Friday, June 04, 2010

The Day the Music Died (Another One Bites the Dust)

Finally, on the eve of its own demise, the newspaper (The Honolulu Advertiser -- Gannett) publishes a sample of the communications that have been begging all along for a fair representation of the "other side" of the story -- besides the union/liberal/Democratic Party's portrayal of ownership and management as the evil oppressors of all workers.

In the past, those omissions were usually justified with explanations that "it's OK because we're biased FOR the Democrats and liberals" and not FOR the evil rich (Republicans) -- which shows no understanding of the whole nature of bias and prejudice. Of course you think your side is all good, and the other side is all evil, and therefore should rightly be censored, suppressed and edited to distortion -- because you are so "progressive," know better and unilaterally ought to do the speaking for everybody else.

So when their own day of reckoning comes, they cannot understand why it was that they were so innocently going about their business ensuring "fair" play, when their own plugs got pulled.

In many "liberal" organs such as the newspapers have become, the newspapers own union shop stewards are either the assistant or associate editorial page editor, ensuring that only one side of the story is portrayed, while the other side is mischaracterized and misrepresented, by the skills of the mass communication skills they've learned to make the people believe anything they want them to believe. That is the insidious nature of "mass communications," which "journalism" has become a subset of.

But simply having these skills, is not enough to render anybody "objective," in and by itself. That's also true of lawyers who justify that the justice they serve, is whomever is their client, and pays them to lie for them. And one of the distinguishing profiles of occupations in Hawaii, are the disproportionate numbers of people employed to distort the truth for the benefit of whomever pays them to do so -- or what their union tells them, as though that made it right in itself, because their "might (majority) makes right," and there is no questioning or insight beyond that.

But that era is coming to an end -- as one day it must. And then like that cruel childhood game of "musical chairs," they find that there is no place for themselves at the new dinner table. And the band plays on -- until the next time. When will they ever learn?

2 Comments:

At June 06, 2010 8:28 PM, Blogger Hobbes said...

im not entirely sure why but there is a certain enchantment i derive from reading you. not so much enchantment i suppose but serenity that is rarely enjoyed in the sensational nonsensical rush of the media superhighways. im happy i found your words.

 
At June 07, 2010 8:12 AM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

I hope the enjoyment (enchantment) of others is a large part of the reason we write.

In the newspapers, unfortunately, they've thought that their purpose is to offend and antagonize sensibilities, knowing that is a surefire way to elicit comments -- usually insulting the author, but scoring comments nevertheless.

Usually the silence is a better indication that people are still running the thoughts over and over in their minds until everything is reordered in a greater sensibility producing this happiness and serenity.

The joy of a writer is knowing there are good readers out there.

I've always thought that the mistake of mass media, is to aim for the lowest common denominator rather than the highest, because even if they succeed, what have they succeeded at?

So at a time when a lot of old media are thinking to reinvent themselves or rebrand, I hope they recognize that it is an opportunity to step up and go where they haven't imagined before, instead of rerunning the last 150 years into the next 150.

 

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