The Sabbaticus wrote:Where is the mention of CNN? Even other left-leaning media outlets are calling them out. In fact, you've failed to mention the entire mainstream media.
This is about 'outrage culture' - go and check the thread title if you're unsure - not about whether media channels are criticised. It's about emotional broadcasts designed to stir up outrage in viewers. And, just to keep you happy, Glenn Beck was mentioned. Here he is, on CNN Headline News (he spent nearly 3 years there), getting outraged:
I'd have to add radio to this - Rush Limbaugh and many others have spent over 2 decades ranting on air to get listeners mad (my first encounter with Limbaugh was when, a bit after I moved to the USA, I heard a radio report saying "talk radio's Rush Limbaugh weighed in today on ..." something or other, and they played a clip of a crazy man ranting. So it was obviously a phone-in with the usual nutters calling about their obsessions. I waited for this Limbaugh to reply and ... nothing. The lunatic was Limbaugh. I had never known anyone so unhinged to be given a media job in the UK, let alone be well-known enough to get talked about on other programs).
The problem is that stirring up the audience sells. The millions many of these people have made proves this. There is a significant sector of the public who enjoy hating, and these professional haters give them regular targets. It's been successful in the USA since the 1930s at least:
(odd - the above was just meant to be a link to a CSPAN page, which includes a recording of 'Father Coughlin' in a discussion about him. Try
Code: Select allhttps://www.c-span.org/video/?73853-1/radio-priest-charles-coughlin&start=1221
)
and before mass broadcasting, it was just what demagogues did in speeches. Or in sermons.
Any possible solutions? Improve the general well-being of people. It's when they think they have valid grievances that they want scapegoats. And gradual education of people on how to be members of society who don't depend on there being an 'Other' to looks down on. It'll takes decades, or more likely centuries.