We need to destroy “news” corporations and do it ourselves.

In 1984 George Orwell described a machine for creating lite-entertainment… The Versificator – it also automatically generated “News”, which consisted entirely of Sports, Crime and Astrology.

Now I’ve been hating on TVNZ News for years now – because all it produces is a “show” which is largely made up of sports and crime… with astrology replaced by a type of “serious” celebrity gossip… ie: all politics is treated at the level of celebrity gossip. Our last election had the lowest turnout since the 1800s because the 6 O’clock News, which is watched by about 1/6th of the population, spent 3 years saying the leader of the opposition was unelectable.

So this has been bothering me for a while… and then the other day, I had another look at this Led Zep interview from 1970

Which I’m particularly fond of, because of the culture-clash – fusty old beeb types talking to prototypical rock-gods (who are scrupulously polite middle class boys). Anyway… they have a round up of “News to come”… and it’s Crime and Sports. It is EXACTLY the same fucking news that they show every night on NZ TV… in black and white, with different heads.

But it’s exactly the same – crime, (bonus-points if it’s against children (MSM News is more obsessed with pedophiles than pedophiles are with children))… the same sly sneaking in of a sports story… and then onto a chat with some “stars”. Sports Crime and Astrology, if you’ll forgive the semantic twist.

This is not news. This is not what was happening in 1970. This was not what was important. When later historians describe the arc of history, none of this shit will be in it.

I think maybe it’s easier to spot because of the Oxbridge accents… but it is as clear as day that that what is happening here, is that TV viewers (gently morphing from citizens to consumers) are being fobbed off with a faux-serious entertainment package, that’s designed to keep them a) placid and b) angry and distrustful of each other, rather than the people running the place… so the people who are running the place can get on with it, without criticism or interference.

And the same thing is happening here in NZ. Every night, we’re given this entertainment package (which is at the moment, sponsored by The ANZ, a foreign bank (proud sponsors of the Olympic team (sports being another vector for fascism)))… it’s not news… and we really, really, need it to be news because our future is being pissed up the wall for the benefit of… fucking “lenders”. “Investors”.

So I think we need to build our own news networks.

Twitter is pretty good – it’s basically replaced CNN… the fact-checking can be a little iffy, but if you want to know about something fast, twitter is the best place to go. It’s lacking in a couple of areas, eg:

1) it’s highly balkanised
2) fact-checking can be iffy (although it eventually does happen – but the “facts” come out before the checking, not vice-versa)
3) the level of analysis is limited with only 140 chrs and as we tend to follow people we agree with… so, what analysis there is, is balkanised. It’s still better than MSM News though.
4) there isn’t high-quality video (yet)
5) it isn’t collated into stories.

Why that matters I’m not sure. It does though… maybe because the best way of understanding what “news is”, is to look at the effect it has. Like Terrance McKenna on UFOs… “the best way of understanding UFOs is to look at the effect they have”.

Anyway… those are the short-comings of twitter as a news outlet… possibly too many for it to be called a news outlet…

… but at least it’s relevant. At least it isn’t outright lies, or sly distortions… “the official version”… the official version that basically allows 90% of the shit going on in the world today, to happen.

Here is a pie-chart of peer-reviewed articles on climate change

And yet NZ has just torn up the Kyoto Agreement. Why? Because the News Media has decided to go along with the narrative created by Oil Company PR… that the jury is still out. That there’s still “disagreement”. They’ve played along with the disinformation… that’s when they bother reporting it at all. Can you imagine Neanderthal News… right at the beginning of an ice-age, and they talk about anything except the ice-age.

Speaking of which, look at the google search for “neanderthal iceage”… two entries from a “newspaper”, The Daily Mail

The linked articles even have the same photos. This is given to us as news.

Terrance McKenna opines that the purpose of UFOs (ie: what they are) is to undermine faith in science. I’d say that goes for the MSM news as well – it’s just that the Daily Mail, being a specious tory rag, is a little more blatant about it. But not as blatant as Fox News.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing from people who’s opinions I respect over the demise of journalism and print media… but to me it’s like Gandhi on Western Civilisation: “It could be a good idea”. Likewise journalism – that could be a good idea as well… but the people we’re relying on to do it, aren’t fucking doing it.

We need to do it ourselves. Not sure how – but I’m a fairly proficient web dev. If anyone can figure it out, I’ll build it.