About the Media--The Puppy-Kicking Doctrine

[vixengrl]

I think I've found a way to explain what I hate, hate, hate, about today's news media, and I'm calling it "The Puppy-Kicking Doctrine". The idea relates to the idea of "balance" in the point of view presented in discussion of any news topic, and it goes something like this:

Whenever a rather awful thing takes place, the only way to discuss it in a really balanced way is to show both sides of the argument. Even if the topic is kicking puppies. Even if the numbers showed that maybe one in a thousand people thought puppies should be kicked, the media has to show someone from each side. Therefore, the "Kicking puppies is wrong" side will be represented by a teenager from PETA who has never tested make-up on herself, and the "Kicking puppies is awesome" side will be represented by an engaging and spirited man in his 90's who insists that kicking puppies is the key to eternal youth.

I think Pat Buchanan is a puppy-kicker. Liz Cheney? Puppy-kicker. (I don't want to say what I think her old man does to puppies.) In any topic presented on cable news, the trick is to spot the "puppy-kicker". Randall Terry is a puppy-kicker. Ann Coulter is the Cruella De Ville of puppy-kicking.

Some pundits, who even have their own shows, are puppy-kickers. You could call them "paid puppy-kickers." They kick puppies for money, even if they don't have anything against the puppy in question. Glenn Beck would kick a puppy for ratings, even if it made him cry. Bill O'Reilly would insist the puppy was a vicious, rabid, devil-eyed, fully-grown wolf-hound, and that he did everyone a favor by kicking the puppy--and he'd kick it again. Rush Limbaugh would kick the puppy before his broadcast and eat it on-air. Hannity would explain that puppies have always been liberal and a little suspicious and beady-eyed. And he'd kick them during commercial break as well as live. And Joe Scarborough might say it hurts him more than the puppy, "but darn it, Mika, I think the puppy is getting kicked." Lou Dobbs might explain that the puppy was foreign, and was going to steal his stuff.

The "puppy" might be human rights, civil liberties, a murder victim, a rape victim, the poor, immigrants, minorities, women looking for quality, etc. But no matter how blameless the "puppy" of the story is, or at least, how unobjectionable--the media will find a puppy-kicker, and that view will have exactly equal validity in terms of coverage.

And that is what I hate about the media.



http://vixenstrangelymakesuncommonsense.blogspot.com/

[Mythsaje]

1. Very good... It works. n/t

[Jim Sagle]

2. A modest correction: Joey Scar would KILL the puppy.

;)

[vixengrl]

4. Off-camera--maybe, and explain how he came across a deceased puppy--

and now maybe he'd like to discuss it. Yeah--I think he's shill enough to do whatever the climate requires--even be the puppy-killer on occasion.


Did you know he was a lawyer who defended a shooter of an abortion-doctor in time gone by and built his career on that? He's an interesting cat--Joey Scar.

[lunatica]

15. Naw. But the puppy would be found dead in Scars office

[Jim Sagle]

16. You are correct: It would only be ALLEGED that he killed it.

Strangely enough, those allegations would never reach the corporate media. After all, IOKIYAR.

[pnwmom]

3. K & R. n/t

[imdjh]

5. I don't know if you are old enough or bored enough to watch Oprah, but she made history

Oprah made history many years ago when she said that she wasn't going to invite anti-gay preachers and other cancers on the show for "balance" when discussing gay issues. She went on to say that the reason was that it didn't provide balance, it simply let hate groups use her microphone.

Donohue was till doing "balance" at the time, as I recall.

[Puzzler]

6. Another example is...

... someone says 2+2=5. Just to be balanced, the media has two pundits to argue that 2+2=5 and another two pundits to argue that 2+2=4. The "impartial" moderator will let the viewers decide. What could be fairer? However, even if the moderator and the broadcaster are impartial, all they've succeeded in doing in many viewers minds is: SOWING THE SEEDS OF DOUBT. This is an essential, and common tactic used when the right wing has to argue against things that they have no real case against, for example climate change and the so-called intelligent-design vs. evolution "debate".

[yorgatron]

7. K&R

:kick:

[vixengrl]

9. Exactly--instead of laying out facts, which you'd *think*

would be the right way to go, so that 2 + 2 always equals 4, they are happy with, "Some say 2 + 2 = 4, but our guest says, five--"

It would be great if they had the guest on, and then said, "But have you ever noticed that it isn't really five? Here were have some examples of '2 + 2' so our audience can see what we're talking about..." and then hit them with facts.

(Actually, Rachel Maddow does this sort of thing.)

[Richard Steele]

8. K&R

[KittyWampus]

10. Works for me.

[Arkansas Granny]

11. This pretty much what you can expect when the media sensationalizes the

news instead of reporting the facts in an order to attract a bigger audience in order to get more advertising dollars. Truth goes by the wayside and they are more entertainment than information.

[JohnyCanuck]

12. Much gagged whistleblower Sibel Edmonds on the media

From her latest blog post:

Okay, I am going to list a few favorite quotes of mine, those related to the media in general, and invite you to bring in and post yours. Here goes:

• What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
-- W. H. Auden

•Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.-- Thomas Jefferson

• People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media. -- Ted Koppel

• The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.- - Eric Sevareid

• Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become. - - Amy Goodman

http://123realchange.blogspot.com/2009/06/tgif-lite-post.html

[DCKit]

13. So very well stated VG. Big, fat K&R for you.

I'll watch every report with a whole new perspective. However, I've given up watching most of these shows because they're all about the puppy kickers. Based solely on our media outlets "reporting", you'd think the puppy defenders had gone extinct.

With the M$M as our voice, it's little wonder other countries believe we are, as a people, murderous, xenophobic and insane.

[XemaSab]

14. This is true

And not only that, but instead of "Puppy kicking made illegal in South Dakota," the debate over whether puppy kicking should be illegal takes the place of news.

Opinion is not news.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. The only thing I would suggest changing: make it kittens instead of puppies.

You would have many people on the internets on your side.

Many people.