I could have written this book. (and I mean that in a good way)

(Amazingly enough, chapter four looks like my last blog entry. Rutherford mentioned the green night vision explosions on page 88 when he talks about the various types of cameras used in the “Real-Time” coverage of the Iraq war. He also mentions the news channel’s musical scores on page 98, something I commented on last class.)

I would like to pull out some quotes that I simply adore. On page 97, Rutherford says “The American networks were infected with a bad dose of patriotism.” One example that Rutherford gives is that news anchors use ‘we.’ (So that conversation on ‘we’ that took an entire class period wasn’t a waste of time.) That always pisses me off because the news networks today do not represent me as part of we. It’s especially offensive today because most of the ‘news’ isn’t news at all. It’s opinionated speculative bullshit propaganda fed to the networks through the Whitehouse fax machine. (Ask me in class about the Greg Hafer Model of Biased News.)

Next quote: “Even if Al-Jazeera was as much the vehicle of illusion and propaganda as CNN, still this Arab channel had won fame as a maverick brand in the world of global television where North America and European sources once dominated.” Throughout this chapter, Rutherford clearly supports Al-Jazeera. However, I like this quote because he makes a good point. It doesn’t mater if the news is true or not, it’s the popularity of the network that maters. Yet, I get most of my news from websites from other countries and Al-Jazeera checks out, so maybe if the once dominant “North American and European sources” starting giving straight up facts, their ratings would be higher.

I need to comment on Bill O’Reilly. People like him, i.e. all of the conservative radio show hosts, get a lot of listeners for one reason: both sides of the political spectrum listen to him. I know I do. The conservatives listen to him because they like people to strengthen their already biased views. Liberals listen to him because they like to pick out lies and get angry every time they hear one. If Liberal listened to liberal talk, they would get bored because it confirms what they already know. Conservatives wouldn’t listen to liberal talk because, as I have theorized, actual facts would make their head’s explode. If you want to hear some good O’Reilly bashing, watch Count Down with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. I watch it religiously and Olbermann busts on O’Reilly almost every show, especially during his Worst Person in the World segment. One day, he actually had an O’Reilly tribute. Watch it here.