The New Doctor Death

[Daveparts]

I read the news jaded, so jaded it’s reached the point where I want a second source on sports scores. Now Rupert Murdoch wants to buy Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Lovely, on the one hand the paper couldn’t get any more conservative and there would be more pictures of fiery explosions and stories about the romantic exploits of bubble headed starlets. The only down side in this trade off would be the papers credibility and in a way Rupert Murdoch would be a hero.

Murdoch has from his earliest days in journalism strived to do for the print media what Vince McMann and Hulk Hogan did for pro wrestling. Sometimes however you strive for one goal and fail yet achieve another goal unintended. Otis invented his elevator because his furniture sales were so bad that he needed to move the unsold furniture upstairs for storage.

Likewise Murdoch in his quest to become Australia’s answer to William Randolph Hurst becomes instead Australia’s answer to Dr. Jack Kervorkian of print media. Television media has never been considered serious journalism with the few rare exceptions such as Edward R. Morrow or the broadcast of Silent Spring journalistic aspirations have headed steadily downward. At one time there was a clear distinction between journalism and grocery store tabloids but now bust size is a journalistic measurement.

What Murdoch has done and intends to do is to blur that line still more and in doing so will kill off print media as a serious news source much like he has done for television. The Fox news brand speaks for it’s self, if you are a regular viewer of Fox news you know less about what is going on in the world than a person who watches no TV news at all! But here in lies the rub you can’t poison half the stew, sensationalism numbs, you must continue to be more sensational to remain successful.

I call it the Geraldo Rivera paradox, to survive you must have sensation but since sensation is a limited quantity you must generate your own. But in generating your own you create a blow back as viewers begin to discover the fraudulent sensations.

Fox News ratings are flat as the less susceptible to fear manipulation return to their normal lives. The number of people watching all television news is in decline as the you’re only as strong as your weakest line rule comes in to play. US television news is a poison stew like digging through horse crap hoping to find a pony until only the ignorant or the overly optimistic will even try. With the exception of Link TV out of San Francisco, which airs news broadcasts from around the world, or Bill Moyer’s or occasionally on PBS; TV news is dead as a medium.

Murdoch’s take over of the Wall Street Journal would as well signal the end of print journalism in America. Doctor Death would hook his machine up and euthanize the already ailing industry. The New York Times once considered a liberal bastion rocks decrepitly on the porch manipulated from behind the scenes like an elderly rich aunt becoming irrelevant. The Washington Post once spoke for the nation but now it barely speaks at all.

The media Moe Larry’s and Curley’s sit in there mega media towers and ask themselves, “Hmm, why aren’t people reading my newspapers anymore?”

“Oh, oh, oh Moe, Moe I know, they want shorter stories with less detail.”

“Yeah, what do you say Larry?”

“Moe, they want more fluff!”

“Yeah, well your both wrong, they don’t have enough time!”


Do you think I’m going to far? Are you saying to yourself they’re not really that stupid! Well all across America its, “The 10 o’clock news report now in high definition!” that makes about as much sense as watching paint dry because it smells better!

So you’re reading my post, I thank you for that. But why? The media says you want more fluff and don’t have time for detail, but you do have time for detail and maybe you agree and enjoy reading it. If not with the click of a mouse I’m gone, banished to the hinterlands and you can move on to someone else’s opinion. Ah, opinion the magic word! My opinion your opinion her opinion our opinion.

Everyone’s opinion but the media’s opinion, as a blogger I ask you with hat in hand to please hear my opinion and request of you your indulgence. While the corporate media pronounce their opinions from their pulpits of pontific publication, “These things you should believe! Because we are experts and we say so.” It is similar to a joke I heard years ago that Playboy Magazine was coming out with a version of it’s magazine exclusively for married men it had the same centerfold in it every month.

That pretty much covers it one opinion, pasteurized processed homogenized globalized synthesized irradiated and fluoridated and guaranteed to neither excite nor inform. All the truth that fit’s the agenda, as the media moguls scratch their heads. So the print media and the TV media next jump into the blogesphere proclaiming like Norma Desmond, “They still love me! They just want me on their computers now Mr. Deville.” Unable to see or understand the public’s not just playing hard to get we are genuinely running away from them.

Hurst, I mean Murdoch will be wildly successful all his days as most parasites are. They feed on the good health of their client until they weaken them and eventually kill them then move on. Hurst I mean Murdoch’s recent purchase of My Space is a perfect example of Murdoch moving on. Unable to understand that he is the media’s Doctor Death he will keep at it steadfastly until one day the snow globe rolls from his hand and falls to the floor with a crash and the word rosebud escapes from his lips.