Why do you still watch CNN?

is it to post "Fuck CNN" threads?

Don't even watch Lou Dobbs anymore cause I can't stand the commercials that come on while watching it.

I almost fell off my chair when he said that.

At my son's school each office has a TV set mounted on the wall and they are all turned on. The ones I saw were all tuned to Fox. When I complained to the principal he said they watch all different channels through out the building including CNN. When I pointed out that CNN was hardly liberal and that Fox out right lies, his response was "some people would argue with you about that". Those "some people" are everywhere

Those bastards get me all the time. They are a group that has thus far proven to be hard to ascertain. And they refuse to return my phone calls.

I wish I'd thought of something like that to say to that fascist.

Too think our tax dollars paid for his doctorate, yes our school district paid for his advanced degree and it is highly likely this asshole will be our next superintendent of schools. Our present one is retiring in June.

believe what the fascists are saying about cnn(certainly not news).

Even if we have to deal with Judy Woofwoof and Wolf Blitzkrieg once in a while, it's a hell of a lot better than dealing with Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and the rest of the laughing boys. (Isn't Shepard Smith still on there?)

yeah, it's only 99.5% there.

only .5% more to go.

Why watch any of any of it at all?

Do like being lied too?

Personally, I find it offensive.

If I wasn't a masochist, I'd turn the crap off...but I'm also a voyeur and want to watch the crap spewing...and finally, I'm addicted to the crap...I will confess I also like Lou Dobbs and Aaron Brown...

I have however gotten so tired of shouting at the TV and having elevated blood pressure...I think my New Year's resolution is going to be getting rid of the major cable package, whittling down to basic cable and only watching PBS and local news, doing lots of Yoga and getting my news on the internet from alternative and foreign sources....

Maybe if CBS gets smart and hires Aaron Brown and Lou Dobbs, then I'll be okay getting over the addiction....

and very much appreciated.

Programming out the cable channels was probably the best thing that could have happened to my blood pressure. And- yes, it was an addiction- and like most addictions- and unhealthy one.

It got so bad during 2000 that I started throwing things- and my SO got me these little stuffed animal things, so I could throw them at the TV and not do any damage!

(this was after I smashed 2 remotes in one week).

and those were the honest reasons that I could think of why I actually subject myself to watching it....

Thanks for admitting to me that I'm not alone in this unhealthy obsession....

Atleast we are on our road to recovery....first step is admitting the problem, right? :hi:

Two Remotes in One Week? Wow...I only ruined one and the second one still has tape over the crack in the side.....Glad to know I'm not the only one....

... and at least Daschle wasn't Delay; at least Kerry wasn't Bush; at least I can still buy groceries; at least my car still runs; at least there aren't storm troopers in the street yet.... as things get worse and worse and worse and worse.

In 1932 liberal and progressive voters were strong armed into supporting an uninspiring, safe candidate. Why Hindenburg? people asked. Well, at least he isn't Hitler, came the answer. This "at least it isn't..." thinking is really dangerous, because it is defeatist and it blocks efforts for real reform. it is the road map to tyranny, because it assumes that politics is all a matter of picking the "least bad" and defending that choice, no matter how bad the range of choices get. It is the position of the supplicant, grateful for whatever crumbs fall there way and counseling others to not complain because that might anger the master and make things worse.

This might seem like making a mountain from a mole hill, but think about it. If we say that the mass media has made it impossible for progressive ideas to be heard by the public, then how can our TV viewing habits be apolitical or irrelevant? If I say that it doesn't matter what I watch, because I am just a drop in the bucket and because my habits don't effect anything, then we are aligning ourselves with the status quo and we are saying that there is no power in our personal example. That is to surrender.

Then I watched Edward's goodbye speech to the senate.
Other then that... my TV is permanently on Dora the Explorer.

i havent been able to watch cablenews for many months. i rarely watch local news.
Any MSM news has become pretty tough to watch since so much of it stinks of propaganda either directly or indirectly through what they dont happen to mention.

while I listen to AAR.. the only place I can get truthful news.

cable just for the HBO, but I'm thinking about canceling and actually using my Netflix subscription and watch some quality films instead. My kids won't like it but they'll get used to it. I did watch Aaron Brown last night because I heard he was interviewing Bev Harris. That turned out to be underwhelming coverage (at least some coverage though)and of course I've been watching CableGod KO since he has been reporting 'election irregularities'.

and loving it! (except for Olbermann who I still watch of course :D)

I can order all these movies that I couldn't get at the video store.

because I'm a maschist. :evilgrin:

:hi: Cat!

:hi:

I haven't watched it in months.

