Objective News-Gathering and Analysis:
Necessary Footwork for Resolving Conflict.
But Conflict is Entertainment
And Entertainment is Money.
Which presentation do we get, with what predictable results?
Do We Need Some Version of a Fairness Doctrine Again?
A "certified" news presenter category?
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Scratch that. Inter-ethnic peace. No, won't work. Regional peace. No, that's out. Inter-religious system peace. That's worse.
What would help? Dissemination and discussion of fact, the content in an issue? Opportunity to explore options, as we do with sibling rivalries? Perhaps. But even that takes a calming down first.
Is there any way to instill a discipline, to get facts and explore options, before forming firm opinions? Won't work. There is money in forcing opinions without spending time and cash on gathering and presenting information. Besides, with informataion, your personal interest may not prevail. Can't have that.
So:
A. Opinion- churning:
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It works like porn in marketing --
Add some opinions, make them spicey, and you get people's attention.
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This is the news! Background music revs up, visuals pan around, headlines pop. Big event here, and another there! Just look at that!
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If that fact goes unnoticed, the whole story, the whole significance of the issue fails. And yet - is anyone paying attention? No!
Nobody is paying attention because there are Opinions back there, big Opinions! and nobody is paying attention to the linchpin fact over there.
How is it done through the hearing? And watch the weasel words, the unattributable statistics, the vague, "some people say", that papers the walls of CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Weasel words in places where facts, attributable, verifiable facts, are vitally needed for this democracy.
Skip the words. We got visuals. Oh, my - get an eyeful of those Opinions.
Instant gratification of the senses even in politics wins in the attention department. Thinking function? Step aside while these nice people distract you from other things that matter.
- For the purveyor, satisfy the imagination, and reality diminishes in importance. Is that so?
- For the immediate, subject consumer, all those Opinion Implants in the news slots can look good, but over time, watch the sagaway. FN 2. Does anyone tell the high school seniors who get them as graduation gifts about that?.
We agree this is a bit much. The implant image is not a friendly one when looked at more closely, in another context. The whole analogy may be a bit much, but the principles remain the same: window-dressing serves lots of egos at the time, sells for the short term, but does not get the real job done. What is correlation between the window-dressing and vital decisions to be made. And we just love it anyway. Lead me astray, please.
The parallel to TV? They say this is a news segment, but all you get is commentary. Is that it? Back to the polls. Ask the people polled what basis in fact they use. We bet the stares will be blank ones. Ask them whose opinion they heard and relied on, and you will get clear answers. Opinions of regular people are based on opinions they hear on TV or read in the news slants. Is that so?
Got to grab their attention and sell what we got because this is a market - and regardless of the real issue. Like the girls draped over the hoods of the old cars. Glitz up the news with the hate about it on one side, and the gush on the other. Forget the car - we got the ladies and the band. This celebrity. That talking head. That hoary legislator in the bubble.
Who can remember the issue with all that excitement going on. Barnum would love it.
But look at the consequences. We are whisked away because we got ourselves swayed by Opinions, into a war or other persuasion mentality.
What was the fight about? Who cares. We got ourselves a fight. Pop the can, edge in closer to Watch.
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Ten minutes of an evening news show stems from reporting on the poll; but the question asked leaves so many loose ends, so many qualifiers are hovering out there, that the answer depends on how the pollee filled in the gaps himself or herself.
Ten minutes lost from reporting the content of the latest policy initiative, the content of opposition policy initiatives (if any), content that we could use for analysis.
Then another ten minutes panning from opinionator to opinionator churning other peoples opinions on the stuff we aren't getting the facts about. Look at the weasel words - ://www.answers.com/topic/weasel-word/; ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word/, a site that itself warns the reader about weasel words in it. Even the contributors use them.
What are they good for when we get opinions instead of news in the media and papers. So long as people get more "opinion" than "news" on TV and in the papers, the poll results reflect people's opinions -- that the people themseles arrived at, from being exposed to a hundred media celebrity opinions.
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Opinions On The Move. Old print..
Who knows what facts the celebrity - political, religious, talk show - used or rejected. Somebody will assume it is grounded.
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None of that gets vetted. We train people to follow celebrity and to demand "entertainment" - so the news uses entertainment marketing techniques, inserts opinions and opinion wars into the news, and soon there is no time left for the news. And celebrity views - political, religious, showtime celebrities - become more important than the facts. Is that so?
Why not ask what is important:
- What facts do you understand about this issue or that issue.
