Fucker looks right out of central casting. "Needed: someone to play intelligent moderator at a CES panel on global market cap for Intelligent tracking devices. Must have some gray, at least one pair of Tom Ford Fausto glasses, and has firm grasp of rudiments of tech panel moderator gestures: the crossed leg position, the inverted hand 'I'm making this interesting point now' move, the 'I'm parsing I'm parsing, but yes I agree and also want to kiss you' slightly pursed lips, and socks that are colorful, don't match either each other or your Ferragamo slacks."
"Rather than being transformed into a sophisticated right wing propaganda operation, it is more likely that CBS News is just made dumb and pointless."
Precisely, and that's what many commentators fail to realize. CBS News won't become another Fox News (MAGA voters won't switch networks). It will simply descend into bland irrelevance. Ellison has made a shrewd calculation that Trump -- if he survives the next 3 years -- will be content with the downfall of his critics and leave CBS alone. Maybe he'll even hype the network and buy some CBS shares. And the only downsides will be the destruction of a proud institution and the continuing malaise of investigative journalism. For Ellison, that cost is hardly worth mentioning...
As Jimi Hendrix is credited with saying, "It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play." Any good corporate "news" person knows exactly what not to say, mainly any truth inconvenient for those up the chain of command and ownership. Their training is so complete they don't even think thoughts that would upset the power structure. It's Hendrix in reverse, the notes they play are the wrong ones, and you will never hear them produce anything else.
A précis on how to spot weasel words in what lamely passes for journalism today. Today, truth is not on offer -- it has been drowned by disinformation and suffocated by spin. Murrow on journalism: "American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."
Clearly the legacy media has been the shits for, I would say, decades, ever since they passed the Telecommunications Act in "96. The gobbling up of radio and TV stations and the merging of cable companies have left us with more quantity, but less info diversity. CBS is a good example of how freedom of speech is becoming nothing more than a figure of speech.
Thank you for the link and confirming that Nick was THAT Nick — just a truly insipid columnist from back in the day. 60 Minutes is a ratings juggernaut with an NFL lead-in, will be fascinating to see if the cratering of ratings and decrease in ad buys outweigh the corporate mission at some point.
I loved CBS (!). I’m of a generation who reveres this medium. My teenage daughter watches YouTube, the un-natural, ad breaks, is not how I was raised. I remember water-cooler moments and news coverage that everyone saw.
Like so much of techno-capitalism, the ensh**tification cycle hit my favourite TV network. I’d rather watch Downton Abbey reruns, than anything BW serves up.
Apparently lots of people, who think like me, feel the same way. Ratings for all CBS News programming are plummeting. They even talk about it in the NY Post. On something we agree.
People who don’t understand history will repeat it. The same lesson with the same outcome. Pissing off the people who still use your product to court people who NEVER will, fails twice as fast.
Thank you for your service and ever demonstrating worthy and courageous leadership.
Broadcast journalism isn't the same thing as journalism and this isn't the 1960s or 70s when there was nowhere to look for qualified people because television news was a fairly new construction. Back then they pulled people from radio and print journalism and when I say people who I mean are white guys. Now there aren't many or any jobs at television stations that you won't be expected to have a degree in something like communications. Does that mean these jobs are all being filled by journalists? Ha!
Then I think about companies like Gannett and how they bought up all the local and regional papers and then laid huge swathes of the employees off. And how they eventually got around to everyone with any seniority at all but the people who knew Salesforce and never expected a pension hung on longer. And I ask myself could I identify a single journalist at the local paper? Of course not! Everything is paywalled and it's all garbage advertorials and restaurant reviews of restaurants that may or may not be in the city named in the paper. So perhaps print journalism has more in common with broadcast after all. I can't remember my original point anymore I'm just totally bummed out now.
Nailed it!