We watch CNN for one reason only: to "take the pulse of America". Because I work in media, it's a necessity, although this is probably true for most of it's audience in Canada and Europe - ie. "what's America watching for their news"? And yes, we're all in full "filter" mode when viewing.

Compared to the CBC (Canada), BBC (UK), TV5 (France), Deutsche Welle (Germany), or even Al Jazeera, it's certainly NOT relied upon as anyone's exclusive or primary news source. Far from it. Especially with all the alternatives available to all in these countries.

Personally, I limit myself to about an hour max per day (hard news), and I've long considered shows like "Crossfire" to be virtually unwatchable. (no need for Jon Stewart to tell me , although I loved the way he pointed this out to Americans.)


edit: spelling

I like to keep up with what's being reported and how on the MSM. Otherwise, I have no idea what sort of "information" is being crammed no into 'conventional wisdom'. The BS "debate" shows are useless and have always been but the others give a good pulse of where public opinion will shake out in the end. If we don't know what people are being told, how do we know what we're up against?

Honestly, I am concerned with the amount of people here that have simply tuned out or have created their own sort of "left wing echo chamber". Knowledge is stronger when derived from a multitude of sources and is far more effective when somewhat sensitive to the mindsets of others.

If we close off, we may as well hand the keys to Grover Norquist et al. I, for one, am not ready to give up that easily.

CNN International can be vastly different then CNN USA.

At some point CNN int was airing some sort of Bush-critical stand-up comedian show, while DU was reporting on how CNN was in lock-step with the government.

nt

I fucking hate that fucking G word. Leslie is such a simple minded tool. If he had an original idea it would die of fucking loneliness. :loveya:

Fox is at least obvious.

And I don't watch Fox either.

There is essentially no News programing anywhere in the US anymore.

The only watchable show is Olberman on MSNBC.

They are in business to make money. It's the 'Merican way. Roger Ailes tacking into a pentup populous(of repukes) that didn't think its view was being fairly presented. CNN recognizes that most cable viewers are far right of center. They slant their news and personnel to that targeted audience. I don't have to support it and don't. If the news isn't on the internet, I won't get it. MS-RNC, the FuxNewsChannel, CNN can die with their secrets. No part of my money goes to support them.
I am old enough to remember vividly back when there were only three networks and their news departments were loss leaders they suffered as a part of their use of public airwaves. Those days are gone, forever. Viacom, Welch's GE, Disney don't give a rat's fuck about any committment to fairness. Dems are in for a long, long twilight struggle. I'm not sure I really give a fuck. Any nation that will reelect a smirking chimp isn't the bright shining city on the hill that I once loved.

for entertainment purposes only...

anymore.

after I get home and before Olberman comes on.

Other than that, fuck the cable media.

NEVER ... NEVER ... NEVER ...

and you can keep the rest of the cable crappola's and the network news shows too ... if i wanted propaganda, i'd go directly to the rnc website and cut out the middlemen ...

I might watch Aaron Brown's snoozefest if there's some really huge story going on out there and I want to see the "spin" out there. Maybe a little Anderson Cooper here and there but that would be like, once a month at most. Other than Keith Olbermann, my tv viewing of ALL the cable networks is done to almost zero.

And I do not miss it, none of it. I won't even watch Olbermann anymore, because it is still an IV drip of misery and shit from above.

I have all of those channels BLOCKED on my TV: CNN/CNN-HN/MSNBC/CNBC/FOX/CSPAN - all of 'em!

I quit my newspaper (lifelong reader, since I was a kid, and my first job was delivering the paper when I was 10), and I FEEL GREAT.

Try it. Your sex drive will improve, your digestion becomes better, the sun is brighter, the birds sing clearer... :D

any of them. They all puke the same song...just in slightly different keys. Interesting article here about that...

Published on Monday, November 22, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

Media and the Election
by Jeff Cohen

You all know about journalists embedded with the troops in Iraq. I started out as a media critic at FAIR and, as if in a slow-motion nightmare, I ended up embedded inside the mainstream media. I've worked as a panelist/commentator over the years at all three cable news channels.

What I've found inside TV news is a drunken exuberance for stories involving celebrity, lurid crime and sex scandal -- matched by a grim timidity and fear of offending the powers that be, especially if they're conservatives. The biggest fear is of doing anything that could get you or your network accused of being liberal.

In 2002, I was an on-air commentator at MSNBC, and also senior producer on the "Donahue" show, the most-watched program on the channel. In the last months of the program, before it was terminated on the eve of the Iraq war, we were ordered by management that every time we booked an antiwar guest, we had to book 2 pro-war guests. If we booked two guests on the left, we had to book 3 on the right. At one meeting, a producer suggested booking Michael Moore and was told that she would need to book 3 right-wingers for balance. I considered suggesting Noam Chomsky as a guest, but our studio couldn't accommodate the 86 right-wingers we would have needed for balance.

