Yeah, as Ron stated - the mainstream media will provide what the customers want. Its good business to do so.

WE are the minority.

What percentage of the US are scientists and engineers? I mean REAL ones, not those who just hold the title for a paycheck. The real engineers and scientists are those who live, eat, and breathe science because its their life ambition, just as some people can't see ( and God forbid, record ) enough sports events.

We are ( well, at least I know I am ) seen as social misfits because of our love of discovery and creating new things, and often not compatible with management because of our stubbornness - yet we are that way because we relate to the stubbornness of the laws of physics which assure us that what we design will work.

We are a minority. A lot of us aren't even gainfully employed because of interpersonal issues. We do not control as much spending as those who have better personal skills - dealing with people instead of technical arcana.

Megawatts and BTU's are things of us techies, Dollars and Euro are things of the people. The mainstream media, knowing who controls dollars, caters to the people. Sites like TOD, catering to the interests of the techies, does just that.

The people will take interest in Megawatts and BTU's when they get cold, dark, and hungry, just as engineers and scientists take interest in dollars when the rent comes due or the pizza parlor presents the tab.

But as long as all it takes to satisfy creature comforts is flipping open the cellphone, no one is gonna take much interest in the technical support infrastructure the powers our life.

No one inspects the water pump or spark plugs on their car. They won't get any attention until they fail.

I don't see our Congress or corporations paying our energy situation much heed until the lights go out. Then it will be an all out effort to get it fixed - same as with a water pump in a car.

I believe we still think all we have to do is go up the chain of command until we hit someone with enough signature authority to make it happen, irregardless of geological constraint ( geez, just what is a geological constraint? Speak English, dammit! Now, how about those Cowboys? )

Immaculate Conception.

Eny fule kno this.

the CEOs can direct the editors to lead the news left/right/up/down/spiraling and this will change what is presented. You have 2 one minute slots, do you fill it with fluff or hard hitting news? which is easier? which makes you the most money?

Ron, the boss doesn't have to read or ok everything, they just need to make an example of an employee who crossed the line. Remaining employees and new employees will quickly know where the line is and won't cross it (peer pressure will guarantee it). Also, the employee who is reprimanded, won't be rebuked for crossing the line directly, but some other unassociated misdemeanour. This is the way it works, no one is told not to cross the line, they're just made aware that crossing it is not in their best interest.

Journalists are not told to avoid mentioning "peak oil", they're simply aware that it is not in their best interest to do so. No journalist wants to be on the carpet in front of the boss being accused of discrediting the newspaper with unfounded theories unsupported by mainstream research.

Hello Darwinian,

Your Quote: "You guys are just conspiracy theory nuts. The CEOs do not control the media."

I respectfully disagree. Recall my long ago advocacy for everyone to email Google [and other search engines] to request the placement of an 'unlucky button' on the search homepage that automatically will take the user to Dieoff.com. This would instantly make Jay Hanson's magnum opus the Numero Uno website worldwide. A Google programmer could probably bang out the code in under five minutes once given direction from the Google topdogs.

I would be willing to bet if thousands of TODers and other Peakers have already done this: Sergey Brin and Larry Page are currently very well aware of what I am trying to accomplish with achieving Maximum Peak Outreach.

Recall my earlier post where I suggested that the early premiere of this unlucky button could make their venture capital investment in Nanosolar the most successful IPO in history. Time will tell.

If this happens: recall my earlier post whereby I speculate Tiger Woods will be subsequently seen in TV commercials endorsing Nike brand shovels, picks, hoes, scythes, and wheelbarrows. I suspect we will see many mindblowing concepts when the cascading blowbacks really start to kick in.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Time Warner bought CNN not to own it, but to destroy it. The second they had their hands on it, they cleared the decks of real, intelligent, critically thinking news people, and replaced them with mindless infotainment bimbos. The news network that at one time was watched by world leaders as their best source of info on what was going on in the world, is now laughed at across the planet. Ted Turner has said if he knew what they were up to he would never have sold.