Fucker looks right out of central casting. "Needed: someone to play intelligent moderator at a CES panel on global market cap for Intelligent tracking devices. Must have some gray, at least one pair of Tom Ford Fausto glasses, and has firm grasp of rudiments of tech panel moderator gestures: the crossed leg position, the inverted hand 'I'm making this interesting point now' move, the 'I'm parsing I'm parsing, but yes I agree and also want to kiss you' slightly pursed lips, and socks that are colorful, don't match either each other or your Ferragamo slacks."
"Rather than being transformed into a sophisticated right wing propaganda operation, it is more likely that CBS News is just made dumb and pointless."
Precisely, and that's what many commentators fail to realize. CBS News won't become another Fox News (MAGA voters won't switch networks). It will simply descend into bland irrelevance. Ellison has made a shrewd calculation that Trump -- if he survives the next 3 years -- will be content with the downfall of his critics and leave CBS alone. Maybe he'll even hype the network and buy some CBS shares. And the only downsides will be the destruction of a proud institution and the continuing malaise of investigative journalism. For Ellison, that cost is hardly worth mentioning...
As Jimi Hendrix is credited with saying, "It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play." Any good corporate "news" person knows exactly what not to say, mainly any truth inconvenient for those up the chain of command and ownership. Their training is so complete they don't even think thoughts that would upset the power structure. It's Hendrix in reverse, the notes they play are the wrong ones, and you will never hear them produce anything else.
Just an incredible article on the man with stubble
“carefully groomed stubble”🤌🏼
A précis on how to spot weasel words in what lamely passes for journalism today. Today, truth is not on offer -- it has been drowned by disinformation and suffocated by spin. Murrow on journalism: "American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."
Clearly the legacy media has been the shits for, I would say, decades, ever since they passed the Telecommunications Act in "96. The gobbling up of radio and TV stations and the merging of cable companies have left us with more quantity, but less info diversity. CBS is a good example of how freedom of speech is becoming nothing more than a figure of speech.
Thank you for the link and confirming that Nick was THAT Nick — just a truly insipid columnist from back in the day. 60 Minutes is a ratings juggernaut with an NFL lead-in, will be fascinating to see if the cratering of ratings and decrease in ad buys outweigh the corporate mission at some point.
And this is how I learned about this news
I loved CBS (!). I’m of a generation who reveres this medium. My teenage daughter watches YouTube, the un-natural, ad breaks, is not how I was raised. I remember water-cooler moments and news coverage that everyone saw.
Like so much of techno-capitalism, the ensh**tification cycle hit my favourite TV network. I’d rather watch Downton Abbey reruns, than anything BW serves up.
Apparently lots of people, who think like me, feel the same way. Ratings for all CBS News programming are plummeting. They even talk about it in the NY Post. On something we agree.
People who don’t understand history will repeat it. The same lesson with the same outcome. Pissing off the people who still use your product to court people who NEVER will, fails twice as fast.
Thank you for your service and ever demonstrating worthy and courageous leadership.
Broadcast journalism isn't the same thing as journalism and this isn't the 1960s or 70s when there was nowhere to look for qualified people because television news was a fairly new construction. Back then they pulled people from radio and print journalism and when I say people who I mean are white guys. Now there aren't many or any jobs at television stations that you won't be expected to have a degree in something like communications. Does that mean these jobs are all being filled by journalists? Ha!
Then I think about companies like Gannett and how they bought up all the local and regional papers and then laid huge swathes of the employees off. And how they eventually got around to everyone with any seniority at all but the people who knew Salesforce and never expected a pension hung on longer. And I ask myself could I identify a single journalist at the local paper? Of course not! Everything is paywalled and it's all garbage advertorials and restaurant reviews of restaurants that may or may not be in the city named in the paper. So perhaps print journalism has more in common with broadcast after all. I can't remember my original point anymore I'm just totally bummed out now.
The Elison "plan" only works if people don't care. And it really only works if Paramount and Warner Brothers are...ignored. By the public.
These people are rich but do they not come with long term planning? Maybe not.
That extremely subtle Michael Barbaro drive-by was beautiful.