{"id":24418,"date":"2017-07-12T18:01:37","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T23:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24418"},"modified":"2017-07-12T18:01:37","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T23:01:37","slug":"the-news-is-content-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24418","title":{"rendered":"The “News” Is Content-Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “News” Is Content-Free<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
We’re “your” trustworthy news source, even though we’re all owned by six corporations or billionaires with political agendas.<\/i><\/div>\n
The “news” has loomed large in The News–a classic self-referential loop in which the media itself becomes its own content.<\/b>\u00a0While the controversy over what constitutes “fake news” and “real news” has itself become “the news,”\u00a0the cold reality is all “news,” “real” or otherwise, is content-free.<\/b><\/div>\n
The “news” is so devoid of content that a simple software program could assemble a semi-random daily selection<\/b>\u00a0of headlines, scrolling banners, and radio\/TV “news” reports from a pool of typical “news” stories and insert a bit of context (local highways that are congested, rough neighborhoods where shootings occur, names of local authorities, etc.), and the\u00a0consumer<\/i>\u00a0of “news” would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the randomly generated “news” and the “real news.”<\/div>\n
Here’s a taste of the\u00a0Random Content-Free News Generator Application<\/i>\u00a0that would produce “news” that was virtually indistinguishable from the “real” news.<\/b><\/div>\n
Traffic is backed up near the (insert the usual congestion point) on the I-XX (local Interstate\/highway). (TV\/video: show randomly selected video clip of slow-moving traffic).<\/i><\/div>\n
A serious accident occurred on I-XX (TV newscasters look somber if the wreck resulted in fatalities.)<\/i><\/div>\n
Local Authorities held a news conference to Say What People Want to Hear about (insert hot-button topic): this concern is being addressed by authorities. We’ve got top people working on this–top people. (Newscasters look serious.)<\/i><\/div>\n
A horrific terrorist attack occurred somewhere in the world–insert semi-randomly selected city, with preference given to Mideast and Central Asian war zones and Western capitals.<\/i><\/div>\n
Bad weather of some kind is threatening us, or could threaten us shortly. (Insert video clip of flooding, heavy rain, or scorching heat in desert climes, etc.)<\/i><\/div>\n
\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “News” Is Content-Free We’re “your” trustworthy news source, even though we’re all owned by six corporations or billionaires with political agendas. The “news” has loomed large in The News–a classic self-referential loop in which the media itself becomes its own content.\u00a0While the controversy over what constitutes “fake news” and “real news” has itself become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[127,169,2779,512,570,4924],"class_list":["post-24418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-charles-hugh-smith","tag-corporate-media","tag-fake-news","tag-media","tag-news","tag-oftwominds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24419,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24418\/revisions\/24419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}