When we look at the media's role in the 2004 election, we make a mistake to focus on election coverage per se. The basis for Bush's victory was in place way before 2004. At the end of last year, a huge study done by the University of Maryland's PIPA, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, found that most of those who got their news from the commercial TV networks held at least 1 of 3 fundamental "misperceptions" about the war in Iraq (and some held 2 or 3 of them):

More here.... http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1122-31.htm

I stopped watching that shitty channel a good while BEFORE the election.

I would save a lot of money by letting cable go...........

but I REFUSE to watch the cable news.

I love the History Channel, Lifetime, A&E, etc.

NGC and PBS are pretty good too sometimes. NGC sometimes has amazing ecology/evolution docs. I've heard Sundance plays good movies too, although I haven't seen first hand.

I do enjoy the c-span c-span channels.

:hi:

:hi:

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!!

Other than that, CNN who?

We cut back to extremely basic cable and it's been very peaceful. It doesn't take long to surf through 13 channels - two of them are local cable access - and realize there's nothing on! We're reading more and so far I don't miss anything. However, when the Sopranos and Six Feet Under start new seasons, I may feel deprived.

I did talk to a Christian friend today about his Bush vote. He said that everyone in his Church was told to vote for Bush because of 3 morality issues--abortion, gay marriage, and Supreme Court justices. I had to admit that Kerry would have made a fundamental difference in these 3 areas. But the guy said that he didn't know anyone who exactly liked Bush--or was comfortable with him. They just disagree too much with Kerry on their notion of morality.

Another anecdote. My sister in Montana was, of course, surrounded by Bush voters. But on election day, none of them seemed upbeat. We, otoh, would have been joyful if it had gone the other way. She asked one of those who voted for Bush why she wasn't happy. She said Bush "kinda scared her."

So, my analysis is that there is this fundamental divide--that a Dem can't appeal to certain folks--but there's no real love for Bush with many of his "supporters" like say they had for Reagan.

I go to Lutheran college. All the christian students and church officials are in love with Bush, while all the professors in the science department are rabid Bush haters, despite the fact that they are outspoken Christians... I definitely think for the uneducated (or less exposed I guess) the world can be defined with three issues, but for those demanding proof, the superficial Christian declarations are not enough to satisfy.

...except for a few nights after 9/11. Can't say I miss it.

Right now I'm considering canceling my cable. There's a lot I'd miss, like Sci Fi, Jon Stewart, HBO, etc., but I really do hate the idea that some of my money is going to the likes of the Conservative News Network (CNN), MSGOP and Faux.

If we could pick channels one by one, I wouldn't mind paying for cable. I'd probably pick A & E, History, Discovery, E!, Comedy Central, Sci Fi, Independent Film Channel, Sundance, TNT, Turner Movie Classics, BBC America, VH1 Classic, HBO, Showtime and maybe a few others. Most of the rest I rarely if ever watch. Trouble is, to get those channels I also have to take a bunch of junk like Faux, MSGOP, and CNN.

During the Iraq "shock and awe" I walked through a walmart...the most stomach turning thing. Fox and CNN with their breathlessly excited embeds on dozens of overhead screens, and all the blue aproned minimum wagers gazing up in rapt wonder. I walked out empty handed again.

That shit rots your brain, folks.

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!!

:hi:

Tell GA hello for me!!!

I watch CNN because, I don’t like chopping wood.

do YOU understand it? :shrug:

you see, you're not making a lick of sense to me.

maybe i'm truly thick or out of it, and really do need an explanation. you think?

I suppose I too could easily fire back with some jerk ass response, however, I'm trying to take a respectful approach.

I called it quits on their bullshit propaganda 6 months ago.

The most trusted name in news? says who

Karl Rove Condeliesa Rice Dumsfeld

Couldn't possibly say enough negative things about them I trash them to everyone I know & meet.

what the mindless masses are being fed.

...when the numbers the reported on TV were different from the online poll numbers they were talking about. LIARS!!!

TVland, Hallmark channel, and Democracy Now! I've recently started watching "Star Trek:the next generation," on SpikeTV, but it's so filled with commercials for one branch of the military after another i don't think i can continue that even.

by on the screen anymore. I've been CNN free for MONTHS. I thought the rest of this board had taken the pledge...NO MORE CNN! ;)

c-span and online surfing - i prefer to be actually informed.

Haven't for about 2 months now. They've so corrupted what once was an honest new network that it's a waste of time...unless Wes Clark is on LOL.

However, for those who do watch I have to give a salute :toast: ...it's important to know what memes the "enemy" is pushing to stand a chance of fighting them.

from our cable line-up. All gone.
It's great!