- Where did you get your facts.
- Do you have a computer? Do you ever use a fact check?
- How much time do you spend watching opinion shows.
- How much time do you spend watching or seeking out hard facts about news.
- Whose opinions do you value most.
- How much time do you spend listening to the opinionator's opposition
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3. Control the Information Flow
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As to government efforts on the force side, see Woodrow Wilson and the Espionage Act of 1917, that allowed us to imprison those people criticizing the WWI effort, interfering with the draft. See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1344.html/ It was amended by the Sedition Act of 1918.
False statements. False reports.
Those were crimes then when we were at war. Hello, Dick. What about today? See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1345.html/ Schenck v. United States - Supreme Court upheld restrictions on speech.
That was the great Oliver Wendell Holmes.
b. Fairness Doctrine. The medicine worked but the patient died.
Look back at the 1941 Mayflower Ruling - not a law, just FCC policy, but it established The Fairness Doctrine, later judicially upheld in 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, so that the FCC could deny a broadcast license if the person or group did not serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity."
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"The United States is the largest consumer and disseminator of propaganda and persuasion in history."
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- So what happened? "News" is virtually gone. With editorializing now fully open season, that is all we get. Facts, actual information to add to the debate, zip. We've cut the Hartford Courant and moved to the New York Times, and perhaps a few good national papers could do the job after all. Let the locals slip in a section for state news. But that only addresses the few of us who are left who like a morning paper.
c. J. Edgar Hoover. Easy to get a foothold, my dear.
Then fast forward to the post WWI era and the social issues of immigration, then the Red Scare, who followed whom and the rise of J. Edgar Hoover - see ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1343.html/ We just have more ways to do it now. Is this part of our children's education, our own history? The human hard-wired idea, get what you want any way you can, pound the facts like bread dough and see what rises, is not new.
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Selling ideas like little blossoms.
How does this lack of news, and just sales talk for whatever idea someone will buy, impact upon the drive to war and polarization.
Lack of news, or carefully chosen, spun news. For the master of the skill of manipulating opinion, see Edward Bernays, 20th Century market, propagandist, American, at ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_Bernays/
He would be proud of the current technique of opinion implants in news programs. Opinions Gone Wild. Mesmerizing! Getting nothing but opinions also pushes people to positions of extremes in viewpoint, since the facts behind the opinion are seldom vetted. Unbridled opinionating is a prerequisite to war or any conflict.
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Suppress it; or distract from it.
If you were president, you could establish a Committee on Public Information. Woodrow Wilson did, see ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_Public_Information/.
Promote polarization for the cause. Against the defined enemy. What time do we dedicate in media to getting facts out. Test it. Turn on your gadget. Time the time given to Opinion and churning opinions, and the time given to objective facts about the event or issue itself, to edify the debate. FN 1
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It skews the polls. We don't have the facts we need to form our own opinions. We parrot people we like to identify with, like celebrities in politics or religion..
It opens us to fear, uncertainty and doubt about what is on the table, without the mongers putting out their own alternative substantive plan. Opinions are not a measure of the merit or substance of the issue. Opinions, when people have no immediate access to a full fact source, are stagecraft.
Polls reflect the measure of FUD - the fear, uncertainty and doubt the opinionators raise who have no substantive alternative in policy or agenda. Ask Gene Amdahl and IBM. Nothing new here. Identify with the opinionator, not with an analysis. The train wreck of business-interested media influencing policy continues.
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News gathering and presentation is expensive, and takes wits.
Churning opinions about news that somebody else reports, and on part of a topic, is cheap, and takes no wits.
So what do we see on TV and in the papers? Politicians, ex and current; with party lines out their ears like clotheslines. Adding no facts to the debate. Just whether people should like this or like that. Lots of O-Pin-Ion. Opinion wars are not news.
Nonetheless opinion wars are what we get, with people who used to be journalists and newscasters at the helm. Pit this against that.
Smackdown between Cheney's latest fantasy and whoever. Insert something for the imagination, even verging on the prurient by use of words and imagery, dominance and power, and watch the dozer's attention focus. Facts? Everybody sleep. Might even disagree.What have we lost in civility, in intelligent inquiry about issues, what could we gain by reinstating a form of fairness doctrine.
Is polarizing good for democracy, communicating with intent to polarize, not inform..
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Daniel Widing and The Presidents, Madame Tussaud's. Real and fake information sources, intermingled.P.S. Trust Dan.
