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Monday 9 November 2015

Blog Shock Horror

A lesson blogging hammers home home fairly quickly is the appallingly facile yet horribly effective nature of mainstream journalism. We always knew it but now we know it with a bleak and fatalistic certainty. Pages must be filled on schedule and with the right word count. Advertisers must not be upset and the rich and powerful must have their say.

The clockwork essence of it shows,
Why clunk, clunk, clunk it always goes.
Why suck, suck, suck the suckers suck,
At tits and bums and illicit...

Blogging is easier. I post when I feel like it which is roughly once a day but often enough it isn’t and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how long the posts are either, although I tend to go for short. If I can’t say it in a few hundred words I give it a miss because to my way of thinking language should be concise. No doubt that’s the scientist in me – or the idle sod.

Apart from which... no that’s it I’m almost done.

Mainstream media churns out drama, pap and screwing because drama, pap and screwing sell, sell and sell again. And because the space has to be filled on schedule and drama, pap and screwing are available in vast quantities. Peak Pap or Peak Screw anyone? No I don’t think so either.

Drama comes down the wire from news services such as Reuters or from press releases. An unskilled cut and paste job. Pap comes from press releases. Another unskilled cut and paste job. News of the screws may require some legal input - so to speak.

As for blogging... no I’m done.

5 comments:

Sackerson said...

You speak as testily as I feel about this!

Sam Vega said...

It's fairly obvious that what mainstream "newspapers" (I now think of them as websites) do is to receive "news" from News Agencies and staged press releases, and then edit it in accordance with the assumed preferences and desires of their readers. I don't know much about the agencies, though. It's easy to slip into thinking of them as somehow impartial and objective, simply by comparing them to the newspapers. But they must also be riddled with human folly and corruption, and shaped by the same social forces that distort and fabricate messages.

If I carry on like this I'll end up believing only that which takes place in front of my eyes.

Anonymous said...

Like him or not, Chomsky said way back that the main purpose of mass market news was, as you point out, to sell pap and screwing and the party line. Back then there were still a few newspapers that catered for 'the decision makers' that told the truth - because truth was needed to steer the economy. But now, even the financial papers seem a bit thin on fact and good analysis. Worse still, the comments sections frequently seem to be manipulated or overtaken by those with an agenda or by lunatics. I suspect manipulators, no-one can stand very much truth. Nil carborundum....

Demetrius said...

The main media now in the days of the net etc. is usually somewhat behind the game and given they are employed by people preaching what their employers want. So if we we want other sources and views this was not easy a decade and more ago, but now it is very easy indeed.

A K Haart said...

Sackers - sometimes it just hits you harder than usual.

Sam - scepticism has become a fairly common default position which makes me wonder if it is a trend. The trouble is, social trends tend to be very slow and only obvious afterwards.

Roger - yes, good analysis is not common. Much of is probably paid for and not necessarily available to all and sundry. Even so, much of that cannot be first rate either if official bungling is any guide.

Demetrius - it is easy, but I think there are quality issues too. It is very easy to latch onto websites which appear to be clued up but all they really do is preach to the choir. Joining the choir is sometimes a good idea and sometimes not.