Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

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FrankGSterleJr
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Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

Maybe mainstream journalism has largely become a profession that’s motivated more by a buck and a byline — i.e. a regular company paycheque and a frequently published name with stories — than a genuine strive to challenge the powers-that-be in order to truly comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence.

Also, journalism’s traditional function may have been quietly changed. The adage-description of journalism’s fundamental function can remain the same, but revision of terminological representation is definitely in order. While it remains “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” there has been a notable mainstream-news-media alteration as to what/who constitutes an “afflicted” and “the comfortable”.

For example, an “afflicted” of our contemporary news-media times needing comforting may be an owner of a multi-million-dollar home that’s worth too much, thus taxed higher, and he/she therefore desires tax respite. Or, the new “afflicted” requiring news-media comforting is an already very profitable fossil-fuel-producing corporation that needs more taxpayer-funded subsidies along with our convenient complacency in its multiplying many-fold its diluted bitumen export thus accompanying eco-threats for the sake of even greater profit.

Still, for me, the most compromised news-media are those that also feign balanced coverage and objectivity — unlike openly boisterous slanted outlets, such as Canada’s Sun newspapers (excluding The Vancouver Sun) — but upon closer examination their manipulations can be pinpointed; anything from terminology, placement of information attributes or lack thereof, and the story angle (including parameterization). Whether or not it’s intentional, a muddying of waters in effect it indeed is.

Other concerned people would’ve worded it more brazenly: “I would argue that what little ethical and moral foundation the country has is deeply threatened by the crumbling discipline of a fossil-fuel-based economy and the politics it spawns. Nothing requires government supervision in so many areas (and nothing has anything like the influence on government) as this industry. It follows that no other industry remotely requires the amount and kind of honest, wary media surveillance this one does,” the late Rafe Mair aptly wrote in his newly released book Politically Incorrect, in which he forensically dissects democracy’s decline in Canada and suggests how it may be helped.

“What has the media, especially but hardly exclusively the print media, done in response to this immense challenge? It’s joined fortunes with the petroleum industry. And a very large part of it has done so in print and in public. The facts are that the rest of the media have not raised a peep of protest at this unholiest of alliances and that governments contentedly and smugly pretend all that favourable coverage they get proves their efficiency — not that the fix is in and they’re part of that fix. Let me just comment that the difference from 1972 to 2017 in the media’s dealing with governments and politics takes the breath away!” ...

Maybe there's an informal/unspoken agreement amongst the largest mainstream news-media: ‘Don't dump on me, and I won't dump on you.’
DPMartin
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by DPMartin »

FrankGSterleJr wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 3:23 am Maybe mainstream journalism has largely become a profession that’s motivated more by a buck and a byline — i.e. a regular company paycheque and a frequently published name with stories — than a genuine strive to challenge the powers-that-be in order to truly comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence.
that's been true as long as you have a free press. it acts in its own interests.

Still, for me, the most compromised news-media are those that also feign balanced coverage and objectivity —
well in the construction industry its understood if a contractor says trust me, you're about to get screwed.

but media has only the influence the public gives it, so the world is getting what it asks for.
popeye1945
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by popeye1945 »

The media is owned by the American elite, they comfort themselves and discomfort the global community.
commonsense
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by commonsense »

popeye1945 wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:45 pm The media is owned by the American elite, they comfort themselves and discomfort the global community.
Yes.

The elite comfort themselves by making profits. They make profits by attracting the global community to their news content and also selling the content to advertisers.
popeye1945
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by popeye1945 »

I am speaking of the power elite, those that truly govern the empire, which to the global community is somewhat like a global crime family.
commonsense
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by commonsense »

popeye1945 wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:56 pm I am speaking of the power elite, those that truly govern the empire, which to the global community is somewhat like a global crime family.
So am I.
popeye1945
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by popeye1945 »

Sorry, guess I am not functioning on all eight cylinders today, my apologies.
Phil8659
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by Phil8659 »

Really? You don't know?
They were bought up by corporations afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?

But does it really matter when the watchers of that media is provably alliterate? What does it matter who scams the stupid?

Where are those claiming to be philosophers which actually knew what it is? Where did they go?
Walker
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Re: Whatever Happened to News-Media's Afflicting the Comfortable and Comforting the Afflicted?

Post by Walker »

Impenitent wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:17 am https://www.newsfirst.lk/latest-news/
https://www.chron.com/business/article/ ... 296295.php

utopia on the way... coming to a home near you

-Imp
The chaos is because of hunger. The Green Luddites in government went green but the crops need chemicals. A GMO in the hand is worth two in the fantasy, so bring on the fake meat and the plumped-up bugs and the starving will ask for seconds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/worl ... lizer.html
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