[Ocker]

I finally watched Bowling For Columbine tonight.
When he was talking about American media, and how it produces fear and ignorance.
It made me realise, Australian media is becoming much the same!
Turn on the news, and all you see is murder, rape, horror.

What are fellow Aussies view on this?
And what is it like in Kiwiland?

[CasX]

I would say it is much the same in New Zealand. But I don't know if it's quite to the extent as in the US. I don't really know because I don't read much US news.

One problem with this aspect of the media is caused by the profit motive. The agenda of the company. Most media is controlled by companies, either state owned or privately owned. These both create a problem.

Newpapers, TV news, websites all want to make a profit, and the way to do this is to attract an audience. This is attracted mostly through importance. People must be made to think that the news had some relation to THEM. They have to be INTERESTED. Therefore what is important to hear about (eg a foreign nobel peace prize award, an election in India) takes second place to sensationalism, because most people aren't that interested in things that aren't local, but rather in news that will affect them in some way. Therefore the media isn't the tool of justice and general knowledge that many people believe, because the
news is what the audience wants to hear - interesting new stories.

Therefore there is much too much coverage of disasters and problems because people find it INTERESTING and problems are much more widely reported than good things, in order to attract viewers/readers and make money.

[Freedom]

But if American news companies say anything good about America all they get back is "Damn Facists stop brainwashing us with your propahagha life here sucks".

Even if you believe everything in BFC(which you shouldnt) its a little scattered. I mean Moore says Violent Videos Games, movies and music arent to blame but violent news coverage is. He also claims that a fony WMD factory near the area where the shootings were influenced the kids, first of all it was a facility to make rockets to set Satellites into space and where they would take old missles and change for the use mentioned above. If the positioning of a factory in a town makes people kill other people then we are screwed i tell you.

If the Weapons facility happened to somehow influence the kids, why isnt there such a problem in Russia and why do more people die a year in gun violence in America than in Isreal/Palestine? Isreal have Nukes and weapon facilities.

Forgetting the fact that these Kids where severly bullied by students in the school(heaven forbid that was the problem...) in my opinion its a combination of poverty and a bad education system(which is a vicious circle) that leads to this kind of level of murder rates that Moore talks about, especially in Urban Areas. something needs to be done to give people a more even playing field. In Dublin they rebuilt this entire area where crime rates where high and stuff, they cleaned it up offered services in the area and it seems to havea positive effect. It also seems that people living in close quaters to each other ie Urban areas has some effect on the crime rates..

But it might be a mixture of things, less violent friendly media and entertainment, cutting poverty and unemployment, better education system and of course reinvigerating run down areas of cities.

[Proctor]

Freedom, I don't know that Moore was trying to say that bomb factories make you kill people. But really, that is a whole 'nother debate.

CasX, I disagree with you. Murders are reported in New Zealand, because we have a right to know. But, they aren't given an enormous amount of precendence, and this might have something to do with the fact that there aren't that many of them.

Also, there is a decent sized mentality over here that 'Ooh, I don't watch the news, they only report bad stuff'. Now, I realise that some of these people would say that regardless of whether you were reporting a murder or an election in India. But it is a good balance, because once the news starts proclaiming that The End is Nigh, the population switches off their TVs.

But it is not necessarily local news that makes media report disasters. We seem to hear a lot about train crashes over here, be they in Australia or Nigeria. Personally, I'd be more interested in that election, but hey.

Which brings another point. While bad stuff is typically regarded as interesting, this isn't always the case. If it was, you wouldn't see too many tabloids and cheesy womens magazines around would you?

[Freedom]

Freedom, I don't know that Moore was trying to say that bomb factories make you kill people. But really, that is a whole 'nother debate

Of course he did. That was his whole line of questioning with the person in Lockheed Martin.

It was one of just many reasons that Michael Moore thought the kids shot up the school.

Its not a whole other debate, the questioner brought up Michael Moore and the media influencing violence. I gave my views.

[Boondock Saint]

I think the best satire I have ever seen of US news is Robocop ...

Thats pretty much the news in the US ...

- This just in, 20,000 people die in a nuclear incident in Florida, more after these messages ...

singing

MY BALOGNAS HAS A FIRST NAME ITS O S C A R MY BOLAGNA HAS A SECOND NAME IS M A Y E R

- Now back to the news, police say a serial killers is stalking a small town in southern California targeting young girls at the age of ten. Also in the news Happy voice Britney Spears admits she isnt a virgin anymore, young men all across the nation can be heard weeping because of some odd idea that virgins are better the non-virgins .... which *grin* as anyone who has broken in a virgin knows for a fact is not true ...

- Also in the news 20,000 people are starving to death in a small African nation that we didnt bother to find out the name of because we were too busy expanding on the story about Britney, we now have a reporter on scene with Justin Timbelake to find out just how good that booty was.

[Freedom]

- Now back to the news, police say a serial killers is stalking a small town in southern California targeting young girls at the age of ten. Also in the news Happy voice Britney Spears admits she isnt a virgin anymore, young men all across the nation can be heard weeping because of some odd idea that virgins are better the non-virgins .... which *grin* as anyone who has broken in a virgin knows for a fact is not true ...

- Also in the news 20,000 people are starving to death in a small African nation that we didnt bother to find out the name of because we were too busy expanding on the story about Britney, we now have a reporter on scene with Justin Timbelake to find out just how good that booty was.

This wasnt aimed at me was it?