence and upheaval in order to make profits?

Long and short answer is "yes". And that's exactly what we see day in and day out on all the 24 hour news outlets that are in it for the money (you know who you are). MSNBC has even taken part in ramping up racial tensions in order to spark new spinoff stories to feed their media machine. Fox did similar things (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin). CNN seems to be the only outlet that maintains a shred of journalistic integrity, except they obsess too much on the big authentic stories...but I suppose that's the other side of the coin of not manufacturing the news and still trying to keep viewers excited 24 hours a day for commercial revenues.

The trouble with manufacturing the news is that society spirals quickly into chaos. Homo sapiens is a creature of imitation. You flog a school shooting bit on your station for a week straight, discussing all the facets of the shooter, sensationalizing it and getting people to drool; other would-be shooters get the idea "hey! How come that guy gets all the attention!?" And so a phenomenon is born of the 24 hour news-for-profit.

There are a thousand stories that are better left untold for the sake of homo sapiens not playing "monkey see, monkey do". A passing mention and a stern look of digust/disapproval would do. But instead each deplorable human spectacle gets its own float like a twisted Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that never stops.

While experts scratch their heads at why our public keeps getting weirder, wilder and more violent by the day.

Maybe what the US needs is our own version of the BBC.

It's called NPR... and it's 100 or so listeners.