I read so many irrational, misleading and even false statemetns as “headlines” by the “media” in the last year to more than prove the media drove and drives public perception.

You get some writer or reporter somewhere who has issues about specific positions held by (in our contemporary times) President Bush and Administration, who then writes resentful, even damaging suggestions posed as assumptions, then some headline-writer adding their snarling assumptions to “prove” or “emphasis” the content, and what appears afterward is a standard AP or Reuters article about any number of political occurences, when and if it’s opposed by the Left.

I’d say, in my experience, the media most definitely has and continues to shape and mislead public perceptions.

I think back to the days as a very young child, watching the likes of who was posed to be grandfatherly Walter Cronkite presenting information, which, of course, I’d take to heart because, after all, it was Cronkite, grandfatherly, who wouldn’t rely on what he was saying…

Only to find out years later that Cronkite was a pro-Communist to essentially Communist in his politics; no way would that not be revealed in how and what he “reported” as to where he lent support, sympathy and criticism as he reported what.

I think many of us are shaped and modified in our perceptions by media figures, particularly the wire services that are used by nearly all other media as information sources. And broadcast hosts do a great deal to influence perspectives (I know I found Shep’s hysterical statements from the highway in flooded New Orleans to be affecting).

We can all argue and analyze specifics and concepts and all, but we are and remain, as human beings, largely influenced by emotion and tone, the “bright shiny objects” appeal. Which is what the Leftwing media understands, by the way, so they exploit that.

S on November 12, 2008 at 4:27 AM