Ted Turner Roars Again
20 September 2006 (StudioBriefing)
CNN founder Ted Turner said Tuesday that the news media are not working hard enough to inform viewers about international events that affect them. "That's one of the reasons I started CNN and did my best to get them to concentrate on serious international news -- so that people would be better informed," Turner said at a meeting of journalists and policy leaders in New York. "If we don't have the right information today, we're doomed."

Redstone Professes Unrequited Love for CNN
12 January 2006 (StudioBriefing)
CBS, which for years has flirted with CNN, may now be eying it as a possible marriage partner. As reported by Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Viacom/CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone told an audience in Beverly Hills Tuesday night that if anyone in the crowd was able to reach Time Warner chief Dick Parsons, "Call Dick. Tell him I want to buy CNN ... because CNN and CBS would be fantastic." Oddly, while he made no such offer to buy Fox News Channel, he was effusive in his praise for it. "They may be biased, but they are dynamic and charismatic, and the result is they are doing better than CNN," Redstone said. "They are doing great because of showmanship." When asked if he believes CNN founder Ted Turner will ever stage a comeback, Redstone replied, "When he sold to Time Warner, that was the end of Ted Turner. ... Control is the thing. I'll never give it up."

Former CNN Bureau Chief Reveals Why She Quit
20 June 2005 (StudioBriefing)
CNN's former bureau chief in Beijing and Tokyo has acknowledged that she resigned from the cable news network because she "had been growing increasingly frustrated with the direction CNN was going in." In an interview appearing in the current Columbia Journalism Review, Rebecca MacKinnon remarked that she had become aware of a trend toward "less interest in serious news and ... towards more infotainment, from anything but a war zone." She said that as "neither a war correspondent nor an infotainment news bunny," she was forced to reexamine her place at the network, especially after being told things by her superiors like, "Your expertise is getting in the way of doing the kind of stories we want to see on CNN" and "We'd like you to cover the region more like a tourist." MacKinnon said that when she came to the network in 1992, when it was still owned by Ted Turner, it placed heavy emphasis on international stories. "There was this real feeling that if a story mattered, we should cover it. If you had a strong argument to that effect and you could pitch that to Ted Turner, the funds would be there, because he viewed CNN as something other than a product that you just sell on the market for profit maximization. He saw it as something more socially significant than that." All that, she said, changed after the merger with Time Warner.

Ted Turner Blasts Fox News Channel
26 January 2005 (StudioBriefing)
The result of media consolidation has been a television industry that is less critical of the government, and, in the case of News Corp, even a propaganda agent of the government, CNN founder Ted Turner said during an address to TV programmers in Las Vegas Tuesday. Appearing as the keynote speaker at the National Association for Television Programming Executives (NATPE), Turner, who once compared News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch with Hitler, pressed on with the analogy of governments using media as a propaganda organ by referring to News Corp's Fox News Channel, which has overtaken CNN in the ratings. Not being the most popular news network, Turner remarked, is "not necessarily a bad thing, though I'm not happy about it. Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany than people who ran against him. Just because you are bigger doesn't mean to say you are right." However, he added, "it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down, leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff."

Ted Turner: "Bust Up the Conglomerates"
22 July 2004 (StudioBriefing)
Ted Turner has cited Disney's decision to reject distribution of Fahrenheit 9/11 as an ominous indication of the chilling effect of media consolidation. Writing in the Washington Monthly, the CNN founder takes special note of a statement by a Disney executive at the time: "It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle." Turner comments: "Follow the logic, and you can see what lies ahead: If the only media companies are major corporations, controversial and dissenting views may not be aired at all." Turner's advice: "Bust up the big [media] conglomerates."

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0877894/news

This is a myth, pure baloney! Do you guys actually believe that every story is cleared by the CEO, or even that there is some "screening committee" that checks each news story for conflict with advertisers?

