h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In case anyone wants that framley link, here's a working clickable version:
http://www.framleyexaminer.com/

Sorry, SEF, I'm going to rant a bit.

I think it is not difficult nor reprehensible to slam the entire media, from Satellite news to internet rumor (you know how often the twain meet!) as a form of gossip.

While you have "investigative shows" that are supposedly the voice of reason, if the producers and writers are ignorant, then all you get is a bizarre form of reasonable ignorance.

Back in the bad old days when education was the province of the few and reading and writing were to be prized (and just when were this?), it was expected that a "reporter" be possessed of a modicum of skills.
Of course, if he couldn't be truthful, then he/she should at least be exciting, because the business of newspapers is to....

A. reliably inform the public
B. Sell newspapers
C. Sell anything that will keep their doors open
D. turn writers into mercenary whores and editors into politically correct dictators who will willingly skew any idea, fact or opinion for a few more shekels from the advertisers who hold their family jewels in a red hot vise...

And the business of visual broadcast "news" organizations is to...
A. Keep Burberry in business
B. Keep makeup artists and hairdressers employed

Since so many words are passing before their eyes, after awhile, they all become just a stream of characters, regardless of value.
When they punch the stream of characters up with a stream of visual impact, then what you have is a form of "communication" that is so punchdrunk that a ten year old strip cartoon from a faded Sunday edition has more informational value.

In fact, since daily "news" has almost no context, except as another unrine sample from the neighborhood buffalo into the local tributary leading to the informational Mississippi water way,
you can often learn more from "old news" than from "new news". Since many modern "media experts" who are under the age of sixty have no idea where in history they are, having to anchor their memories on the first time they saw a Sixties sitcom as a repeat on cable or the first time a fashion article came back around as a "retro classic", they often completely miss the point of a past-referential item and thus mess it up in the text versions of interviews (having not yet figured out how to use a spell-checker ((turn it off and buy a dictionary)) or completely misfile things when it is their turn to play with the filing system.

Language can be a musical thing. It can have rhythm and style.
So, regardless of content, you can be entertained.
A lie can be the most wonderful thing you hear during your day.
But the "new news" weasels believe that the truth is dry and boring, because advertisements are bright and cheerful. So, we get truthful advertisements that you can dance to, and grey lies that make you want to go to sleep...
Except for the infomercials where a particular ideology is being promulgated and it ain't to sell Toyotas.

You can touch a Toyota. You can buy it. You can drive it into the ground and then complain how about how lousy it was.
But you can't touch a mental health or educational policy. You can't really "buy" it, although you will pay for it. And you can't really intelligently complain about the governmental equivalent of vapor ware...

Which reminds me... have you seen the "vapor news"?

I like Toyota Corollas.

With very few exceptions, based on which decade we are talking about, I have almost no reason to argue with that.

YES....Thats why I read them.

Beano a bit of stretch, ay?