Another update on my attempt to not actively seek out news.
I now hold all news sources suspect. I have a feeling that they have always had less than the pure "journalistic integrity" people seem to go on and on about. In the little bit of news that has filtered it's way to me I have seen;
- Stories about the horrors of New Orleans after Katrina hit.
- Stories claiming the news 'sensationalized' the storm and it wasn't all that bad.
- Stories saying the news 'glossed over' the real horrors of the storm and that things are really much worse.
All of these came from 'credible' news sources. What should I believe? Well, there's only one way to set all of this straight. I must invent a time machine so I can go back and experience it for myself and draw my own conclusions. All other news stories useless babble when there is that much contradiction in them.
Speaking of useless babble, what about the undermining of journalism by intelligence agencies? The CIA will admit to planting stories in foreign news sources but swears up and down that they would never and have never done such a thing inside the U.S. Let's assume they aren't feeding us a cover line. That still leads to some major problems. A lot of people get their news from foreign news sources. A lot of news stories get researched using foreign news sources. Reuters and AP pick up foreign news stories for circulation domestically. Foreign intelligence agencies might plant stories in our news media. That's not to mention any possible miscommunications due to translation.
Everyone seems to accept that the weather forecast consists of probabilities. So does the rest of the 'news'.
1 comment:
It's the timewave man. Maybe it's not that time itself ceases to exist but information. We base our concept of time on a progression of agreed upon events, cause and effect. When all information is instantly available yet utterly suspect, no one will be able to agree upon a common version of history, even existence. It's all been deconstructed. All time becomes the present. The past becomes inscruitable mystery. The future, a random occurance of events lacking logical sequence.
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