Print

[damam]

I was recently involved in a public driven initiative that got voted through today by a very slim margin.  I was an active campeigner in the initiative that is pretty socialist in my oppinion ( i was working with the democratic party).  May ballots in my area usually yield less than 12,000 voters (about 7% of the voting population).  This was chosen on purpose because republicans usually stay home during the May ballot.  We went door to door, asking people questions, based on those questions we could predict with an 85% percent confidence level of which way they would vote.  We then sent them pre-voting ballots weekly until they voted.  Interestingly, people over the age of 60 were almost 100% against this initiative and so there were active campaigns to blur the issues in this demographic.  Other shinanagans took place as well.  A lot of these tactics were interesting to say the least.  I learned an awful lot about how the democratic party works.  Ive never worked for the republicans, but it would be interesting to compare the two at some point as i am sure they are no saints either.  But all in all, I expect this type of crap from political parties.

Here is the part I found very disturbing however:  THe Media Bias
My area has one newspaper.  The owner of the newspaper happened to heavily supported the initiative.  So for almost 9 months there was not a single negative article printed.  At times there would be up to four articles in the newspaper, all pro.  Not two days passed without some article being printed about how wonderful this would be.  These were being written by "journalists", who were supposed to be taking no sides.  Had I not been so heavily involved, I probably would never have noticed.  The newspaper never once stated its bias by saying they are in support of this initiative, thereby maintaining the illusion of impartiality. We always talk about media bias, simply stating yeah we know its there, but to actually witness it left me ill.  Even though the news paper was on my side, I found the entire thing very alarming.

[gronned]

QUOTE(damam @ May 23 2007, 06:59 PM)

We always talk about media bias, simply stating yeah we know its there, but to actually witness it left me ill.  Even though the news paper was on my side, I found the entire thing very alarming.

I love it when people actually think constructively and dare to criticize something despite being on the "same side". I guess most newspaper and tv-networks have officially declared their political opinion, and can therefore be pro whatever they like. As long as they're open with their opinions I don't care too much even though I think it's better to try and stay as unbiased as possible.
The worst is obviously when it's clear they have a different agenda than what they claim. Fox is probably as republican as possible despite their "Fair and balanced". I find their reporting very alarming. I honestly become a bit scared of the dark whenever I watch O'reilly.
Anyway, it must've been a good experience to learn how the media and political parties work.

I doubt you'd see a difference in behaviour between the way the democrats and republicans work. They all toughen up and know that if you don't walk the tough line, you won't get your initiatives through. It's a sad development, but I believe this happens in all parties no matter left or right. The greatest problem with that would probably be that less people get interested in joining parties.

But on the other hand I'm starting to feel it's good if people could have a political interest that isn't bound to a party. In the next election I probably will vote for the party I used to be a member of, but the reason I'm not a member any more is because I realized that members of any party start acting as a bunch of sheep and if you disagree with them you're a "traitor".

Btw, what the hell was it all about?  

[gcskate27]

damam, you can see it every day, 24 hours a day, just turn on fox news... and thats national...

[damam]

the initiative was nothing big really, it was an initiative to raise the property taxes by 0.01% in order to lower college tuition costs for key programs like core classes, nursing, and welding.  The average resident is going to see a $11 - 20 dollar increase in taxes per year.  


The thing about fox, oreily and the the others is that everyone knows where they stand.  No one is in the dark about where O'Reily stands.  I have seen his show about 4 times, and each time he has made his oppinion clear and known.  There are others as well, i just dont know their names (i dont watch fox, cnn, msnbc, or the others).  What I saw with my local newspaper was a deliberate attempt to covertly guide the public in a certain direction.  There is nothing covert about O'Reilly.

[gronned]

Well, the ones that can't see it should have a serious eye- and ear-surgery because it's blatantly obvious. But the fact is that Fox's trademarks are "Fair and balanced" and "We report. You decide". Most people understand they're everything but fair and balanced, but somewhere down the line there's a reason they keep using it.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it." - whoever said it(probably not Goebbels), was very right. If you come off as serious and use statements such as "fair and balanced" all the time, some people will start to believe in it one way or the other. Otherwise they would've dropped it. Simple as that. O'reilly bashes the liberals absolutely all the time, but if you'd ask him what party he'd choose, he would never tell, because it wouldn't be fair and balanced.

I think it's really scary that media in general is so biased when it claims not to be, with Fox at the peak. And we may think we're aware of it, but then we sit in front of the news and believe everything they say. It's in the human mind to believe in everything that has a serious approach.
Propaganda is extremely effective and if you understand how it works you'd realize how easy it is to fool others.

One of the most common propaganda today is to "buzz" instead of using normal tv-commercials. It's advertisement your friends tell you, yet they don't even know they're doing it themselves.
Take a new clothing-brand that wants to become big fast. What they'd do is to get ten influential persons in the clothing industry and pay them to constantly talk about the brand to their friends(who also have some influence), who in their turn hopefully will retell their friends how nice that brand is, and the word will spread fast. This is being used so much today that certain companies never need to make tv-ads. They know that people trust their closest friends far more than tv-ads.