What's really insulting about TV is that no one admits that most instant punditry is bullshit

[MrScorpio]

(This is addressed to the talking head industry)

With the sheer number of instant pundits running around Washington DC and New York City, one should be careful to consider the fact that there are just as many opinions as there are the number of these pundit driven assholes.

The point is that the odds being what they are, none of them are factual about a subject that they're blabbering about outside of the maxim that a broken clock is right twice a day.

Hence, while having to pull some talking points out of their dimpled asses, most of them come up with bullshit.

Very, very few people are honest brokers when it comes to uncovering the bodies buried in those towns. They have bills to pay and their paymasters will be none too pleased if actual facts are substituted for the requisite bullshit.

There's a phrase in the Hip-Hop world of which I'm accustomed to as an Internet underground DJ, which says, "Real recognizes real". Real truth is self evident to those who have taken the time and effort to find out what real truth is.

It's not just important to consider the source from which any pundit arises, one must also consider the message.

All you have to do is apply the Smell Test. If it walks like a turd and quacks like a turd, Eureka!, you have bullshit.

[hobbit709]

1. Pundits are living proof of Sturgeon's Law

[HereSince1628]

2. Because I am no longer a target of marketing I just assume tv is not meant for me

The SO has cable, which includes free tv and some 30 additional, not premium, channels including Discovery, TLC, and Nat' Geographic. If we aren't in the demographic targeted by the purely entertainment we assume we are not in the demographic targeted by the info-tainment, either.

Life in a media driven world is hell when you are abandoned by the marketeers.

[Warpy]

5. No shit. I noticed that when I entered my late 40s

Characters on sitcoms were too young and had lives there was no way I could relate to. Commercials all assumed I wanted bright shiny stuff I had no use for for a dating scene I wasn't part of. Anybody my age on TV was a buffoon or a complainer.

There is good stuff out there, especially on subscription services. Right now, I'm watching "Black Blizzard" on History, a great documentary of the Dust Bowl years.

However, such fare is an exception, not a rule.

For me, it's History, Science, or TCM. It sucks when the world writes you off as irrelevant to the larger culture.

[HereSince1628]

8. History, discovery and even NtlGeogr are into ghosts, paranormal

crypto-zoology, criminal investigation, masonic myths, end-times prophecy and apocalyptic natural events and all sorts of that frankly isn't scientific or really historic. Now that I have diabetes I don't even enjoy Ace of Cakes.

I've given up on them and am considering spending most of my time writing memoirs of the good old days when televison was marketed to my demographic and when it didn't matter if the neighbors dog crapped in my flower beds. :rofl:

[Warpy]

9. Ah yes, the good old days

that mostly weren't.

I find myself listening to radio on computer when all the woohead stuff takes over the history and science channels and TCM is playing shite.

Link TV has been letting me down, too, not running as many films as they used to, running endless news shows instead.

[Mabus]

3. A couple of years ago at a conference

there was a panel consisting of, among others, David Shuster, Craig Crawford and Wolfe (the former Newsweek writer). After they had talked there was a Q & A session where I asked them a couple of questions about their lack of news coverage on some key issues and then asked them to quit using the words "authentic" and "genuine" when covering candidates because I could make up my own mind about who was fake, who wasn't and I was tired of them telling us, the people, who they thought was fake and who wasn't. I got a huge round of applause and the panel looked a little surprised. They don't care.

[KharmaTrain]

4. It's A Circle Jerk...

No matter what channel you tune to, you see the same faces blathering away. It's reflective of the little world most these people live in...the beltway bubble. They live by the "unnamed sources" and drinkie-drinkie parties. Their game isn't journalism or truth, but "connections" and getting scoops, bylines and face time. Their teevee gigs are their meal tickets that gets them the party invites and they return the favors by planting the spin and playing incestuous games. We saw in how they circled the wagons around Faux that they're more concerned about pissing off Murdoch cause he could be their next employer. They play the "fair and balanced" game as it's their little party game of pretending they are unbiased...no matter how their actions speak otherwise.

The saving grace is the alternative media...blogs, internet radio and twitter that have bypassed their filters and games and where more and more people now turn to as their prime source of information and opinion. Their world is changing and shrinking...yet their too blind to see.

[emulatorloo]

6. "blogs" - for every rational fact based blog, there are 10 wingnut ideologues making crap up

that basically are given equal weight.

"I read on the internet that Obama has a secret plan to destroy America and turn us over to the communists! MUST BE TRUE!"

I would like to believe alternative media is going to save us, mostly it seems like more of the same only worse.

[KharmaTrain]

7. We Are Our Own Editors...

The joy of the blogosphere is it allows anyone...no matter how whacked out to speak their piece...a modern day version of Bughouse Square where people stood on soapboxes and ranted. The real empowerment of this technology is it allows you to be your own editor in what sources you read and choose to believe.

[emulatorloo]

10. Mostly it seems to act as Step One in the Right Wing Noise Machine. "Some people are saying" etc

I think you have caught me on a negative day, I have a email box full of wingnut crap citing important blog posts etc.

[Garbo 2004]

11. It's theater not news, not analysis. Think professional wrestling, not Murrow. nt