There are times.......

[Martin]

you wonder why you bother to worry about the fate of the world...........heard on the radio 4 news a few minutes ago "shock, horror, probe, two rolling stones lit up on stage, in contravention of the new anti-smoking legislation"
Hells bells, here we are, like lemmings on speed, hurtling towards the ecological abyss, and what makes the news? Two old-age pensioners having a crafty ciggy at work, just as they have done so for over 40 years!...............

[QuakerBear]

The news is not there to be informative. The news is a light hearted magazine style show/website/buletin.

[Silver Ether]

The news is there to tell you what the powers that be want you to know and most of the time its just enough to scare you into being controlled ....

The rest is just fluff so we think we are getting all the info ...

[Martin]

beautifully, and succinctly put!

[Russian Doll]

i agree

[Millymollymandy]

And I heard that they will not be prosecuted because nobody in the audience wanted them to be! Now what does that say - all Stones fans are smokers, or ........? One rule or them and one for the rest it seems.

[Martin]

need a licence to f*rt soon!

[Millymollymandy]

Not in my house! Farting is sacred.

[Stonehead]

The news is there to tell you what the powers that be want you to know and most of the time its just enough to scare you into being controlled ....

The rest is just fluff so we think we are getting all the info ...

If only it were true, but largely it's not.

The even more scarey truth is that you get shedloads of guff because "you" the people want it - as dictated by market testing, focus groups, post-sales analysis etc etc. Having had to sit through far too many of these exercises than is healthy, I can say with confidence that the self-selecting members of the audience who provide this "valuable" feedback are a bunch of very sad individuals indeed.

After all, what sort of person voluntarily travels many miles to be a member of a focus group that will decided the future direction of a major weekly magazine when the rewards are: a cup of tea and one biscuit, a tea-towel with the magazine logo, a corporate key ring, a guided tour of the magazine HQ and travel expenses paid (rail or bus only).

What sort of person likes to stand on a street corner for 20 minutes while a spotty teenager asks them what their news preferences are?

What sort of person likes to have a market researcher come into their home and analyse their lifestyle choices?

You can point out that these exercises are pointless and misdirecting, but in vain because the market researchers are infallible and what the "audience" says is gospel.

I've seen umpteen newspapers, magazines, radio programmes etc all driven down the same path of meaningless drivel because it's what the "audience" wants. Actually, it's what the meaningless drivel in the focus groups want.

[ina]

Yeah, I've often wondered who they actually ask... Whenever somebody tells me that supermarkets sell what their customers want - well, I used to buy in supermarkets, nobody ever asked me what I wanted them to sell - and they don't really have much of what I need on a daily basis! So I suppose the same goes for news.

[Silver Ether]

I think ten folks sit round and ask each other .. times it by 100 and thats it ...

If I am in the mood which isn`t very often I will answer that survey for a giggle ... especialy about detergents, air freshners. amd all the other crap they we are sold for our own hygiene or our homes ... cuss I dont use it and it gets them very confused when you keep saying "bicarb" "vinegar" " elbow grease" Dont wash ... thats a good one ... well not in the conventional way ...

[Moomintroll]

The news is not there to be informative. The news is a light hearted magazine style show/website/buletin.

I agree. I think the media has become "dumbed down." A few of us were discussing this some time ago and we felt that there were fewer intelligent documentary-type programmes. There is the occasional one tucked away in the schedules requiring videoing (for example John Pilger's film on S America the other night.) Panorama was hidden away on Sunday night when really you don't want to watch it!

I wonder whether people are too closed-minded to want to ask the important questions and to question what goes on around them.

[glenniedragon]

You have to be careful in surveys, at an unamed hospital in the south-east in which OH and I were working, HR decided to run an ethnic diversity study. OH answered 'Anglo-caledonian' in the 'other' section of origin in the survey, I told my friend of this and she also put 'anglo-caledonian' as that seemed a laugh as well as being correct, together with about half a dozen other of our friends........the result was they became a 'statistically significant' sample and the hospital had to research how they were meeting their specific cultural needs haggis or clapshot never appeared on the canteen menu so it didn't make that much of a difference! but it did throw a spanner in the works!

kind thoughts

Deb

[Super.Niki]

The news is there to tell you what the powers that be want you to know and most of the time its just enough to scare you into being controlled ....

Scarily true sometimes, it's not until you take a step back and look at the bigger picture that you realise the media is controlling every aspect of your life, with our without your wanting or even knowledge sometimes, and this happens from birth too it's hard to get away from!

Everyone's probably heard of it, but OutFoxed is a good film to watch, it's about FoxNews in the US but it's quite creepy and you wonder how much is true for the rest of the News TVs/Papers/whatever...
http://www.outfoxed.org/

[Shed Head]

I call it defiance, but in a good way of course! Next, we'll be walking around with mind reading electrodes attached to our head and then prosecuted for thinking bad thoughts!

Oh crap! I've just been fined for thinking about having a cigarette in a non 50/50 room!