[odehib]

Wow, the dark tower is getting a lot of love. Now I'm actually sort of glad barnes and noble didn't have my originally intended book (11/22/63).

 

[Silent One]

 

[TrollDragon]

Quote:

Wow, the dark tower is getting a lot of love. Now I'm actually sort of glad barnes and noble didn't have my originally intended book (11/22/63).

You must read 11/22/63 as well, it is excellent!
The Dark tower is a good long sit ~4000 pages with the new Through The Keyhole book.

 

[dallan]

I put down the Keyhole book right when the stories were about to begin, i want to savor it.  

 

[TrollDragon]

Quote:

I put down the Keyhole book right when the stories were about to begin, i want to savor it.  

Tis a fine addition to the series, well worth savoring!
 

 

[Hi-Finthen]

Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy [Paperback]

James Fallows
 
 
 
A Terrific & Penetrating Look At How The Media Fails Us! September 5, 2000
By Barron Laycock
Formataperback
Few authors are as capable of approaching the unenviable task of explaining the otherwise baffling devolution in both the content and context of the mass media's coverage of the news as brilliantly as is noted journalist James Fallows in this literate, scathing, and thought-provoking broadside against his fellow journalists and the organizations they work for.
By illuminating the specific circumstances attending the startling transformation in terms of the way news is viewed and covered by the media, he consistently gives readers reason for concern, and often for alarm. For example, Fallows contends that the viewing public increasingly distrusts the media because the public recognizes they can no longer depend on the media to provide the essential information citizens need to make sense out of current events and the world at large.
 
In a carefully constructed look at how this has happened, Fallows masterfully describes how several aspects of media's coverage of the news has had the net effect of its become more of an effort to entertain and less an exercise in edifying and informing the public in an objective and disinterested fashion. As a result, the media increasingly presents public life in terms of a "depressing spectacle" rather than in its proper context as one of several vital aspects of a vibrant democratic experiment in progress. By concentrating almost exclusively on those more entertaining elements of the news involves conflict or controversy, the media offers us a glossy, superficial and profoundly inaccurate perspective of the often intricately complicated world outside our doors, and in the process makes the world even less comprehensible to those of us attempting to make sense of it all.
 
Fallows argues that at least part of this process is propelled by the phenomenon of corporate acquisition of news agencies by large conglomerates whose concern for "the bottom line" has corrupted the news organization's fabled ability to maintain objectivity and disinterest. This results in concerns for competitive ratings, and a desperate attempt to compete with more traditional entertainment programs for audience share. As a result, news programs go for what is shocking, flashy, and provocative, so that "what bleeds, leads" the evening's news coverage. In a similar financial concern for confining costs, a plethora of quasi-news programs featuring "talking heads" featuring well known journalists like Robert Novak who ostensibly discuss the news but are actually offering their contrived punditry for our entertainment. In such a world dominated by a script requiring conflict and controversy, politicians are covered like sports stars, and all political actions, from attempts to pass healthcare legislation to decisions to bomb Iraq, are viewed strictly in terms of their consequence for the politicians involved and seldom discussed or debated in terms of their specifics or substantive elements.
 
Yet clever parlor talk by pontificating pundits does little to help us comprehend or interpret current events or important social, economic, or political issues; in this way our overflowing servings of political entertainment disguised as public service are actually obstacles to public awareness. It is this unintended consequence of the change in the news that Fallows is most concerned with, for to the extent the media becomes an element in managing the news rather than a disinterested purveyor of it, it becomes a potentially anti-democratic vehicle for anyone clever enough and cynical enough to manipulate it. In this sense this book is a call to arms, and a compassionate plea to his colleagues to correct the serious dysfunctions now visiting professional journalism.
 
This is an important book, and one I heartily recommend to all citizens concerned with how the media is increasingly abrogating their civic responsibilities in favor of serving their own parochial secular interests.


 
 
 
 
 
 
James Fallows (Author)
› Visit Amazon's James Fallows Page
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[fatcat28037]

 

[dallan]

Quote:

 
This is an important book, and one I heartily recommend to all citizens concerned with how the media is increasingly abrogating their civic responsibilities in favor of serving their own parochial secular interests.


 
 
 
 
 
 
James Fallows (Author)
› Visit Amazon's James Fallows Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.

See search results for this author

Are you an author? Learn about Author Central


 

Not following their FCC charter either I'm afraid.  There is a public service component in it.

 

[grokit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine#Formal_revocation

 

[Hi-Finthen]

Quote:

Not following their FCC charter either I'm afraid.  There is a public service component in it.

 
Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine#Formal_revocation

 
There is a (reintroduced) bill again pending to end funding for NPR and PBS which I believe has passed in the House of Reps and on its way to Congress !
 
Must get rid of the actual news outlets ,afraid they make the other news businesses look ridiculous with their actual professional journalism .

 

[dallan]

Quote:

 
 
There is a (reintroduced) bill again pending to end funding for NPR and PBS which I believe has passed in the House of Reps and on its way to Congress !
 
Must get rid of the actual news outlets ,afraid they make the other news businesses look ridiculous with their actual professional journalism .

Real news threatens some groups......i need to be careful of what i say though out here due to rules and tuck my poli sci degree back in the closet.

 

[grokit]

No problemo, we'll just remand all editorial control to the multinational corporations.
I'm sure they have our best interests at heart 

 

[tme110]

Just finished Bradury13 and now I'm on Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut
 

 

[Xaverian]

I'm just about to start Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. I love his work that I've read so far (Slaughterhouse-FIve, Slapstick)

 

[tme110]

Liked Cat's cradle and Slaugherhouse-5 is one of my favorites - not at all familiar with slapstick though.