frustrated with the MSM lately?

Sean Lynch seanl at literati.org
Wed Jul 6 13:25:29 PDT 2016


On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 7:41 AM Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:

> Someone is:
>
>
> http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-loses-it-journalists-i-dont-know-how-get-through-you-people/ri15456
>
> youtube-dl --all-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PgSX-WD96Q
>
>
My frustration is primarily with people who think that the US media are
somehow "independent" just because they're not directly funded by the
government. But at least government funded media sources have to work hard
to *appear* independent, because they don't get the presumption of
independence. The result is that you hear BBC asking much harder questions
of MPs than you see asked to, say, the President by US media.

The only real solution is to find sources that truly *are* independent,
because they have no special access, don't embed with military units, don't
get invited to White House press conferences, etc. Find the outfits the
politicians refuse to talk to.

In any case, though, I'm not sure I'd choose Putin as a spokesperson
against sycophantic media. He's just missing the good ol' days when the
government mostly controlled what reached Russians' ears.

There are two sides to every story, but usually both sides are wrong. And
the midpoint between them is wrong too. The real story is off on some axis
perpendicular to the line between the two sides. To paraphrase Chomsky
since I've so far failed to find a quote that concisely sums up the point,
if you want to control what the public thinks, narrowly define the
parameters of the debate and then ensure that there's vigorous debate
within those parameters. This is what the Western MSM vs Russian media
sounds like to me. It's all just nationalistic nonsense.
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