On With The Show!
This show is purely for entertainment!
Friends, I’m struck by the changing meaning of the word ‘show’. Once it meant entertainment, something like that shown in the image above. Now it is being liberally applied to many aspects of the news.
I’m sure you are all familiar with people like Larry King, Glen Beck, Bill O’reilly, Russ Limbaugh, David Speers, Wolf Blitzer, etc, who conduct ‘shows’ that are supposed to deal with serious world or national problems.
These ‘shows’, if they are examined closely, generally have the following characteristics:
- elaborate sets.
- lots of noise, whirling bright lights and advertisements.
- lots of experts who, on panels, gabble simultaneously thereby becoming incomprehensible.
- lots of experts who present predictable right-wing, capitalist views.
- lots of presenters who deliberately use exaggeration and lies to promote controversy and headlines.
- lots of presenters who use specific lines of questioning to get the answers they want.
- lots of thirty-second grabs which cater for the brain-dead.
- lots of good-looking, busty, waspish females who often speak in shrill nasal-speak.
- lots of gimmicks like throwing footballs, braces, wigs, canned laughter, etc.
Of course, the most worrying characteristic of all is that these shows are all about entertainment and least of all about presenting factual news in a fair and balanced way so that citizens will be informed and will be challenged to think for themselves.
No, each ‘show’ goes on and on and on and the viewers by the end get the message and know what they are supposed to think and what they are supposed to buy.
It’s no wonder that people become ever more sheep-like.
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Rome is burning! TV is mind numbing – decided on 9-11-01 to stop paying for the headli(n)es spouting from the idiot box. Not a penny for the liars!
Kill your TV! It’s liberating. So hope that more and more people worldwide will use the internet for entertainment. Go to live performances and support local artists. Forget about the overpaid TV/Hollywood crowd. It’s mostly propaganda anyway.
Am not an artist but try to support street musicians, local painters, etc. We NEED art to survive the daily atrocities. German Yahoo just reported that the German military will stay in Afghanistan for about 10 more years. Hitler must be jealous in hell…nothing better than Colonial troops in resource rich countries. Someone needs to control the opium and oil!
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I so agree with margit, and thanks, David, for taking the time to examine the oh-so-common characteristics and motives of those ‘shows’ you listed. They are unbearable, and so determined to accomplish the goal they seek, to be sure that my fellow citizens go baabaabaa.I
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Margit and Therese, the role of the media in further dumbing down the masses is unforgivable. I guess it happened because of capitalism and greed. Making mega-profits became more important than presenting the truth.
So now we have a situation where media owners, politicians, and the military-corporate sectors are all in bed with each other. The results of that are predictable and damaging to democracy!
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margit, I did the opposite of you. I used to not have anything but network TV. On 9-11, I watched ABC for an hour, but then some talking head (one I was not familiar with) announced that “this happened because we are too free, and that is going to change”.
What a jerk, I thought, and turned off the TV. I didn’t watch it for the rest of the day.
Turns out he was right. We did lose our freedoms. How did he know?
My, my, could it all have been planned?
Anyway, now I pay for satellite TV and only watch Democracy Now for my news. I don’t see any of the annoying talking heads. I don’t watch the commercials. I am culturally backward.
I only hear about things like Michael Jackson’s death and other murders and affairs through my co-workers. Believe me, that’s enough!
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