The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Beetlejuice's picture

    Where's the News?

    By Beetlejuice on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 2:24pm |

    Since Egypt has fallen into political disarray, has anyone taken notice all MSM resources, both print nd web, are focused intently on the situation on the ground there while the rest of the world is slowing dissolving under the weight of their own destructive powers. As Nomi Klein so aptly put in her book, The Shock Doctrine, redirect the attention of the public to some other trivial issue away from what you're doing so when their attention is back and focused, the changes have already been approved and implemented and there's nothing they can do. I wonder what kind of mischief the GOper's were able to gum up because everyone's attention was distracted?

    Comments

    It's there if you want it. Examples of how to find it. There's little tabs on most news websites, you don't have to stay on the home page where "most popular" is:

    http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/index.html

    http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.html

    http://topics.cnn.com/topics/u_s_congressional_politics

    http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/

    http://www.cnn.com/US/

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress.html?nid=roll_congress

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sectionfronts/politics/index.html?n...

    Most people are most interested in what's going on in Egypt right now. It's just that simple. There is always something that is hogging most of the news attention via large audiences being interested, traditionally at this time of year in the U.S., it is something else.

    Nowadays your mouse clicks and what you blog about drives what goes on the front pages and what is given prime time on broadcasts. CNN broadcast daytime lately even does this thing where they offer 3 stories and ask people to go to the website and vote for which one they want to see broadcast.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 3:24pm

    I've started paying more attention to which websites don't cover what I consider to be important news anymore, and I've removed them from my bookmarks so I don't waste time going there anymore. This is somewhat of a mixed blessing because it allows me to fall into a false sense of complacency that the "MSM" actually does a good job of covering news (since I no longer pay attention to mainstream media that doesn't).


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 3:27pm

    I'm gonna plug the english (or original, if you are that educated.) version of Der Spiegel.

    German thoroughness, and all that.

    Plus (openheadexpode) The Germans are possibly the hippest people in the world right now (close headexplode)


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 3:35pm

    Similarly, I enjoy Deutsche Welle (auf Englisch).


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 3:58pm

    Except I get the impression that point of this post is that Mr. Beetlejuice doesn't want to see all that furriner's news, i.e., whether Egypt or EU, it''s none of our business. Isolationism....doesn't like seeing the populace so "distracted" by news of other countries,  which is none of their business; i.e., U.S. politics 24/7, mind you own biz and quit worrying about what Germans think is important!


    by artappraiser on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 4:37pm

    Come on, AA, I think you may be putting a deliberate "spin" on the demon that he doesn't deserve.

    Or, I could be wrong, he'll prob'ly be here in a minute to defend himself.  I sort of took his original post to be a backhanded acknowledgement of what a shitstorm journalists are subject to in the ordinary course of doing their job when upheaval is the topic.

    No, wait, I'm talking about a post in the list of atrocities visited upon journalists...carry on.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 4:48pm

    I suggest you re-read this post:

    Since Egypt has fallen into political disarray, has anyone taken notice all MSM resources, both print nd web, are focused intently on the situation on the ground there while the rest of the world is slowing dissolving under the weight of their own destructive powers. As Nomi Klein so aptly put in her book, The Shock Doctrine, redirect the attention of the public to some other trivial issue away from what you're doing so when their attention is back and focused, the changes have already been approved and implemented and there's nothing they can do. I wonder what kind of mischief the GOper's were able to gum up because everyone's attention was distracted?

    I am not spinning, he is bemoaning the interest in Egypt here with this post, suggests Congress is up to no good  and not being covered while we are "distracted" by Egypt. My first comment upthread was to show that it is still being covered. Now I'm moving on to his suggestion that it's a bad thing that people are so interested in what's going on in Egypt....

     


    by artappraiser on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 4:54pm

    I thought I withdrew the "spin" comment in my last sentence...I did re-read the op and that's why I edited the comment.  You are correct.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 4:56pm

    Ok, right.  Revolution in Egypt is a "trivial issue" concocted by the masters of the universe to distract the masses.


    by Dan Kervick on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 8:32pm

    I somehow knew I could count on DanK to put it all in perspective. We can't know for certain how it all works out, but these developments in the Mid East have easily got the potential to be the historic events that shape geopolitics for the next generation and beyond.

    Somehow, the importance of pickle-faced men in suits promoting wedge issues in Congress that don't have a ghost of a chance of actually being enacted tends to fail in comparison, IMHO. I can read all about that in the Sunday papers.


    by SleepinJeezus on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 8:52pm

    Egypt is going thru birthing pains at the moment. Best let them be so they can discover for themselves what they're gonna become when all is said and done. The more we're in there, the more they'll blame us if whatever is birthed isn't what they're expecting. In the meantime, while we're all transfixed on the boobtubes and web...just like during the first Gulf War...our political debates are still raging, but not too many are paying attention simply because what's going on in Egypt is more entertaining. What is going on in Egypt is the shock Naomi Klein wrote about. And as she pointed out, once the revolution in Egypt is all over with don't be surprised to find some unannnounced changes in the political rhetoric at home that wasn't there before.


    by Beetlejuice on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 9:51pm

    Well, Fox News has decided that everything but Superbowl Sunday is trivial, and Georgia's Republican Rep Bobby Franklin has decided that rape is too.

    Happy Sunday!

     


    by LisB on Sun, 02/06/2011 - 11:10am