Friday, January 15, 2010

Local TV News: Politically Correct and Feminized

A recent article in Tucker Carlson's new site, Dailycaller.com, sheds light on why LOCAL TV news is so politically correct: it is aimed exclusively at women. Hotair.com discusses the issue here. From a "well known news anchor from a Top 10 Local station" comes the unsurprising news that local news broadcasts are infested with perky twenty and thirtysomethings that know nothing but terminal political correctness, and practice it, both in hiring and producing newscasts. A near total reliance on women (almost exclusively White) ages 18-49 by local news as well as national broadcast and print media has been driving culture inexorably leftward and towards terminal PC stupidity. As a result, the media is ill-prepared for the backlash by men, and older women, who as the economy falls deeper into recession, become more important economically and politically. The stage is being set for a titanic political-cultural struggle between women ages 18-49, and everyone else, over the direction of the nation and its future.


The writer of the article, notes that:

For the better part of my adult life, I’ve worked as an anchor and reporter at CBS, NBC and ABC affiliated newsrooms across the country — often complaining about the nanny-state liberalism that infects so much of news coverage. Arguably, local news is a more insidious and destructive force than the widely accepted liberal bias of networks and other national components of mainstream media. After all, study after study has demonstrated that local news is more widely watched — and, more importantly, more trusted than other forms of mainstream media. There is a case to be made that the steady drumbeat of hyped-up threats — SUV’s that roll over, kitchen-counter bacteria, road rage, swine flu, amber alerts and the stations’ willingness to enlist governments and institutions to solve those “perceived” problems, actually drives a lot of bad and unnecessary public policy.

But it’s a formula that has worked as a cash cow for your local TV station. It is no accident that most local TV stations market themselves with nanny-state slogans: “Channel 2: Working for you!” or “ABC 6: On your side!” You might say those slogans are a subtler version of, “NBC 5: Making your boo-boos all better!”

How did it get that way?



Here’s the formula. Highly trained Anchorman (booming authoritative, focus-group-tested voice at the ready) or better yet, Anchorwoman (compassionate voice and pouty face, furrowed brow at the ready), reads the headline, tosses to reporter. Hyperventilating reporter further frightens with victim sound bite, followed by sound bite from plaintiff attorney (”This poor victim needs to be compensated.”). Followed by politician sound bite (”I’m introducing legislation …”) followed by reporter tag, which may or may not include response from big, bad, deep-pocketed corporation. Interestingly, that last component — the response from the corporate evildoers, often becomes, in my experience, a throwaway part of many stories — something along the lines of, “The XYZ company denies any wrongdoing.” Or even, “The XYZ company was unavailable for comment at news time.”

I’ve even noted a pattern among some media-savvy trial attorneys. Often, they’ll fax or e-mail a press release of a pending lawsuit or action to newsrooms on Friday afternoons — enough time for a reporter to get a camera crew, head to the law office, get the sound bite for the evening deadline, but not enough time for the deep-pocketed corporation, with it’s multi-layered media information office, often located in a distant city, to respond before deadline time. So, the story airs, unchallenged, with the charges stewing and brewing over the weekend. The corporation is sucker-punched, feeding frenzy gains steam, politicians take note. Damage is done, forcing corporation to consider out-of-court settlement, sparing them more bad publicity, but most importantly, sparing the plaintiff attorney all of that hard work of trial preparation, but with an easy payoff .

As one news director I worked for once said, “There are lots of things to be afraid of out there.” Indeed, cancer, household bacteria, child predators, hot weather, cold weather, tap water, electromagnetic fields, vaccinations, Chinese food, Mexican food, racism, fertilizers, homophobia, hate crimes, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

And, who is most likely to be afraid of these threats? Well, the mainstream media machine, cynically and manipulatively, believes it’s that key demographic group, women ages 18-49. They, according to consultants and marketing executives, control the household remote and make the buying decisions. No. One. Else. Matters.


