Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Media Errors: "A Feature Not a Bug"



Fast forward to 5:50 in this clip

"My final conclusion 'This is deliberate,'" says Stewart. "The chaos they vomit onto the screen -- the very same thing we thought news organizations were created to prevent* -- is a feature, not a bug."

*Jon Stewart malapropped clarify for prevent. We corrected the record to be consistent with context.
Stewart goes on to a clip from an interview with CNN's honcho, where he explains (crows?) how the audience forgave them for their botch of the Boston Marathon terror episode. How does he know? CNN was rewarded by the viewers when, only two days later, they gave CNN its largest audience ever.

Stewart concludes from that:
"OMG! The lesson they take from this is 'it doesn't matter how much they betray our trust; we'll keep coming back.'  We're in an abusive relationship with CNN!"

Not funny ha ha, but funny sad.

It reminds me of Bill Clinton's twist of the old wisdom into his infamous "Why tell the truth when a good lie will do?" Clinton's cynicism is echoed in the behavior of the Soviet-Style Media (SSM) where it seems like their slogan is
"Don't worry about making errors; it's good practice for when ordered to lie."

1 comment:

  1. Since they make up the news anyway, it is nearly impossible to catch them in a lie, unless you assume they are lying to start with, which was the advice Samuel Clemens gave about the news media of his day.

    I don't see where they have gotten any better.

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