Mike Wallace dead at 93...

[Mike70]

and it's about time. this is not a RIP nor a memorial thread, so please feel free to say whatever you want about mike wallace, 60 mins, or tv news in general. i utterly detest television "journalism" in all forms, shapes, and manners. i think the rise of visual mass news media is one of the worst things that has ever happened in human history for a number of reasons. so, goodbye and good riddance to one of its "pioneers." the world needs less people like mike wallace and more people who mind their own fricking business. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17650631

[MikePizzoff]

i think the rise of visual mass news media is one of the worst things that has ever happened in human history for a number of reasons. Care to elaborate on this?

[Mike70]

Care to elaborate on this? it allows for complex issues to be boiled down to 30 second or 1 minute soundbytes, so it is guilty of oversimplification, which is one of the worst sins in logic. these oversimplified versions of events are then presented by visual media in an extremely manipulative way designed to evoke emotional responses from viewers and override their reason and ability to separate out what is key and what is being fed to them by whatever network they are watching. instead of reason and logic in news, we've gotten sensationalism, emotionalism and a bunch of other "isms" that aren't there to inform but to manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way. that isn't news. it is pyschological warfare on a scale never before seen on planet earth. i'm not a fan of the press at all. never have been and never will be. the world was just fine when things like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, etc. didn't exist and would be just fine if they all disappeared tomorrow. i guess it is because i really don't care what other people are doing or are up to (that's why i just don't get celebrity fascination) and think it flat disgusting to be overly interested in things that do not directly involve you. for the sake of clarity: i'm about as self-absorbed as it gets and have enough problems that i don't need to be worrying about the problems of other people.

[SymphonicX]

i'm not a fan of the press at all. never have been and never will be. the world was just fine when things like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, etc. didn't exist and would be just fine if they all disappeared tomorrow. . This is an American issue. TV news over here has a pretense of impartiality. Fox News and all the like are the laughing stock of the media world. I agree over simplification is an issue but luckily over here we have programmes like Newsnight and various others with which to delve deeper into issues. You guys have Glenn Beck, too bad really. But to be honest there's a litany of points you're missing out on the positives to having a mass media - not an American one, because it's corporately driven rubbish that just sets out political agendas and fear campaigns to the public...as well as distracting it's citizens with bullshit like celebrity news. But really some of your points are a bit disingenuous - having an informed public is far more beneficial to the conscience of the world than one that's hidden from political issues and atrocities that ocurr on a daily basis. That is of course, assuming you're part of a fully functioning society of people that contains a relatively respectable media - which the US doesn't have. Investigative journalism is one of the most important industries the world has produced. From uncovering scandals to finding missing kids, to petitioning the public and giving them a real voice - the idealody of mass media is a noble one. It's just sometimes the greedy and politically motivated among us can distort and twist things slightly - the UK media is far from perfect - but if we'd never had investigative journalism, I'd hazard to think what the world would be like if we left certain issues under the table. It'd go even further towards creating that Orwellian, oppressed culture that we all seem to be driving towards. There's a big, big difference between NEWS and celebrity gossip. Some of your post feels like you're just talking about that - but real, investigative or breaking news has changed the landscape of UK society in particular, especially this last year or so. -- -------- Post added at 10:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 AM ---------- Thought I should also add, just as a subsidary point - I'm not overly clued up on the thread subject's contribution to American media - but someone who similarly affected the landscape of the American lifestyle was David Frost - who we all know was the interviewer of Richard Nixon. This was one of the most important journalistic endeavours of the 20th Century and helped provide the closure that allegedly the US public were crying out for after Watergate. This was such a culturally relevant piece of journalism that it changed the landscape not just of news, but of the Presidency itself. There IS value in this stuff, for sure.

[babomb]

Did you know that in all of the years that FOX news has existed it has never once broken a story. It's purpose isn't to report news, it's to put a political spin on it. Years back there was an effort to get FOX news broadcast in Canada. However, Canada has a law that it's outright illegal to lie on a news broadcast. So some FOX news fans attempted to have that law removed in order to get FOX news into Canada. They failed. So FOX news doesn't broadcast in Canada! The worst part is that there are alot of people in the US that think that FOX news is the only non-biased news source on US television. They think this because of the simple fact that FOX news seems to validate their personal world view. It's so easy to manipulate the American public it's ridiculous!!

[Rumsfeld]

I think it's funny how the last time I watched a news show (which was months ago) they said we were on the verge of destruction. If destruction is me sitting on a verandah near a college campus talking to beautiful women and drinking an apple cider then please, bring on the chaos.