Later, describing the terminal PC and "Diversity" that infests local anchors, from the careful collection of Asian, Latino, Black, and limiting of White Men (to a very small number), the author writes:

Today, many large media companies have written policies — NBC/ General Electric and Gannett to name two — whereby station managers and executives cannot be promoted unless they themselves promote minorities and women. And where do managers go to ensure their own advancement, while hiring the perfect rainbow of staffers? The NABJ. NAHJ. NLGJA. NAHJ. These are the minority journalists associations. Black, Hispanic, gay and lesbian, Native American, Asian American. And curiously, among them, objectivity seems to be secondary to their particular form of advocacy and their “progressive” mandates. Each, in furtherance of their own mission is quick to claim victim status if quotas are not met or if their ideals are not expressed through “advocacy” journalism.


Now, local news is a money-maker for affiliates. Women, certainly don't find the terminal PC and "diversity" repelling. On the contrary, female audiences respond highly to these attributes, and cannot get enough of it. Why is that?

The author writes that women's natural compassion and empathy are at play, but my view is different. Rather, it is the constant competition for status and position among women, and their disgust at most White men who are at best, equal in status, that drives the "diversity" and PC nonsense. That further, women unless constrained and invested in society by a pretty permanent marriage to beta males and with beta male children, will always run hard-left in every possible way to produce an "aristocracy of big men." Women's innate desire to be Princesses (or marry into aristocracy), visible as a hard-wired behavior by little girls playing princess, pushes them left into this behavior. You cannot, after all, sell a group something it does not really want. No matter how slick the salesman.

Women in today's post-Industrial society face a lot of status competition. Over clothes, social positioning, educational background, "ticket-punching," and the like. This is why women hated Sarah Palin, excepting older women largely outside status competition, and responded positively to Tina Fey's impersonations that presented the notion that Palin's failure to attend Harvard (instead of the University of Idaho and community colleges) meant she was "stupid." From "Mean Girls," to the professional workplace, female rivalry for status is non-stop and anxiety producing. Status including notably, the quality of man a woman attracts.

Women, as noted by essayist and PUA blogger Roissy in DC face a fairly ruthless competition for the top, most status-laden, Alpha male. Most attractive women can have sex with the Alpha male, but relatively few can get them to commit to a steady relationship. Certainly almost none in the thirties. Even among attractive, beautiful, intelligent women in their twenties, at the peak of their beauty, few can get marriage or faithful cohabitation from a dominant, attractive, powerful Alpha male with many options. Which is indeed, the most desirable man. Women can and do share, powerful and dominant men. Many of Tiger Woods mistresses were not porn stars or prostitutes (though some were), but waitresses, to wealthy and famous BBC Newsreaders. None felt a bit of shame "sharing" him with his wife and other mistresses.

But anxiety runs through women, in the fairly ruthless competition to land exclusively the Alpha male (the brass ring prize). Though many overestimate the duration and power of their beauty, nearly all recognize that it fails, and the undeniable decline in male attention, particularly by the most desirable of men, the Alpha Male, in women's thirties is fear-inducing event. No wonder women are filled with fear — their social anxiety over "getting" the Alpha male pre-disposes them to this condition. Moreover, women are filled with contempt and loathing for the men who provide competition for scarce jobs and status, and yet fail to become "Alpha" men — commanding, powerful presences. This is why women, from Sandra Tsing Loh, to writers in the New York Times to feminists at Double XX all complain about husbands not being "masculine enough" and instead, becoming "Kitchen Bitches." Men who cook, are "supplicating" (no "real man" would deign to do nice things for them regularly, since a desirable man has women throwing themselves at them all the time).

Women have a huge complaint with modern men: they are not masculine enough (i.e. not dominant, powerful, Alpha men), and worse they are in competition with them while expressing often "icky" (i.e. unwanted sexual/romantic attention). Attention that might dissuade the intentions or distract the attention of the Alpha Male. Modern women, most of them unmarried, have an objective: find and hold an Alpha Male. Successful romantic comedies aimed at women ("the Proposal," "The Ugly Truth," "27 Dresses," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") paint a good picture of the Alpha Male, as does of course "Sex and the City." He must be attractive, powerful, socially dominating, and wealthy. He can be informal or formal, country or city, WASP or ethnic, but must meet these important criteria. Most of a modern woman's social life is spent rejecting or forestalling advances from unsuitable, provider-status at best Beta Males, and winkling out the comparative Alpha status of the putative Alpha males.

