Do you think the mainstream media is racist ???

[Subnuts]

A middle-aged black woman once reported me to my manager on the ground of discrimination because I chose to bag groceries for a white woman with three children and a huge order, while she only had 10 items or so. A couple years after that, a young Jamaican woman accused me of being a racist because I wouldn't write her a receipt for bottles that didn't have a 5-cent deposit. Said I would have given her the money if she was white.

If this is what passes as "racism" these days, I imagine something "racist" is said on the major news networks about once every 6 seconds.

[Cybermat47]

I have a friend at school, and he makes fun of the fact that people start screaming RASCIST! whenever you do something.


Sam, could you please pass me a pen?

RASCIST!!

[August]

The mainstream media is in the business of getting people to pay attention. If being racist, or more correctly, agitating racist controversy gets people to pay attention then they'll happily play one group of people against another using any issue and that includes racism.

But what I think Yubba refers to is perceived double standard in the main stream medias coverage of certain events depending on which party a politician is from.

IE if it was a Republican in office then these incidents would be cast as an enormous racial strife problem that the president isn't doing enough to fix. Since the POTUS is a D then these issues are marginalized and ignored.

Now while I think the people he listens to are just agitating controversy for attention like any other media type unfortunately there is some history of this.

I'm dating myself here but back in 1992 we used to have an enormous homeless problem in America. In nightly news reports it was cast as a national emergency that threatened the American way of life,.... right up until Bill Clinton beat Bush senior, then seemingly overnight the problem disappeared from the national medias radar. I mean the problem didn't go away of course just the medias coverage of it. It became not worth covering any more. Why? Because it would be embarrassing to a D president?

That's one explanation but I'm thinking the reason is more pragmatic. Without the election to cast the issue against, who is for this and who is against that, statements and speeches, party positions, etc, the issue wouldn't generate enough news to be worth hiring all the extra help to properly exploit it any more so they moved on to something else. Sorry homeless, maybe next election.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by August

That's one explanation but I'm thinking the reason is more pragmatic. Without the election to cast the issue against, who is for this and who is against that, statements and speeches, party positions, etc, the issue wouldn't generate enough news to be worth hiring all the extra help to properly exploit it any more so they moved on to something else. Sorry homeless, maybe next election.

It has been a few elections and you hardly hear about homeless people on the news unless they have the misfortune to be the victim of a violent crime.

[Bubblehead1980]

Absolutely, because they are liberals.Liberals are the real racists, everything is about skin color to them.They think people of color need a special lift such as affirmative action etc and are not capable of getting ahead on their own merits.They think that whites are always looking to hold down non whites, it's crazy and offensive.I know some black people who have "left the plantation" of the left and see that.Unfortunately this view is not widespread among the black community yet but it is growing, hopefully it will help liberate them from the intellectual slavery they have suffered under for a long time.

[August]

But the media aren't liberals. They're opportunists, exploiters, vampires who feed off controversy and human misery. They have their liberals and they have their conservatives but they are not driven by ideology.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by August

But the media aren't liberals. They're opportunists, exploiters, vampires who feed off controversy and human misery. They have their liberals and they have their conservatives but they are not driven by ideology.

Oh, they are80% liberal and when they have a fellow traveler up there, they are cheerleaders.Case in point, obama.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

But the media aren't liberals. They're opportunists, exploiters, vampires who feed off controversy and human misery. They have their liberals and they have their conservatives but they are not driven by ideology.

QFT.
Sure you have your left leanings (CNN - Communist News Network) and your right leaners (Fox News - Faux News) but all media news outlets are out for the shock factor. Perhaps it is to gain and hold peoples attention through righteous indignation, or perhaps it's just pushing boundaries as far as they can before someone snaps them back.
Case in point, the current UK Leveson inquiry which has shown just how corrupt and rotten the core of the modern reporting media really is, gross invasions of privacy, intimidation, sleeze, backroom deals, the whole shebang. Heck, one popular theory has the press responsible for the death of Princess Diana all those years ago (paparazzi chasing Dianas car, causing the driver to speed up to try and lose them, and in turn lose control and crash), and I'd certainly wager that they were a contributing factor if not the reason itself.
My primary source of news is the BBC, but that's not to say that the BBC is completely unbias, good God no, it's tragically bias in some cases, however what you have to learn to do over time is to take everything that every news outlet says with a pinch of salt unless you have witnessed it directly yourself. As a popular saying goes 'There are two sides to every story' and quite often we only get to hear one side.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Oberon

QFT.
Sure you have your left leanings (CNN - Communist News Network) and your right leaners (Fox News - Faux News) but all media news outlets are out for the shock factor. Perhaps it is to gain and hold peoples attention through righteous indignation, or perhaps it's just pushing boundaries as far as they can before someone snaps them back.
Case in point, the current UK Leveson inquiry which has shown just how corrupt and rotten the core of the modern reporting media really is, gross invasions of privacy, intimidation, sleeze, backroom deals, the whole shebang. Heck, one popular theory has the press responsible for the death of Princess Diana all those years ago (paparazzi chasing Dianas car, causing the driver to speed up to try and lose them, and in turn lose control and crash), and I'd certainly wager that they were a contributing factor if not the reason itself.
My primary source of news is the BBC, but that's not to say that the BBC is completely unbias, good God no, it's tragically bias in some cases, however what you have to learn to do over time is to take everything that every news outlet says with a pinch of salt unless you have witnessed it directly yourself. As a popular saying goes 'There are two sides to every story' and quite often we only get to hear one side.

Many people only want to hear one side of the story is part of the problem especially when that one side often times is extremely biased they force the entire world as being black and white and everything has to go though that filter even though things are always much too complex and multifaceted to be viewed this way.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Heck, one popular theory has the press responsible for the death of Princess Diana all those years ago (paparazzi chasing Dianas car, causing the driver to speed up to try and lose them, and in turn lose control and crash), and I'd certainly wager that they were a contributing factor if not the reason itself.

I remember thinking at the time which one of us in their shoes wouldn't have told their driver to loose those jerks chasing them. That and a slippery patch of road would have been all it took. Yeah i'd say the paparazzi were at very least a contributing factor.