I thought I had retreated into full AAR listening with an occasional foray into MSNBC's Countdown.

CNN died for me when Wolfe Blitzer became the neocon, pro-war minister of propaganda there and when they decided to abandon all pretense of having debates on Crossfire, shrunk it, moved it to the middle of the day and scripted it out into the cheeziest piece of crap on TV.

CNN is the ONLY station that still tunes in on my satellite. (How did they manage that????)

CNN watchers - try this experiment. Go 3 weeks with no TV at all. Then turn CNN on and stand in the next room so that you can't see the picture. Listen to the tone of voice most of the talking heads use. Listen to the pacing, and the way that seductive and mesmerizing music is woven in. Listen to the way the audience is led, and steered and manipulated by the language used and the phrasing and inflections.

Listen with fresh ears. The soundtrack is what does the brain damage while you are in a semi-hypnotic state from the visuals.

Can't make it 3 weeks without TV? Hmmmm.....

I have never owned a TV, but I used to love the history channel before it went to "all war all the time" programming, and would go over to a friend's house to watch it. I suppose the answer is that anything can be good in moderation, and that everything we do has consequences.

Don't you think that the screen has something of a mesmerizing effect that may be influencing people in ways that are not obvious? That is my sense. Probably because of my personal history of recovery, I am always fascinated by and alert to the whole complex array of interlocking and mutually supporting attitudes and behavior that comprise addiction, and in how addiction differs from dedication, say, or persistence or commitment. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that people's political views have more to do with how much TV they watch then anything else - not so much their position on the issues or whether they are right or left, but the context they hold the issues in and their world view and concept of reality.

have been running some great shows about Alexander The Great :D

Have you seen, "Outfoxed"? I got the DVD shortly before the "election".

The guy who invented the "Fox News Alert" was interviewed, and he's dismayed at the use, or should I say abuse, of the alert now. It was invented to draw one's attention to solid breaking news stories, however, now it's used for any and everything Fox deems as "breaking news" (which is normally ScottPeterson/OJ/Chandra/LaciPeterson/Kobe alerts).

My point is CNN has copied the glitzy graphics and dramatic music. It really does get ones attention. However, those of us who know better are immune.

I haven't seen Outfoxed yet, no. I will, thanks. Alexander the Great - yeah, that sounds great. I love documentaries.

The immunity thing - even opposition to something plays a role in its continuing existence, I think. I don't know how that applies to TV viewing, but in a family with alcoholism the non-drinkers have an important and necessary role to play in moving the drama forward. They imagine themselves to be "immune" to the problem since they aren't the one with the problem, and can't see how they may be part of the problem.

I sometimes think that Democrats take the anti-right wing propaganda position on too many issues, and miss the forest for the trees. Maybe there IS no workable progressive position on many of the issues as defined and presented by the right wing propaganda. An example of this happened in Germany in the 30's. When people criticized the Nazi position on and treatment of Jewish people, the rejoinder would be "well, OK, if you are so smart, what do YOU think should be done about the threat posed by worldwide Jewry to the German nation?" Clearly, in that case and looking back with the benefit of hindsight, the question itself is easilt seen as ridiculous and as carrying with it a set of false assumptions that make it difficult to respond to. I wonder how much this same phenomenon is affecting our thinking today in ways that it is not so easy for us to see.

Nothing else... even if you only watch it to 'see what the right is saying', they still get ratings and that translates into the same ol' shit. Boycott FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC and expose the lies to anyone you can... even at the risk of sounding like a lunatic. If enough people get the message out, it's bound to have an effect.

Krocksice :hi:

we need more like you :D

I'll see what I can do

Call it ammunition. Problems is, that I have an arsenal of info against them, and their repug brethren, but no way to sue it. Not doing me much good now, but maybe some day.

with the exception of the countdown and aaron brown a couple times.

i no longer intend to waste anymore time on cabal news...i can get all i need through AAR, sirius left the internet and select magazines and newspapers.

imagine if 10 million of us did the same...didn't miss it, and then we built up OUR OWN media...i dare say we could change the world, starting with taking back thos country.

peace

certainly do not have the stomach to watch any of the MSM including CNN. Most of my news comes from the Internet, this board, the NY Times, the LA Times and the Nation. In the car I do Pacifica Radio and KLSD in San Diego (DX'ing on the AM band). One tends not to have facts go down the memory hole when one reads information.

she knows whats up!

:hi:

LOL -- I don't proclaim to know "what's up", I'm in an "X-Files" mood: The Truth Is Out There :D

thanks, see ya around.

I DON'T! I have finally kicked corporate news

journalists - which they rarely do. They have become impotent.

not even Crossfire...I feel much better

I wouldn't watch that crap if they paid me. :puke: