Culture: Art: Self-referential
The Schrödinger Schadenfreude Newscast   (+5, -1)  [vote for, against]
Goose Gander Exchange

I must admit, I alternate between incredulity and outrage as I watch mainstream media's light coverage of the Cuomo harassment scandal, which conveniently masks the Cuomo Nursing Home scandal.

Since the ability of the population to compartmentalize and integrate the offenses of their versus opponent team has grown at an alarming rate, I propose the above mentioned service, which notifies you of the latest outrage committed by a member of either team, with all the great salacious detail, while carefully scrubbing all mention of political affiliation such that you can enjoy proper outrage and viral gossip spreading. Only once you have actually made up your mind as to the "facts" of the case, would you be notified as to the offender's affiliation.
-- theircompetitor, Mar 11 2021

Sovietization of American Press https://taibbi.subs...ion-of-the-american
[theircompetitor, Mar 13 2021]

A random headline for you to demonstrate the idea in action on https://www.newyork...ntly-helping-people
[Skewed, Mar 14 2021]

Trust in medical science in the US by party https://www.pewrese...ly-among-democrats/
Self-evident. [RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021]

Democrats line up to call Cuomo to resign https://www.youtube...watch?v=iQyyVP7-ocY
The terrible partisan bias of it all. [zen_tom, Mar 16 2021]

Old news same as the new news https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7u8nql
[bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021]

(Good) Science and engineering in your headphones https://omegataupodcast.net/
[bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021]

A reasonable go at science from a health perspective https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/
[bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021]

Look! There is an enormous squirrel writing an annotation on your other idea!
-- pocmloc, Mar 11 2021


Much needed [+]
-- pertinax, Mar 11 2021


I'm not sure there is any longer any point expecting any media organisation to hold politicians to account, after the rolling clusterfuck that the last 10 years has been.
-- UnaBubba, Mar 13 2021


Shouldn't the internet be a wilderness of lone wolf howls?

Under oversight control, of course.
-- wjt, Mar 13 2021


I would note that wolves are only successful if they hunt in packs.
-- UnaBubba, Mar 13 2021


The lone ones occasionally can be successful at giving new lines.
-- wjt, Mar 13 2021


//expecting any media organisation to hold politicians to account//

Can you provide an example of how things were better before ten years ago, [UB]?
-- pertinax, Mar 13 2021


Well, 10 years ago was pre-Brexit, pre-Duterte, pre-Trump and pre-Whatever The Fuck Putin Is Doing.
-- UnaBubba, Mar 13 2021


OK, but do you believe the media were doing a better job, or was it just that they weren't being seriously tested?
-- pertinax, Mar 13 2021


I'm fine with prosecuting any criminal no matter which team they play for.
-- AusCan531, Mar 13 2021


yeah, [UB] I wouldn't argue with the clusterfuck comment -- it'd be interesting to assemble a timeline of accumulating HB annotations on the subject.

What's happened here at least is that we went from a slavish FOX cheering on Republicans while having plenty of opposition, to state/press apparatus supporting the Democratic line in a shamelessly Orwellian way to achieve it's goals, whether in the last election or beyond.

Matt Taibi, who is no conservative, is one of the real journalists worried about this -- the example he gives of how the press treated Biden's decision to do dick about UBS (no relation) and Trump exact same decision is just a great reminder that what the Press perceives as some sort of return to normalcy is in fact resulting in an ongoing, full-press support for the home team.
-- theircompetitor, Mar 13 2021


I agree with all of that, [tc], but I think the roots of it go further back than ten years.
-- pertinax, Mar 13 2021


<political rant about how Orwell was right>
// either team
Neither team is allowed to talk about what's really going on. I'm with [UB] on this although I don't know which issues he is referring to. As I see it, over the past 60 years telecom technology has gotten good enough that a global monopoly of government is the natural outcome, and capital is moving to bring this about. I'd guess it will take another 60 years to really get there, if free alternative media doesn't replace the gate-kept owned media before then. George Orwell was too optimistic when he foresaw three nations perpetually at war with each other; more likely it'll be a single nation that is perpetually at war with internal dissidents (like the Soviet Union would have been if there were not any external enemies). It also won't be just cameras and secret agents listening; it'll be computerized cradle-to-grave tracking and keyword searches of each individual's archives (like the Five Eyes program already does). The people will love the all-powerful State monopoly, will eagerly give up their civil rights, and will not notice the declining living standards, the lack of real innovation, the crumbling infrastructure, the propaganda entertainment, or the purges. I don't see any realistic way to change this. The conspiracy theorists believe that the Occupy Wall Street movement was disrupted by paid agitators, that Jeffrey Epstein and Choi Soon Sil were both part of larger networks influencing/controlling politicians, that the covid lockdowns are intended to never end, and that any news sources that attempt to cover the above topics get called "fake news" and then deplatformed/ sued/ dissolved/ suicided so the normies don't get any ideas.
</political rant>
-- sninctown, Mar 13 2021


Reinstate the "fairness law" that once abolished in the 80's unleashed the present clusterfuck.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 13 2021


I'm not sure I've fully understood how this would work, so I've found a headline example for you to demonstrate how it would be effected by your idea.

//Rand Paul . The Republican senator castigated his colleagues for “intrusively abetting people’s efforts to survive.”// [linky]

[Does a double take]

Hang on, what was that!

Someone tell me this never really happened????

Surely a professional politician couldn't be stupid enough to make that sort of word meaning thingy mistake in public ;D
-- Skewed, Mar 14 2021


As I see it, the New Yorker is fake news, in the business of suppressing the message of Rand Paul and others who don't toe the neoconservative party line. He probably said something like that quote, but that's what the news does these daya: takes a few out-of-context quotes that fit their predetermined story, and uses those quotes to mock whichever candidates are the least bought while distracting from what the voters actually need and from what the representative actually said.
-- sninctown, Mar 14 2021


It's a nutty conspiracy until it's proven. When it's proven it goes down the memory hole.
-- Voice, Mar 14 2021


//a comedian// //is that good enough?//

Ah, so, pretty much, but did he really mangle his presentation by dropping in the wrong word like that or was it completely made up?

//As I see it//

So like our gutter press then? which would be all of it these days.
-- Skewed, Mar 14 2021


I know the Onion, seems pretty much the Sunday Sport online, which is pretty much The Beano for adults dressed up as a newspaper, The Sport is one of the few 'news' papers I don't feel complete loathing for these days, it may be the only one, at least they don't expect you to believe the balls they print, that said I've not read it since the 90's, is it even still going?
-- Skewed, Mar 15 2021


I can also recommend Private Eye magazine. Granted, I haven't been reading it in recent years, and it has a mostly UK focus - but, for example, back in the 1980s, it broke the Iran/Contra story long before any other news outlets including, I think, American ones. And they have a good record of attacking *everyone* equally - anywhere there's power, whether that's national government, local government, NGOs, business, celebrities, religion, arts, police, law courts, media, royalty, sport, etc., they have a record of digging up the dirt. They get sued a lot, but often turn out to have been right in the end. Anyway, that's the way I remember it. It may have gone downhill in the last twenty years.
-- pertinax, Mar 15 2021


It would help if the right wing party weren't now simply a parody of itself. It's hard to write objective news about the actual doings of clowns.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 15 2021


Every sector of society has clowns. But has there been a curve shift and can a finger be pointed? Maybe, news systems are to blame.
-- wjt, Mar 16 2021


[pertinax] Private Eye is still high-quality. Their coverage of what's gone badly, what's gone well, and what's been miscommunicated in the Government's response to Covid-19 has been really excellent.
-- hippo, Mar 16 2021


At no time during the 1980's would any news organization spend a minute reporting on Q bullshit, nor would George Will give it a minute of his time.

There was a good analysis done on it last year that I had heard. If I find it again I'll link it. As the right wing delved further and further into conspiracy land, Trump land, and hoax territory, the 'serious news' tended to brush them off with ever broader strokes. This is what happens when a party is hobbled and controlled by its extremists.

The left, for all of their troubles at winning, at least discipline their own from time to time.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


//at least discipline their own from time to time//

Most often these days for the wrong things, failing to agree that any man who chooses to self identify as a woman really is a biological woman & that any failure to accept this supreme piece of double think or slip of tongue to the contrary is a capital offence seems a favourite, these days they're just a bad joke looking for a punchline.

If in their current form they actually found power the damage they'd do is incalculable.
-- Skewed, Mar 16 2021


We do have trans halfbakers, Skewed. Walk carefully. It's a bit overblown when there are bigger tragedies going on, yes, but do walk carefully.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


Trans is fine [Ray], trying to pretend it's something it's not isn't, consider, if we followed the extremists wishes to the conclusion they demand you could, almost certainly would, have trans dying as a result of getting the wrong medication or emergency treatment, not often, or many, but still.. is that the type of idiocy we should support? a science denying dogma applied with a fascist zeal reminiscent of the inquisition? because that's what we have on the left in the UK.

I'm afraid I'd have to go with Blair White on much of the trans debate.

But point taken, so I won't respond to any other comments on the issue.

It's unimportant to what I was saying anyway.

Which is that the left (in the UK at least) are unelectable loons & anyone who votes for them in their current state is clinically insane.
-- Skewed, Mar 16 2021


If you're using this line to try and justify or 'whatabout' the cliff of reality that the right has jumped off, well, sorry. I don't see it.

Who won the election?

Which party is filled with science-deniers?

Which party has evolved into an enslaved personality cult?
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


[Quietly writes a brief note to have a psychiatrist sent around to evaluate [Ray}}
-- Skewed, Mar 16 2021


And 81 million other Americans, apparently.

Sorry but I'm not in the mood to play at this anymore.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


//81 million//

There's a lot of it out there.

But do try to remember that I'm talking about the UK left, wouldn't claim to have an opinion on the US left.

To answer your questions, in the UK it's.

The left.

The left.

The left.

They lost the last election are filled with science denying dogma driven spin artists & have a personality cult they've still not fully purged in the person of their last leader :)
-- Skewed, Mar 16 2021


there's no question there's a cult of personality on the right. And there's a cult of ideology on the left.
-- theircompetitor, Mar 16 2021


The UK right is roughly the US middle or even US center-left at the moment. Seeing as how [tc] is a USian, it would seem clear where he's focusing.

And no, in the US the right is the party of science-deniers and anti-vaxxers. Do a search for how many of which party plan to get the shot.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


ooooh don't get me started.

But on a more neutral approach, there are actions and points of philosophy we can ALL agree on. We've let politicians push wedge issues down our throats until a large percentage of people on both sides are completely unable to agree on anything. Good for the politicians, horrible for the country. Either country. We need to collectively agree on the points we can agree on, and they are many. Then we need to let OBJECTIVE science (that is repeatable experiments and unbiased work) lead the way.
-- Voice, Mar 16 2021


Objectivity is tricky. As I see it, there are many questions that have obvious answers but the majority is wrong about. Science can't help audit electronic money-creation by central banks, for example. Science can't help secure every citizen's God-given right to own air defense missile systems and nuclear power generators. Science can't build a "Leviathan" that gently punishes the uncooperative and foolish people to spur human progress. Science can't ban telemarketers.
-- sninctown, Mar 16 2021


this is priceless from a CNN article today about the border:

//But the issue appears to be becoming whether migrants desperate for a better life in the US have misinterpreted Biden's vows for a more humane stance on immigration than ex-President Donald Trump as a signal to flock to the US border. This perception is being exacerbated by the recruitment tactics of human smugglers.//

MISINTERPRETED... Were questions about this asked before the election? Was Biden ever pressed on it? what are they saying now?

I'm way way more pro-immigrant then Ray's troglodyte description -- but was there ANYONE in the press who didn't know this would happen? Or was it more convenient to talk about pics in cages that dated from the previous admin?

Sure, the people can be sycophants. And Fox is there too. But pretending that the rest of the press is not is hiding your head in the sand.
-- theircompetitor, Mar 16 2021


So your answer is what? Build a gigantic and utterly useless wall? Send them back 2000 miles? Release them into the wild? Put up huge billboard ads in Guatemala saying what our policies are?

Certainly having an actual human in the White House instead of a wannabe mafia goon was going to do something to signaling.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 16 2021


//Certainly having an actual human// actual alive non- suffering from dementia human for sure...

my answer is not to build a wall. I'm generally pro- immigrant, and am an immigrant as you probably know.

My suggestion here is purely that things are not improved by a lying press.
-- theircompetitor, Mar 16 2021


//Put up huge billboard ads in Guatemala saying what our policies are?//

Informational outreach may indeed help, especially non-lying education about coyotes and odds of getting caught and exported. No harm in Trump's policy of focusing on the more evil immigrants either, just without using it to stir up fear and hate.

The hyperinflation being brought about by both Trump and Biden will do more than anything else to curb immigration. Once the economy is destroyed there will be no reason to emigrate from where they are. Turns out Alexander Tytler wasn't cynical enough, it's the rich who are voting themselves largess.
-- Voice, Mar 16 2021


a slight "correction"

/*Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now.’ A story about the recording can be found here. The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.*/
-- theircompetitor, Mar 16 2021


/Certainly having an actual human// Face on/off the nation.

Legacy media: Put a face on the news. Authenticated, reported, and supported the efforts of journalists to present facts that reflect various situations and generate information its audience could use to make informed decisions. Sought to reassure and lower anxiety.

Para-media: Puts an influential face ahead of the news. Deals spin and shade across hot button issues to drive discussion on a range of opinions that engage its audience. Generates interest, and frames debate and closure as essential to public policy. Strives to present conflict and raise outrage.
-- reensure, Mar 17 2021


The death penalty for what you call para-media might help concentrate minds & break the pattern, maybe we could use drawing & quartering, was always a crowd pleaser that one.
-- Skewed, Mar 17 2021


Your view of legacy media might be a little rose- tinted, [reensure]. Much of the media was always pretty awful. Consider the famous question, "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?"
-- pertinax, Mar 17 2021


//view of legacy media might be a little rose- tinted, [reensure]. Much of the media was always pretty awful.//

I've moved toward this conclusion. I'm not in a recliner gazing upon that conclusion in total comfort, but I'm happier leaning in that direction.

I remember watching one of the air crash investigation programs about China Airlines 140, an A300 that crashed at Narita. They cut in footage of reliable old Tom Brokaw saying "Suddenly the plane's engines exploded". No they bloody didn't. The official cause was a mishandling of the aircraft mostly because of simulator/aircraft differences. That took a while to figure out, but, what absolutely didn't happen was any engine explodyness. That was known at the time. It stalled and bellyflopped onto the ground. So the impression from the news: Engines exploded. What actually happened with the engines: They worked perfectly throughout the flight.

With science journalism, I'm afraid the signal:noise ratio is either 0, or actually a negative value. If you see any sciency headline "New drug reverses symptoms in a huge advance in Parkinson's research", disregard. I don't know why some studies from the literature get thrust into the mainstream, I suspect a combination of slow news days and a sporadically active University comms dept. Usually the article, when read carefully, gives an impression so wrong it should be considered a lie. Even the big journals, Cell, Science & Nature are politicizing their way into odd positions.

There is hope though, there are podcasts & youtube channels with actual scientists spending good amounts of time on subjects and generally doing things rather well.
-- bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021


Links, please
-- Voice, Mar 17 2021


//Links, please//

I'm not sure which point you want specifically, but I found Tom Brokaw spouting rubbish at 10:20 ish <link>. Sorry for the ads, was difficult to find online without paying.
-- bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021


I was hoping for links to scientists spending good amounts of time on subjects and generally doing things rather well.
-- Voice, Mar 17 2021


Oh, try these <link>. The Peter Attia podcast episode with Vamsi Mootha is something I'm well qualified to assess, we're in the same field & our labs collaborate.
-- bs0u0155, Mar 17 2021


//science-deniers and anti-vaxxers//

Speaking of which they the religious nuts & other normal suspects must be going spare.

Just had my first jab & the leaflet tells them the vaccine contains chimpanzee virus & GMO's, uses other woods liable to scare them (like recombinant) as well.
-- Skewed, Mar 17 2021


The story of the woods. How else scare/manipulate children into doing what you want?
-- wjt, Mar 18 2021


//How else scare/manipulate children into doing what you want?//

Cattle prods.
-- bs0u0155, Mar 18 2021


//Science can't help audit electronic money-creation by central banks//

Economics can prove the short- and long-term result of that.

//Science can't help secure every citizen's God-given right to own air defense missile systems and nuclear power generators.//

Yes it can: those materials and technologies are getting cheaper every day. Also if there were studies done on it, it could be proven whether allowing everyday citizens to build and/or purchase and own those things would be a good thing by various measures. I volunteer to be one of the test cases.

//Science can't build a "Leviathan" that gently punishes the uncooperative and foolish people to spur human progress.//

No, but engineering can...

//Science can't ban telemarketers.//

It can tell us how.
-- Voice, Mar 19 2021


I thought science was on an energetic race to make the best telemarketers the human race has ever seen. Ananova was a real Max Headroom early model.
-- wjt, Mar 20 2021


That was last week...
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 20 2021


//I'm well qualified to asses//

Either you're short an S, [bs0], or that's TMI.
-- pertinax, Mar 20 2021


So what if he's a horse breeder? Don't get bummed out.
-- Voice, Mar 20 2021



random, halfbakery