The Daily Show and Chasers ARE News by Proxy
ANALYSIS, Global – Satire has always been a weapon people use when they know most of the news they are watching is untrue or missing the point.
Whilst I applaud many fine Print Journalists, the fact is that the bias inherent in many publications and TV, means that media is increasingly untrusted.
The average person knows on some level that the mass media exists to propagate a message that is not about enlightening debate.They know Rupert’s media on some level is about Rupert…
People know Fox News is biased, and has dragged all media to the Right.
Those people who vehemently support Fox are simply people on the Right.
But in subtle ways, the media has shifted to far too the Right.
The average person feels powerless, so they watch satire.
Whilst there are many fine stories the selection of stories predicates a bias towards certain topics.
It really is about maintaining a power-base of support for ideas an uber-rich autocracy, like the autocracy Murdoch and the far-Right’s Neo-Conservative cronies, support.
Of course, there are rival factions, and some the support for Bush is fickle (as he recently discovered), as the supporters fight amongst themselves for more power. Even Murdoch is fickle, it’s about power.
Cheap oil has made these people super-rich, and they want to keep it. Simple. In fact they cannot visualize the world any other way. Green? Would weaken their power-base.
Many justify that they are ‘acting in the people’s interest’, but confuse the people’s interest with their own personal interest. Some don’t bother with the confusion.
War in Iraq is about cheap oil and strategic independence.
Nuclear weapons in Iran debate is about Iran’s unique geographic position.
Abortion is a ‘conscience’ topic talked up to divide people.
Why are these the only topics we hear about in US media?
If you watch the Daily Show excerpts, you will see one Right-wing Presidential candidate talk about nuking Iran! Stewart lampoons him. Yes, the Iranians are somehow a threat to the most powerful country in the world. Right. Okey-dokey. Logic, where?
One of the most popular self-serving bits of rhetoric ideology is that the perfect economy is a market economy without any interference or regulation. How then to ensure a level playing field?
This is not debated, just regurgitated as popular wisdom. Private is better than public? Not always. The reality is, it is time for a moderate position of government intervention in the economy to ensure fairness.
Instead, of debate over big ideas: much of what is said in the most popular mass media is a carefully selected suite of distractions, inaccuracies, dichotomies, demagoguery and ideas.
So the people know it is merely opinion disguised as fact, and return to satire.
Why Satire not News?
If you think this is the first time in history, look back.
The satirical cartoons lampooning the British pre-dated the American War of Independence.
Satire is what people turn to when there is a shortage of real news.
Satire allows people to ’say what they think’ in an environment of oppressive thinking, and political correctness. Satire is in Ancient Rome, Shakespeare, and Ancient Greece.
Whenever power goes ‘off-the-rails’, satire rises.
Whenever people feel powerless to control their lives, satire arises. It is a safety valve.
Citizens are mostly moderate, it is some leaders who are extremist. Howard moved too far to the Right in Australia, and he was removed from power. FULL STOP. (Analysis here)
And media proprietors who keep pushing the media to extremism of the Right, or Left to increase their power. Murdoch has supported both the Far left (Australia 1970s) and Far Right (USA, 2000s) , his ideology is ‘Murdoch’.
Moderate, balanced news that is structured and logical is what most people want.
Not Info-tainment, as I explain here. (Thanks for those of you, like Jody and Chris, who sent me some enlightened comments.)
Not everyone can understand why they dislike a program, but the ratings should tell you that The Daily Show, Colbert Report and Chasers, which lack the resources of a news network are more popular.
Let me say that again: under-resourced programs are more implicitly truthful, and therefore rate well.
The truth is disguised as satire to reach a mass audience in today’s world.
In the Chasers case, an under-resourced ABC, hamstrung by government appointees, on a program made by less-serious journalists, in an inconvenient time-slot, is able to out-rate ’serious news’.
Not everyone wants to read large slabs of newspapers, journals and serious books by Al Gore and Al Greenspan. I think their ideas are important, so I do, but then, that’s me.
Most people like their truth in a pithy video form.
And satire TV, is giving them a drop of the water of truth in an oasis of ‘interest’.
And people take the drop of water over the oasis.
The people are smarter than you think Rupert.
Take care,
Christopher
Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.
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