Is the US media controlling us?

Question

Have you ever watched cnbc and witnessed the stock of the company that they are talking about raise or lower? Is this the effect of 24 hour news? I have and it is totally diguisting. These 24 hour networks like CNN and FOX are just looking for anything to fill time and blowing everthing out of proportion. All in the name of ratings and commercial money. I don't trust any of them. They do not have our best interest at hand. They are backed by corporate members with an agenda. It doesn't include telling you the news or the truth. They want you to hear what thier sponsers want to tell you.

Answer 1

They're not controlling us, but they are certainly biased and say whatever they feel will up the ratings- sometimes they leave off most of the facts and change the stories around until they look nothing like the original when finished. I think the majority of the public is on to them though.  

Answer 2

they are trying too... only people who are easily influenced give them the time of day... the rest of us live our lives happily without fear and paranoia  

Answer 3

They are like brainsuckers . . . looking for something to mold and shape.

They have begun assimilation of at least 1/2 the population.

I'll just let you guess which half.

Answer 4

No, they don't control us. They control what we see on their broadcasts, though. We choose to watch and buy from the advertisers. That's it.

Answer 5

No. They don't control me because my chief source of news and information comes from English language short wave radio and the web editions of English language newspapers from other continents and countries. TV news is simply "eye candy" designed to draw a crowd so they can sell that captive audience something.  

Answer 6

The media says they are not controlling us, so they must not be.

Ok, the media really isn't controlling us, but they do have major influence over us. That influence is bad. Much of what we are being told is not good news. Media outlets routinely pass off misrepresnted data, spun and generally biased data as unbiased fact. For example, the New York Times did a series about Multimple Victim Shootings a few years ago. They compared the number of shootings between 1952 and 2002. Half of the shootings took place in between 1990 and 2002. They claimed that this was because of the easier avaliability of guns. However, they only reported 100 shootings. They failed to report many shootings before the 80s simply because it was "too hard" to research them. Even still, guns were harder to obtain in the 1990s than the 1950s. Stuff like that hapens all the time. Some of it is simply to sell more papers or increase ratings. Some of it is to promote a certain view.  

Answer 7

Yes, they do. That is one of the reasons why other countries despise the U.S. It's because of the propaganda that the media spreads to make everyone believe that the U.S. is the greatest country ever, and that the war is helping the world. I usually read both the U.S. news and the U.K. news and draw bits and pieces from it.

Answer 8

They always have, and probably always will.- ever notice how people will repeat like a parrot, something that they heard on television?