there must have been a point in time at which i believed what they told me in school...or read in the local paper...or saw on television...when that might have been or when it changed i cannot begin to remember...one supposes that a political awakening wrought by the intrusion of the war in viet nam into the living room every night may have had a transformative impact...the narrative was schizophrenic...the government and military had "official statistics" on the every present "body count" and how "the enemy" were being worn down...and then came the televised tet offensive and the "official" story became a straw man...paper tiger...flat out lie...whichever you choose...i can actually be naive and trusting...i also have an "on the bus/off the bus" mentality and once trust is broken getting back on the bus in pretty much impossible...and so it is with the media...there is no trust and has not been any in decades...and the miserable corporate bastards just keep proving they are selling products to make a profit while reinforcing a given world view which is mostly determined by their advertisers and/or political underwriters and have no actual interest in disseminating factual information...it has been so for a long time...predating electronic media..i would recommend si sheppard's book "the partisan press:a history of media bias in the united states" as a primer and you can move on from there to have a close look at the bias in msnbc or fox news or the new york times...not an objective viewpoint ( if such a thing is even possible in anyone ) among them...you can read or watch anything that reinforces your viewpoint or you can raise your hackles and indulge in high dudgeon by tuning in or reading "the other"...and it doesn't have to be politics...you can find conflicting authorities any damn palce...
i have been paying reasonably close attention to energy issues for some time and oil prices have been part of that..in the wake of a startling negative price for a barrel of oil earlier this week i was wandering around looking for a site with a wider scope of energy news than the relatively limited on i had been hanging out in and i came across this one which seemed fairly broad in its approach...and what did i find today?
this optimistic outlook ( for energy producers anyway...uncertain about the impact on users...although producers are users as well and keen to understand eroei because that is the whole enterprise boiled down to basics ) brimming with upbeat news...and sown the page...
this notion of economic doom and devastation in the energy world...and i have to conclude that there is no corner of the media that isn't pursuing a policy of "give what they want to hear" to keep reader/viewership up and enhance their concern as a viable platform for selling advertising space and that anything coming even close to what is actually going on is a matter of unimportance and might even compromise their ability to turn a profit because reality is a difficult thing to look straight in the face and maintain the optimism that all this consumerist bullshit demands...how do you make informed decisions in the midst of all this distortion...i am left assuming you do not...the ministry of truth is in control...history is mutable and the future uncertain.
No comments:
Post a Comment