Is the US media making Americans stupid?

[allix]

http://mydailyclarity.com/2009/01/is-th ... ns-stupid/

This is written by an American , so its not an attack but an observation. Barack Obama is certainly a breath of fresh air and I would perhaps even say one of the smartest American presidents for over 100 years. Some of the short-headlines that is mentioned in the article has been pervading the Anglo-Saxon shores as well , fortunately there is a lot of mainstream media that the public at large know about. In the US I get the impression periodicals like The Nation, Mother Jones and the like are not as read as much as newsweek, time, The American Spectator , National Review .

[Claudio]

To answer the question in the title of this thread...

Yes.

[MattKingUSA]

I didn't read your post, but in reply to the subject, yes.

[KStorm]

Is the media making Americans stupid? They're making Americans dependent on them as an authoritative voice, so yes, they want Americans stupid enough to only believe what they say. When these stupid Americans get employed by the US Media, I suppose the mutually assured destruction is complete.

[eddie]

Is the media making Americans stupid? They're making Americans dependent on them as an authoritative voice, so yes, they want Americans stupid enough to only believe what they say. When these stupid Americans get employed by the US Media, I suppose the mutually assured destruction is complete.

What disappoints me is when newscasts will have the newscaster say what a person says from a video instead of just showing the whole actual video. There is too much second hand journalism. Most newscasters are monkeesee monkeeread, I guess they think it is ok to talk for other people. I want to hear it from the horses mouth not some prettyboy or prettygirl. Well maybe prettygirl.

[Brian]

One aspect of the media - television, in general is. I am appalled by the crap on television. IMO, everything on during prime-time TV is rancid garbage except Jeopardy! and the Simpsons and the latter I don't watch anymore.

As for the news, when I do watch it, especially on the rare occasion I catch something on CNN, MSNBC, or NBC, I feel like I am watching Obama fan club channels which I have dubbed "BONED" - Barack Obama News and EDucation. Sure, BHO seems like a nice guy and all with many positive attributes but this idolatry and slavering about by the press gives them no credibility anymore. This guy can start acting like Buzz Windrip and the brain-dead minions in the media would follow and obey without question. (I think every voter should have read Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here before they voted last November).

The article seems to spend more time bashing Bush and the people who voted for him than addressing the question it asks. The article seems to try to prove that anyone who voted for Bush is stupid and only listens to Michelle Malkin.

The US media is overwhelmingly liberal and makes no bones to conceal it anymore. Conservatives have developed a distrust of many media outlets so only the audience that believes the real media are the liberals. So, the real question that could be poised is "is the US media people into stupid liberals."

And if indeed we are just a bunch of uneducated dullards, it's amazing that we can as a nation crank out a $14 trillion GDP. Imagine what we could if we would read more books and tell the difference between an (increasingly rare) unbiased newspaper article and a Keith Olberführer anti-American rant. Wait, I take that back: imagine what we could do if we voted based on our values and beliefs instead of who the NYTimes and MSNBC tell us to.

By the way, not that I feel I should defend myself, but I do read about 20 books a year. Find my website and there's a list. I consider myself much better informed than the average American and I voted for Bush twice.

[allix]

By the way, not that I feel I should defend myself, but I do read about 20 books a year. Find my website and there's a list.

On your list I have read books by Dostoevsky , Vonnegut , Burroughs and Kerouac , there enjoyable to read.
I am currently reading Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov , very surreal involving a penguin in search of a penguin and getting caught up with the Mafia.

[thenixedreport]

Back in the day when newspapers were a lot spicier than they are now (muckraker era), an eight grade education actually meant more than it does today. Today, it's all about being "fair" and "getting both sides of the story." The problem is that encouraging people to attempt higher levels of thinking is discouraged as that is "not the journalist's job." Elitism in the corporate media is what is causing the U.S. Media to deteriorate.

As for stupidity, one may want to look at the public education sector, especially in regards to the story of that student having his Linux discs confiscated by a teacher who at the time did not understand what Linux truly was (I'm sure we remember those stories). Self-enforced ignorance in high school and even college is another problem to look at.

[MattKingUSA]

No, it's only making stupid the one's who watch it. I am American and I don't think I'm stupid. Though if I were I would most likely not know about it.