Do we need certified news presenters.
People who swear to uphold truth, full and balanced, un-agenda'ed information presented to the people.
The conflict: government hiding some or all of its activities, people demanding transparency.
Editorials and opinions alone are not the problem.
It is the squeezing off the stage of the factual underpinnings. That was not anticipated when the Fairness Doctrine was trashed. Look at the result of our preoccupation with opinion and slant, rather than analysis. Do we have extremists of our own to rival any elsewhere in mayhem? Yes. Why? Guess. A partial, contributory factor at least.
Did you keep reading in hopes of getting some more opinions? Here you go.
Do we really need all this entertainment? Guess so. So much for the public interest. Skip a role for reasoned analysis in war and conflict decisions. Let the poison waft over the airwaves whether it increases or decreases information, or instead steers toward the likelihood of war and conflict on any issue.
Who gets to decide. Does an election mean that the voters vote out their own rights to information and assessment, in favor of those matters concentrating in secret halls of the winner's government. Does an election mean that the airwaves and other means can spew at will, with people not getting it as to opposing views, but revving higher and higher in the decibels until someone or some group explodes. There are no lone wolves.
and a small rant.
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We get Opinion before we even get or can find the facts. What are these Opinions based on? The facts fade in air-time as Opinion takes over. Wars of opinions. Churning Opinions instead of news.
Churned Opinion is not news. What this puppet thinks is not news. What that puppet thinks is not news. What you or I think is not news. News is information, objective facts about events, persons involved, who, what, why, where, when. History, Background. Actual provisions.
Hear instead five words from the President about a new policy framework, and immediately cut to the opposition's Opinion. Then someone else disagreeing with the opposition's opinion and more opinions. Where is the factual underpinning, the real framework?
Rant. We have learned nothing from the Iraq debacle. Persuading people to go to war there was not a matter of the merits of the issue - it is who wons by opinion. To believe in this and not that. To support a cause. To hate this person, but believe this one is divine. Believe WMD's are there.
Real news about any topic, real time for the Inspectors, background on informants, where someone has a stake in the outcome, has always been suspect. When the goal is persuasion, war is marketing, not necessity.
Does our news morphing into tirade contribute to our ignorant polarization, the ease with which people are led to follow. The demise of the fairness doctrine, while failing to provide any comprehensive, objective news source, parallels the rise in rabble-rousing. Is that so?
Suspending opinion, until facts are in, is a discipline that we neither practice nor preach. Can we couch a fairness doctrine in those terms - first get the facts out, and if that is not feasible because it impinges on someone's right not to give the facts, provide a place where everyone can go immediately for the facts, and then let the implants loose. Fine.
But opinion only after the facts, not before. Or where the facts are immediately available. Then again, if you want warring people, then just sling the opinions around. 24/7/ There. Done.
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FN 1 Test the theory. What time on "news" shows is expended on finding and sharing fact, and what time is expended on Opinion. Mislabeling of the entire show? Consumer, beware. There is no obligation to list the ingredients on the label. Not even the place of origin of the views spewed.
Test it out. Take your newspaper and circle in red every slanted word, every choice that tilts your response to favor or disfavor.
- Take out your stopwatch when you turn on a half-hour news program. Or get one. Make columns on a piece of notebook paper. First column: factual statements of news. Second column: opinion voiced by a media host or guest. Third column, video of somebody else's opinion. At the beginning of every thirty seconds, put a stroke in one of the columns. Slash, slash, slash, slash, cross-slash.
Successful propaganda requires reaction, not thought, so we get Opinion before we have time to think about the facts. It used to be that there were public interest safeguards so we as voters and the ones most affected got information from a variety of perspectives. We could think before deciding Those safeguards fell away for a variety of reasons - like the Fairness Doctrine. And Opinion took over.
Is this use of Opinion in the news time like using porn in ads, and blood sports. Opinion and editorializing with flashbangs is the way to get people watching, so you then can sell something to them. It may be time to look at the revived need to serve the public interest by ensuring equal access to facts in our "news programs", if not in that same form.
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FN 2 Think further. The analogy gets worse. Much needed information is not given out before the the commitment is made and the operating room readied. No facts to hold the opinions up for long. Consider the weight. That is not an area where muscle is, is it? Droop as facts change and the premature opinion moots itself out. In time. And the purveyors do not have a great history of reliability: infection and leaks, folks, from botched jobs. Check out the scars in the locker room. Better yet, don't. You've been warned.
