Cable news is the tail that wags the political news dog

I do not watch TV. That statement requires some explication these days when there are so many ways in which one is surrounded by mass media. What I mean is that I live in too remote an area to receive any over-the-air broadcast network TV channels and I do not subscribe to any cable TV system that gives me access to those channels or to cable channels. I do have a TV that I use to watch streaming videos from various sources, some of which include TV shows that have been broadcast previously on network TV.

So what I mean by saying I do not watch TV is that I do not watch any of the nightly news programs on network TV or the 24/7 cable news channels like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. And yet, in my surfing of the web, I find myself bombarded by stories that have their origins in cable news. These channels seem to be less about unearthing and reporting actual news and more about generating news about themselves. My impression is not misguided. Jack Shafer says that these cable news networks have a very small audience and yet have an outlandishly disproportionate effect on public discourse and that it is time to cut the cord.
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What I like in a detective story

I read and watch detective stories a lot. I think it is because they are essentially puzzles to be solved and I am a puzzle solver at heart. I enjoy all kinds of puzzles. A ‘puzzle’ for me is any problem for which I think there should be a solution that lies within my grasp and ability. This is also the likely reason I was drawn to science because much of that also involves puzzle solving. In my spare time I do cryptic crosswords and I also play the card game bridge where each hand is essentially a puzzle where a task is set and you have to figure out the best way to reach it.

Over time, I have found that I have clear preferences as to the kind of detective story. They should be lean and spare, where the focus is almost exclusively on how the solution to how the crime was committed is worked out. I prefer that any violence be avoided, or if there is any, for it to take place off-stage with as little graphic detail as necessary. There does does not even need to be a murder. In some Sherlock Holmes stories, not only is there no murder, there is not even a crime but just a mystery to be solved.
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Overreacting to publicity hounds

The media tends to focus on controversies, which is fair enough. After all, ‘news’ is what is out of the ordinary. What is annoying is when they lazily treat some idiotic statements by a few people as representing sentiments more widespread than they actually are. This is even more irritating when the people making the statements are known publicity hounds who clearly make absurd statements hoping that they will garner some headlines.

Take this recent headline from an Associated Press story titled Big Bird backlash: Vax lands even Muppet in political flap about the beloved Sesame Street character saying that he got the vaccine that is now given to children.

The word ‘backlash’ suggests widespread reaction. What is the evidence of it? Just senator Ted Cruz along with an obscure Fox News contributor describing it as ‘government propaganda’ and ‘brainwashing’ and ‘twisted’.

There are some politicians who simply crave to be in the headlines: Cruz, Marjorie-Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert to name just a few. They will respond with something that is inflammatory to anything has the slightest chance of igniting passion among the loonies of the right. If it does, they pat themselves on the back for succeeding. If it doesn’t, there is always something new that will come along the next day.

The publicity hound monster is insatiable and one has to stop feeding it. But the 24/7 news cycle is like these publicity hounds in that it also craves attention and needs content that will provide it. So we have a symbiotic relationship between attention-seekers on both sides.

I hate this time of year

It starts with October being the month of Halloween.

The whole month we have increasing promotions of horror-themed films and products. Since I am not a fan of the horror and blood-and-gore genres, this leaves me cold but it is hard to avoid. I am also not a fan of dressing up in costumes, unless you are a child.

And then there is the deluge of pumpkin-flavored food products. I do not like pumpkin at the best of times and never eat it. The thought of pumpkin-flavored coffee and other edibles turns me off.

I’ll just have to suck it up and wait until the month is over.

But then we will enter the month of November which kicks off the Christmas shopping frenzy.

I should make it clear that I have no objections to these holidays themselves. What I find nauseating is the media seizing on them to generate saturation coverage, using the same trite techniques and cliches.

Wake me when it is January.

The ugliness of Facebook (exposed again) may be a sign of its impending demise

Facebook has become a colossus in social media all over the globe, along with the companies it purchased like Instagram and WhatsApp. It has become so big, its power and influence so widespread, that it is seen a threat to the well-being of societies. The various abuses that it has been associated with, such as enabling the fomenting of hate and divisiveness in societies that have led to genocidal actions, have been well-documented. After each such revelation, Facebook executives come before various bodies and go through the same ritual. They claim that they just provide a communication platform for people to express their views and that it is not their fault if other people abuse their platform. They then promise to try and implement safeguards that will minimize the risks of damage. But nothing they claim they are doing seems to work and the cycle gets repeated.
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An obvious publicity ploy

When a major organization commits what seems like an obvious public relations blunder that makes you wonder how anyone in the organization could have possibly signed off on it, one has to always bear in mind that the ‘blunder’ was in fact a deliberate act, designed to get attention. The people behind the ‘blunder’ then apologize profusely and thus avoid the opprobrium. A win-win!

That was my suspicion with this report about a fashion accessory in the shape of a noose. There is no way that anyone could not see the noose as offensive. It seems like a rather obvious ploy to get attention and it worked.

Of course, by blogging about it, I too am feeding the monster …

Public Service Announcement: Never trust someone’s friend about anything

In the crazy media world we live in these days, I saw multiple headlines about a story in which Nicki Minaj had tweeted that a friend of her cousin who lived in Trinidad and Tobago got swollen testicles and became impotent after taking a covid-19 vaccine and his fiancee called off their wedding. The ensuing publicity resulted in the minister of public health in that country wasting his time investigating this before announcing that they could not any evidence of swollen testicles.

I grant that this story has many clickbait features: A celebrity, covid-19, impotence, and swollen testicles.

But really? Whenever you hear an outlandish story, your guard should immediately go up. And you should definitely ignore the story if it is ascribed to an unidentified friend of even someone you know personally, let alone someone whom you do not know at all. That almost guarantees that the story is at best highly exaggerated or more likely outright false.

This has been a Public Service Announcement. We now go back to our regular programming.

How politicians’ books become best sellers

Prominent politicians write books and, despite the fact that the books may not contain a a single interesting or original thought, or indeed may not have been even written by them at all but instead by a ghostwriter, they usually end up on a best seller list. It is an open secret that politicians and their parties are the ones who buy many books in bulk and then give them away as gifts to party faithful, thus boosting their sales numbers. But who exactly ends up footing the bill for the purchases? It is the suckers who donate to their political campaigns.
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The problem of Facebook and mission statements

We know that misinformation via social media runs rampant around the world and has been the vehicle for creating massive amounts of conflict among various groups. But up to now, the havoc created worldwide has been localized, such as in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia, where it has fueled murderous conflicts between different ethnic, religious, and language groups in those countries. But the pandemic has more clearly revealed the global scale of the problem as lies and distortions about the virus and vaccines and masks have spread around the globe, hampering efforts to suppress the spread of the pandemic.
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