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How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

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Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmn... ) in full flow. Journalists, almost entirely as a group, are experts in nothing. Colossaly ill informed on every subject, and "research" consists of scrolling through Twitter to find a point of view that backs up their preexisting predudices. These days, many struggle with even basic English and grammar. I'm not even g…

> Journalists, almost entirely as a group, are experts in nothing. Colossaly ill informed on every subject, and "research" consists of scrolling through Twitter to find a point of view that backs up their preexisting predudices. These days, many struggle with even basic English and grammar. News outlets have incentives to create clickbait (or to favor stories that otherwise align with the motivations of their financi…

At this point it is beyond clickbait / views / funding. It’s clearly pushing the agenda of a small group of people.

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists, almost entirely as a group, are experts in nothing. Colossaly ill informed on every subject, and "research" consists of scrolling through Twitter to find a point of view that backs up their preexisting predudices. These days, many struggle with even basic English and grammar. News outlets have incentives to create clickbait (or to favor stories that otherwise align with the motivations of their financi…

At this point it is beyond clickbait / views / funding. It’s clearly pushing the agenda of a small group of people.

Which is yet to be proven worse than the stupidity of the masses

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#113

The Russia investigation coverage changed my view on the limits and possibilities of propaganda. Have never been more cynical of humanity, or rather, people running the show commonly have the same abilities as the school teacher at the local public school

It's the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmn... ) in full flow. Journalists, almost entirely as a group, are experts in nothing. Colossaly ill informed on every subject, and "research" consists of scrolling through Twitter to find a point of view that backs up their preexisting predudices. These days, many struggle with even basic English and grammar. I'm not even g…

Spent some time in tech side of journalism in late 90s. LA times related.

Someone would write an article bashing some group of other. Group would gets pissed. We meet with group. Guys in charge won’t talk about past. Only about moving forward.

Rinse and repeat. Higher ups only lived in the moment.

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#114
post #4

It's become very clear to me that the people who call themselves leaders are as flawed, weak, and corruptible as anyone else. Arguably moreso. They're not especially moral and strong. So when they're put in (or ascend to) these expansive positions of power, we all feel their flaws, weakness, and corruption. Their problems become all of our problems, because their problems flow outwards, throughout everything that the…

This is why some people like limited government. Just enough not to have chaos and no more. Limits damage evil/greedy/well meaning idiots can do.

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. noth…

> that for some very brief window in time we actually had a media with integrity and ethics, even if completely serendipitously I would like to request you to entertain the possibility that the media became so powerful and influencial for a brief period that they convinced everyone of that idea... the information revolution just helped break the facade by democratising access to information... because of which their…

I'm always open the consideration of any reasonable idea, but you need evidence. I can provide plenty to the contrary. For instance in the 1970s the media, spearheaded by the NYTimes no less, published the Pentagon Papers which (predictably) put the paper in direct confrontation with the government and the endlessly influential military industrial complex in particular.

And that led to a high stakes confrontation with the paper itself facing government pressure and lawsuits that went all the way to the Supreme Court with what would have been devastating consequences had they lost. Of course by 2013 when the Snowden leaks hit this had all changed. The NYTimes had already long since turned into the sort of agency that chose to more regularly run with headlines like "British Intelligence Chiefs Say Leaks by Snowden Hurt Security", "Leaker's Flight Raises Tension", and such other tripe - frequently engaging in a mixture of ignoring, misrepresenting, or defending what Snowden had revealed.

But the in the heyday of media, I do not see any reason to believe that people's judgement of the media was flawed. I'm certainly interested to see why you think so though!

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#116

This [1] an interesting and possibly relevant video. The video is going to be from somewhere around late 1992, long before Jeff Zucker had even joined CNN. It's a hot mic moment between Bill Clinton just before taking the presidency, and the iconic Larry King who was the biggest voice on CNN at the time : --- King: "It's crazy - [CNN owner] Ted Turner changed the world. He's a a big fan of yours. Clinton: Is he? King…

Spin is a documentary capturing a number of similar conversations captured from satellite feeds before/after the actual "show".

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(1995_film)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uock08dy19s

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Fox News wears what it is on it's sleeve. CNN proports to be a fair, truthful source of news and very rarely outright lies to people, but there is too much missing context, misleading headlines, and late corrections. It takes too much mental energy to figure out what is worth paying attention to on CNN, it is easier to just ignore it.

Isn't Fox New's official slogan "Fair and Balanced" ?

Much like CNN is "The Most Trusted Name in News".

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#118
post #4

It's become very clear to me that the people who call themselves leaders are as flawed, weak, and corruptible as anyone else. Arguably moreso. They're not especially moral and strong. So when they're put in (or ascend to) these expansive positions of power, we all feel their flaws, weakness, and corruption. Their problems become all of our problems, because their problems flow outwards, throughout everything that the…

This is why some people like limited government. Just enough not to have chaos and no more. Limits damage evil/greedy/well meaning idiots can do.

And limited data collection about everything, its the same problem really.

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m just surprised that so many people on HN seem to have cable at all. If you asked me what I thought of any of the news networks on cable, I’d give you a blank stare, they haven’t been relevant to most techies for more than a decade now. The only reason FoxNews is winning the ratings battle is that older (and more conservative) people have been cutting the cord much slower than younger people. The polarization and…

I havent even had a television for 20 years now...

Only reason I have one is for the kids.

Re: How CNN's Jeff Zucker and His Cronies Manipulated the News

#120
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see examples of anything on CNN or MSNBC that approaches QAnon-levels of derangement.

I mean, all Trump had to do was sneeze and CNN, MSNBC, NYT all worked themselves into a furious seethe for the next two weeks about how that sneeze was literally basically Hitler and that’s it, that’s the final straw, the world is coming to a literal end now because he’s an unhinged fascist dictator or something. Mind you this is all coming from “respected” and “establishment-accepted” news organizations to boot.

I'm not American, I live in a different country.

It's clear the American left establishment went apeshit and lost their rationality when that orange guy was elected. They may have been mostly emotional and hiding it behind virtue signaling before, not sure as I didn't pay that much attention to American politics. But after orange guy got in omg their biased agendas were just so incredibly obvious to anyone objectively looking from outside, and their constant 'trumping up' anything was so ridiculous it was pathetic. Pot meet kettle of what they accused other side of, but honestly they looked worse.

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