From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner Newsgroups: net.college Title: Re: Flame, Anyone? - (nf) Article-I.D.: ucbcad.742 Posted: Tue Mar 1 05:53:58 1983 Received: Wed Mar 2 05:57:14 1983 #R:ucbesvax:2900008:ucbesvax:2900013:000:2468 ucbesvax!turner Mar 1 04:32:00 1983 Point taken. I think your idea of "accumulated bias" theory is about as far as I would want to go. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. There is, as you point out, a similar rightist argument. In its detailed form, it accuses the media at large of promulgating an ideological/theological bete noir of theirs: Secular Humanism. In the eyes of the Moral Majority, it's the next worst thing to Godless Communism, if not effectively identical. The operation of accumulated bias in the media has to be combatted with weapons that the Moral Majority lacks, else this sort of thing would be used by them. The far right in this country seems mostly interested in whatever fabrications will gain it the most attention. ("The New Missile Gap", "Sexual Promiscuity Taught In Schools", etc.) This National Enquirer mentality extends to muckraking T.V. journalism (e.g., 60 minutes), which tends to avoid issues which might upset its liberal constituency. Proxmire has been exploiting this sort of mentality for decades. The media is therefore not characterized in this country so much by a leftward/rightward/centrist bias as it is by this attitude of exploiting existing mentalities, rather than fostering newer and broader ones. The narrower an audience, the better -- marketing is more efficient when you know your audience. This is the bias of advertising. (Are YOU really getting your 60 minutes worth? No.) Do attention-getting tactics such as the anti-Kirkpatrick demon- stration actually do much to change this? I don't know. But maybe they have the effect of straining people's perception of the world. When things are not as they should be (e.g., students docile) even TV newscasters take note. I remember, over a period of about three years, the inflection of Vietnam casualty reporting on the nightly news changing from guarded optimism ("we're winning this war, I guess") to obvious disdain ("where do they get these numbers, anyway?"). In the process of killing all those Vietnamese three or four times over, something happened. A mentality was shaken. This is important, even if it isn't "constructive". I'm rambling. (I'm burning out on this issue. Some of you are glad to hear that, I know.) In closing, I guess I'll just paraphrase America's adopted uncle: "That's Not Quite The Way It Is" Michael Turner