This is the job of the editor, who has veto power over what is published. Censorship is usually unnecessary, as reporters self-censor, as shall be explained shortly, but occasionally the editor must step in and say "no." Sometimes the system fails and something undesirable is published, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

I'm sure you will demand evidence, so I present Reese Schoenfeld, co-founder of CNN, in his own words. The context of this interview was Newsweek's publication of a story about the desecration of the Koran by US service personnel at Guantanamo.

"The government has a right and sometimes a duty to lie. The press must never lie, but has no duty to tell the truth. Editors are for keeping things out of the paper that do no good and can only inflame and hurt... What real difference does it make if we report that or don't report that... I would have never even considered reporting it, I would have sat there in the chair and said, 'no, this does not go in the story'... This whole idea, the public has a right to know. The public does not have a right to know. The editor has a right to publish. That's what the first amendment is about. The guy who owns the paper, the editor, says what does and what doesn't and he doesn't have to tell everything he knows and god forbid that he ever should."

Reese Schoenfeld on the public's right to know

You guys are just conspiracy theory nuts. The CEOs do not control the media.

There is no "grand conspiracy," but market forces do shape the media in ways which could easily be mistaken for a conspiracy. This phenomenon is best explained by the theory of the Propaganda Model, advanced by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

There is a sort of "survival of the fittest" among news agencies, where the ones which bring the greatest profits rise to the top and dominate this particular economic ecological niche. Despite popular perception, the product of news agencies is not news. News agencies sell audiences to advertisers. This dynamic dictates that to maximize profits, and thus rise to the top in the ecosystem, a news agency must obtain as large an audience as possible, while simultaneously avoiding any subject matter which alienates either current or potential advertisers. The news agencies also must pander to the government in order to maintain preferential treatment.

To draw and hold a large audience, which correlates with what they can charge their advertisers, a successful news agency tells people what they want to hear. If the audience rewarded honesty, we would get more of it. Unfortunately, people do not want to hear unpleasant truths, so they are avoided. To attract advertisers, the agency must avoid material which upsets their clients or dissuades the public from being in a 'buying' mood. The news agencies do not even have to be conscious of these principals, as the 'magic of the market' will reward those who follow them, planned or not.

When did the War on Drugs end?

When will there be an investigation of 911?

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2007/12/20/1656/7545

Mexican Officials Fear the Case, if Exposed, Could Jeopardize US Funding for “Plan Mexico”

By Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

December 19, 2007

The Gulfstream II jet that crash landed in the Mexican Yucatan in late September carrying close to four tons of cocaine was part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency, DEA sources have revealed to Narco News.

The operation, codenamed “Mayan Express,” is an ongoing effort spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the sources claim. The information surfaced during a high-level meeting at DEA headquarters in mid-December, DEA sources familiar with the meeting assert.

Tell me you've seen this story in the MSM.

Or this:

“The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.”

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief."

How come there are no American Drug Kingpins?

This is probably why that movie is impossible to get now. I've heard of the movie for 20 years and never been able to see it.

An interesting comment:

On BBC News 24, (01:40 GMT), there is currently a discussion of a panel of the senior reporters on what they think the top stories for 2008 will be.

One of them stated "Peak Oil". As bald as that (and also mentioned that many will imbue it with 'capital P and capital O'.

Now, while he still trotted out the "probably not likely until around 2020" line, he did at least indicate that 2008 would be the year that it became part of the vernacular.

The MSM doesn't get more mainstream than the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6610000/newsi...

(Not sure if link will work worldwide)

AKH

McG: Re the War on Drugs, I think they won when the first quack prescribed Prozac for a kindergarten kid. They are lobbying hard (pun intended) to get Viagra and the like over the counter-once that is accomplished I would award them another battle won. I would say the creation and distribution of dangerous drugs that claim to increase ones mental ability (IQ) would be another important milestone. If high school football is any indication, Mommy and Daddy will be injecting the little brats personally with that one.