Media, Truth and Peacekam a set of connected essays. Why Truth is Important. Then I and idea for a Real news Channel, beacause I saw that the media doesn't give a true picture of the world (Diana's death) which I updated after going to the Melbourne Media Circus conference. I also had the Peacekam idea, so I combined that them in the Peacekam Channel.

MEDIA
 

2. So Why is truth important ? why are assumptions dangerous ? it's hard to keep the big picture in focus

Even though Edward de Bono says that truth is overated I have to disagree with him; too often in our society decisions are based on assumptions which turn out to be false. To make good decisions we have to have correct facts to begin with.

3. Real news channel - In no other field is the world more uniform and narrow-minded as news reporting - no one seems to have any good ideas for setting their own agenda .."the other networks are reporting it so it must be important !"
Unfortunately the traditional way of reporting sensationalised singular negative events does not give us a true picture of the world does it ? "5 people killed in London train crash"
The fact is 200,000 people die each day, what about the 3000 Africans that died of Malaria that day ? What about the 350,000 babies born that day or the fact that train travel is still far safer than car travel.

Are we really more informed ? Now we know about a celebrity murdered in LA, but actually our local info is lower. We don't know about the car accident down the road, nor what our local council is doing.

what is news ? we can't think clearly

We don't need to hear again and again ...someone has been murdered here ....someone has been murdered there ... we need to get to the basics how does it affect me ?
How can we stop it altogether ... how far are we moving along this track ?

Especially when it talks about events we think we get a broad picture of the world, but because it's a one size fits all it's an extremely narrow picture of the world. I know about the Oscars and the World Cup , but find it difficult to find out the events that I am interested in near me. Everyday a million things happen we never get to find out about

2002 are we more informed ? The world is less informed TV tells us about the death of a celeb in LA, but we don't know about the accident down the road or the name of our neighbors.

2002 are we more diverse ? .. People drinking the same beer wearing the same labels.
60% of people never go to theatre or sports event.
Spin - it's the media that puts the spin in. Because they start off with almost nothing and try to turn it into a story when usually one doesn't exist. They are always spinning nothing into a story.
Main problems with the media

  1. lack of perspective
  2. "Boy in a well" stories - cos just reporting is easier than analysis and explanation.
  3. endless speculation
  4. Time filling live reporting instead of doing a deep investigation and editing down to the salient points
  5. follow the pack - in deciding what to report
  6. insularism it happened to a media person so it's more important North
  7. London and US Centric
  8. spinning nothing into a story
  9. playing on peoples emotions in choice of agenda
Doorstepping and monstering are symptons of this.

Perspective : By focusing one person murdered are we disrepecting the other people that died that day ? The media focuses on violent or celebrity deaths, but is it not important to think about preventing the other deaths like Aids, Malaria,alcohol etc. ? instead they go on and on about the fashionable story of the day and ignore other important stuff

Surely there are media people with a true desire to give us a true picture of the world, educate,inform and enlighten.

hysterical not logical. Art not science. The media in the UK are comics and the people live in fantasy comic land tragic, brainwashed , source for a conspiracy. what it could be like : balanced truthful perspective so we can make logial decisions, it's hysterical so it seems hyterical decisions are made. It's not the politicians who make the decsions it's the media democracy is not nearly as important as free speech

The reality is that things are usually so very very complex, but media is driven to simply simply often at the expense of truth.
WTC NewYork Terrorist Attacks -read my views

Paedaphile terror , what about the 4 children that are killed on Britains roads everyday ?
Can we please have some TRUTH and PERSPECTIVE more : a test page The world is distorted by advertising we all know about Britney Spears, but not about games with your friends. Media Circus

Easy to be negative, negative..anti, anti it's the governments fault etc Feel we have to trust in government yes the government does sometimes make bad decisions shouting "I told you so", doesn't do any good. To be positive you have to move on and make good decisions. If had been in government would things have been done differently. from MMC - it's impossible to represent every individual so what is does it pick the easiest medians - people who are homemakers, drink beer, eat redmeat, are white are heterosexual . It's tailored by controls of the market i.e. Who do advertisers want to sell to.. Part of the simplification process is that there is no space for explanation so labels are used.. "tree hugger", fascist etc, We need to simplify things to understand them. But part of the message is always lost in the compression / simplification. Does all your spare time get taken up reading a forest load of newspapers yet you walk away feeling you haven't learnt anything ? Could there be a conspiracy to overload the proletariat with information so that the truth cannot be seen ? Or is it human nature to lie ?

Politics runs deep it's not superficial .. "Listen Buddy boy help us. We are going to go to war. I can't tell why, you're going to have to trust me on this one. And if you don't help we'll trash your economy.
"but what about all our soldiers who could die ?", "well, what about all your citizens who could die in terrorist attacks, if we stop sharing intelligence with you. Buddy boy"

5. The Peace Channel 24 hour a day internet TV and resource

Why do governments spend so much on weapons ? Well cos they are scared the enemy might attack. OK put TV cameras showing the border 24 hours a day then people can see there is no troubleand know if there is they know about it straight away. e.g. India Pakistan border. The screen flicks between lots of differnt cameras. You could put it all on the internet and people could watch it whilst they queue in the bank.
- the Peace/Aggression/Violence Resource website will sort out societies violence problems be it be wars or domestic violence or school bullies. You could turn it into a international satellite TV channel. And I had often wondered why there was no Green TV channel you could use the Peace Channel to broadcast Green and Peace programming call it Danger.com or Tranquilla ! an example test page

e. Big Brothers Brother A reality TV show in which we follow the lives of a group of people making a reality TV show. Each week the boss has to select someone to blame for the falling ratings figures and boot them off 

.attention pay really you sure make ot .down upside and front to back completely written
Magazine Conformist-Non.

It should be "Its not how you say it , it's what you say ! "

i. Melbourne Media Cicus - Interesting but disappointing
It failed to deal with the fundamentals : the media doesn't give us a true picture of the world. Can we do something about it ? What ?
Anyway read my notes including an incredible conspiracy story

missing persons internet updated screensaver in the bank - You could have a screensaver which displays pictures of missing kids and you could set up screens in the bank or post office.

We Always get a Distorted view of Truth - 04/11/07
- we get so much of our understanding of the world through the distorting lense of the media. I say distorting, but the image isn't really distorted it's often just wrong, but plausible.
  1. distorting lense of the media
  2. Own Prejudices - Often we can't suppress our own built in prejudices
  3. Beery Talk - Then add in the distorting effect of your beery mates down the pub
  4. Advertising
  5. TV/cinema Schedulers
  6. Environmental - the shop windows are not full of messages saying you don't need to buy. Or if you were at a hippy festival the poples appearance would influence you.
  7. Simplicity sells - are the shops full of books which proclaim Disaster and easy success or books which say things are complicated ? Astrology books easily outsell science.
  8. lying politicians way down this list as people usually factor this in, I think people in the UK vastly overcompensate for this as they are much more likely to believe the pints of ONE cranky outsider than the whole government.

    Imagine you lived in Germany just before the war - are you sure you would be opposing it ? Books which proclaim Germany is Great would have filled the shops - still working on this

media and peace links

HOME  Story Index
Your Feedback