News is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. When it is heavy with the fear factors you need to sit back and ask yourself why someone is trying to scare you.
There will never be a time when we all get along if we continue to fall for news that is meant to manipulate us. i’ve just had a really pleasant experience with a guy i don’t know but who got my name off a bulk e-mail list. He claimed he was going to open my eyes and began sending me a series of highly inflammatory and downright untrue e-mails that he and his friends passed around amongst each other.
After months and months of back and forth…probably at least a year of my shooting down everything he sent and linking to the truth…his relatives got involved and asked me to go easy on him. i tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t and being me i couldn’t let so many lies parade as truth. The relatives pleaded with him to stop writing me and finally he did.
About a month went by when last week i got an e-mail from him that was once again laden with lies...a really horrible one...so awful that it included gory pictures etc. i corrected it but before i could send it off he sent me a link to the truth. He had beaten me to it. He asked if finding the truth was what i had wanted him to do. i wrote him back saying i was thrilled to death to see him researching something before sending it on.
i don’t think he will fall for any of the BS any more because he woke up. Now he will do his due diligence before sending on lies. If only more people would do this before hitting send we would have a lot less fear and a more informed populace.
The production of news for citizen consumption has been going on for a very very long time. Those events that in the past didn’t make the newspapers, gazettes, or town crier’s are rejected history. Producing the news is about sensationalizing, it is about constructing a world that is constantly on edge, crises are big sellers. Peddling the news isn’t about informing…its about making a profit.
Creating a constructed reality for newspapers, TV news, and internet sites takes international groups(5 corporations) that consolidate the worst of the world and present it in a daily format for your consumption… good news doesn’t sell. There is a regular rhythm to the news that relies on a fast paced production platform that cranks out alarming events and opinions for general citizen consumption. Those news events garnering the most attention are usually the least important.
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| Northern Waterthrush being banded this morning According to Wikipedia “News propaganda is a type of news covertly packaged as credible news.” |
To repeat…news is meant to be taken with a grain of salt. When it is heavy with the fear factors you need to sit back and ask yourself why someone is trying to manipulate and scare you.
See ya next week
1 comment:
Sheelagh,
Our Politicians here, some are like crabs in a barrel, instead of working together, most seem to be looking out for themselves.
It is disappointing to see that some have chosen this method to campaign for their choice for the Governor of the Virgin Island. At a time when we are trying to improve Our Image and Our Economy, we are being viewed by the World as Back Biters.
My maternal grandmother, who was told by her grandmother, of the Cherokee Nation, if you want to know how others will treat you, look to how they treat their own.
The Political Fallacy here, which appears to be the same situation President Obama faces, is that many politicians in the Democratic Party are Closet Republicans, in order to get into office and once in become Distractors.
But then again, I was not born here, so what do I know!
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