From: david@knopfler.com
Subject: You're right
You're right at least as far as the BS I can watch
on satellite here from the US in the UK goes.
I'd like to say you're wrong but it appears to
me that apart from occassional lapses into real
journalism, you're not :(
Murdoch's Newscorp and his ilk seem to have the media's nuts in a vice.
HOWEVER it looked that way over here when Tony
Blair came to office in '97 and preceeded to
out-right the conservatives he'd defeated - the
three liberal papers we have here The Observer, The
Guardian and The Independent perservered nevertheless
and the BBC and Channel 4 after an initial
period of brown nosing and dumbing down seem
to have their teeth fixed back in and debate is
begining to look a little more rubust.
Your press isn't too bad - there are some writers out there
- although your TV seems in a rather more perilous
condition.
Sooner or later someone will put Murdoch's nuts
in a legal vice. Fox News for example has to be
breaching a bunch of regulations we have here
in the UK about offering fair and balanced content.
regs
DK
Dave,
I'm so old, I remember a time when news wasn't supposed to make a profit.
It's no longer who has it right. It's who has the story with the most
salacious details - true or not.
You know the old sales line,
"The customer
is always right."
That's what the news is now in America.
You want another fake story about Clinton's cock? Fox News at
9.
"The
customer is always right."
You want another fake story about Bush's bravery on September 11th?
CNN at 10.
"The
customer is always right."
You want another fake story about Hillary's latest murder victim?
EIB from noon to 3.
"The
customer is always right."
It's the job of the news producer to make the news more exciting than
it really is,
of course, unless it's about the unelected fraud, then we bury the
story.
And if something really exciting to them comes along, like Clinton's
cock, they will take
that "exciting" story and quadruple the excitement with non-stop
breathless innuendo.
It's a cornerstone of Bartcop-ism.
The news is for sale.
We can tell the Gore story and lose money even,
or
...we could fabricate the "Hero George" story and get incestuous deals
with Disney, GE,
TIME-Warner, HBO, Fox News, the CCN, the Whore Street Journal
and the others.
If you're afraid to stand behind the news you're reporting, just quote
Matt Drudge
or Fox News or Rush the vulgar Pigboy and give that horseshit story
some life.
There once was a time when only the National Enquirer and Star Magazine
would print utter horseshit,
but after they saw the money being made on the Clinton fabrications,
the majors turned into rag sheets
and even the Old Gray Lady, the New York Times, became
a toothless old crack-whore.
Sad, isn't it?