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And when it comes to function, how about the effect of the implant on an important non-ego purpose, the wee babe - where are the studies on the impact of implants on young women who later want to provide the Top Drawer Diet. Who counsels the girls on that. Medicine, where are you? Off to the bank. Mothers? Oh, you got some, too. Lemon-lime or perhaps apples and oranges or maybe a nice set of cantaloupes? All in the catalogue. Opinions taking place of news on news programs, other implants, six of one.
The implant technique on TV is a not-so-cheap temporary fix, uses up time for the lazy or not too bright talker (the host can have coffee while the camera cuts to the legislature, the man on the street, or another talk show), while the opportunity to pass on hard, complete, objective information needed for a real debate falls away.
No time for facts hello goodbye, we're late, we're late, we're late. Alice. Wake up.
News via Talk Show; unknown information impersonator
Fact-finding mission, China. Who focuses on the nice fact to the right there, with all those Opinions behind.
Car show, Kosice, Slovakia
Opinion Fight. Old print.
Oops. Camera slipped. Darn. Now we've lost you.
Non-news. Searching for facts and there are none; but it sure is entertaining
Bodiam Castle, England
Joan of Arc, Rheims, France
Glen, Scotland. Where are your women warriors now?
Grimm - Red Riding Hood, our old volume
Rapunzel. The Witch climbs up. Our old Grimm.
the god testosterone
Martial Arts, China
Newgate Prison, Granby CT
Russian tank, Afghanistan campaign, at Montreal's Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum
Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum. 25-pounder, artillery (rotating ring for targeting)
Andrew Gregory, Curator, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal; and tourist Daniel Widing, USA
Russian tank, Afghanistan; Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Dan Widing, in cockpit, Cf5 fighter, Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Dan Widing and Fighter trainer, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Tank, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Nijmegen, The Netherlands, WWII Memorial. Operation Market Garden
Hitler entering Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. Exhibit, Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Mortar Carrier, Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Close-up, 25-pounder, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal
Mouquet Farm, battle site, Somme area, France; WWI ("Mucky Farm")
Leeds Castle, Kent, England. The King's Men Plus One
Napoleon's Tomb, Paris, France
Warrior; old japanning woodcut
King Leonidas, Battle of Thermopylae, Greece
Role model; ideal postercop
Justice trashed; newly captioned from a Godey's Lady's Book 1865 woodcut
Evildoer. Name it, and license to kill follows. Here: a simple ursa in silva.
Knights of Malta, Prague, Maltese Cross
The Dracula Club, Bucharest, Romania
Buchenwald, Labor Camp, Germany
War's Costume, Discipline, Identity: Transmit The "Glory" of War, Here, Knights Templar castle, Malbork, Poland
Kids, Cetinje, Montenegro. Children still build bunkers, not tree houses.
Stonehenge
Secret UN Global Leader Testosterone Monitoring Facility







Lt. Maurice McConaghey, Royal Scots Fusiliers, cousin distantly, buried in cemetery #648 or so, near Arras, France, WWI
Gender Wars. The Witches' Cage. Levoca, Slovakia
American Cemetery, Argonne Forest, France
Castle, at nearby Sedan, France

Redcoat, Back
Honor Wall, Groton, CT Naval Base Museum
High Tatra Mountain Range, Slovakia and Poland, Border



Austerlitz, Slavkov, Czech Republic. The Battle of the Three Emperors.
Nuremberg, Germany. Hitler's Stadium
Political speech, calm
Pointe du Hoc, Memorial, Normandy, France, WWII
Pointe du Hoc, Craters, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Clifftop, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Bunkers, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Map of Beaches, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Memorial, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Atlantic Wall, Normandy
Pointe du Hoc, Beach, Normandy
Dresden, Germany; Baroque, still stands
Dresden, Germany, Square
Dresden, Germany, old town center
Dresden, Germany; church and tower



Original postcard, Fort De Vaux, Verdun France, WWI
Original postcard, Fort du Douaumont, Verdun, France WWI
Original postcard, Ossuary, Verdun, France WWI
Mouquet Farm, Thiepval, Somme area, France, WWI
Berlin Wall
Lustig Co., ad, Germany
Old Berlin, facade
Ieper, Belgium. Canadian War Memorial, WWI. Ypres.
A Bridge Too Far, Arnhem, the Netherlands
Vimy Ridge, France, WWI