26 June 2005
Considering Those Who Offer Us What We Do Not Know
No lawyers, no politicians: June 2005
Writing a blog makes me appreciate more and more those "three dot" journalists who must have a daily column written and submitted to their editors on schedule. I venture to guess that these intrepid journalists take more risks about printable content than would, say, an investigative reporter. I imagine it is easier to apologize when the need is shown.
Someone needs to apprise our conservative pundits that our print media has been biased one way or another since independent publishing became possible. There is no such thing as balanced programming for print media.
Television is a distinctly different medium for offering information to the public. Pictures do express thousands of words, which is why I often object to pictoral content to describe something in print. Visual data seems so much more complex and abundant than printed data is. A wrong photo can overwhelm the writer's text so that the reader may concentrate on the photo's content and what it means for each reader. Any magazine in print for over a century has had varying amounts of illustrations and photographs that usually reduce the word count of an article. Life magazine's appeal was its photography and a photo's ability to bring its subject into each person's home view. The power of television comes from its ability to enter every viewer's consciousness. Thus, programming television content affects and biases the viewing audience more quickly and efficiently than any other medium. To the brain, this must be akin to vicarious, life experience data--I saw it with my own eyes--for which contrary, visual information cannot argue. Because of this phenomenon, commercial television creates programming that attracts customers for the products they sell. Commercials, not some lofty content or performance.
Thus, the only way a viewer might acquire multiple opinions about a single issue is for the television medium, not an individual broadcaster, to allow as many different views (or biased imagery) as possible.
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Writing a blog makes me appreciate more and more those "three dot" journalists who must have a daily column written and submitted to their editors on schedule. I venture to guess that these intrepid journalists take more risks about printable content than would, say, an investigative reporter. I imagine it is easier to apologize when the need is shown.
Someone needs to apprise our conservative pundits that our print media has been biased one way or another since independent publishing became possible. There is no such thing as balanced programming for print media.
Television is a distinctly different medium for offering information to the public. Pictures do express thousands of words, which is why I often object to pictoral content to describe something in print. Visual data seems so much more complex and abundant than printed data is. A wrong photo can overwhelm the writer's text so that the reader may concentrate on the photo's content and what it means for each reader. Any magazine in print for over a century has had varying amounts of illustrations and photographs that usually reduce the word count of an article. Life magazine's appeal was its photography and a photo's ability to bring its subject into each person's home view. The power of television comes from its ability to enter every viewer's consciousness. Thus, programming television content affects and biases the viewing audience more quickly and efficiently than any other medium. To the brain, this must be akin to vicarious, life experience data--I saw it with my own eyes--for which contrary, visual information cannot argue. Because of this phenomenon, commercial television creates programming that attracts customers for the products they sell. Commercials, not some lofty content or performance.
Thus, the only way a viewer might acquire multiple opinions about a single issue is for the television medium, not an individual broadcaster, to allow as many different views (or biased imagery) as possible.
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