In this, PC and "diversity" plays a huge role. No wonder a female-dominated audience for local news gets a female dominated newscast with very limited amount of White males and lots of "diversity." With PC Dogma repeated endlessly. Women love princes, princesses, dynasties, fairy tales, and the like. Women also love authority from "fashionable" figures of glamor and wealth. This is a generalization of course, not all women have these values, or find the Kennedy political dynasty a tragic but "beautiful" story, or idolize fashionable NYC opinion setters. But, most do. Fashionable opinion detests Sarah Palin, and so do most women. See also here:

According to the poll, 51 percent of men see her in a positive light, with an nearly equal amount of women view Palin in a negative way.

"The gender gap on Palin is not simply a function of the fact that women tend to identify with the Democratic party more than men do," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Even within GOP circles, Republican men like Palin more than Republican women do. John McCain put Palin on his ticket in 2008 to appeal to female voters, but it looks like men are a natural constituency for her."


Of course. Sarah Palin did not go to Harvard, did not marry a powerful, Alpha Male who intimidates other men or commands respect and adoration from powerful people, and did not abort her Down's syndrome baby. These are all actions that make most women 18-49 despise her (Palin does draw support from older women outside the status-struggle).

PC and Diversity are ways to first, winkle out who expresses orthodox, "correct" political opinions, and secondly to create such barriers that only the "most Alpha" of White males can surmount them. A world filled with politically correct, "diverse" folks with careful measurements of Asian, Latino, and Black female anchors and reporters, with minimal amounts of White men, is the ideal for most White women 18-49, and finds of course approval by non-Whites as well. A recent episode of the "Dog Whisperer" at advertising agency Chiat-Day, showed almost no White males, but lots of gay men of various non-White ethnic backgrounds, and many non-White women as well as White women. A multicultural, diverse paradise for women!

Naturally, the opinions, the nanny-state aspect of government (in response to anxiety driven by status competition, competition for Alpha males, and disgust over Beta male attention) find an appreciative audience in women. BUT … the economic decline, the low state of marriage, and the pressure on co-habitation by men taking the brunt (about 75% of all job losses since the start of the recession in 2007 have been men) of unemployment and underemployment means a big shift. More split-ups, particularly for fluid, fragile, and short-term oriented cohabitators. Far fewer marriages. Which means in turn a LOT more men living alone and making their own buying decisions.

Particularly as the web poses a threat to local news (why wait until 10-11 pm when you can get local news at any time), the ability of local TV news stations to extract local advertising dollars is probably on a par with that of newspapers to extract classified ad revenue in competition with Craigslist. Particularly since local advertisers are not interested in ideology, merely sales revenue, more split up couples or ones not forming in the first place means more men making buying decisions, reached more cheaply on the web, well the shift towards internet advertising is likely only to accelerate.

Which is likely to set up the template for the struggle for the culture and politics of America. On the web, for the most part, the highly trafficked sites are male-oriented (though not all conservative). Sites such as Drudgereport, or Instapundit, or Hotair, or Comic Bloc, or Ain't It Cool News, or Slashdot, might vary in politics, but are uniformly "male" in orientation. They are mostly written and controlled by men, for a male readership. One generally uninterested in careful "correct" opinions, celebrity-famous people worship, princess fantasies, dogma denying reality on threats and non-threats, and careful "diversity" with meticulous, ethnic/gender/sexual orientation balances designed to minimize the "threat" of nerdy White men.

Meanwhile, TV, print media, big media, and movies are undeniably feminine for the most part. With an equal part of "Access Hollywood" and "American Idol" to "the View" celebrity-fashion worship and local news threat-fear mongering, the battle lines are drawn. On the one side, women 18-49 with considerable demographic and monetary strength, wanting everything their own way, like an episode of "Gossip Girl" that never ends. On the other hand, older women, and White males, who find that marginalization of their concerns is a massive threat. Against this rough stalemate are the wild cards: continued economic recession, and extreme economic stress, threats of terrorism-Jihad that the female PC-driven consensus cannot deal with (and is notably and unavoidably incapable of dealing with), and new technology (internet, internet-enabled smartphones) favored by early adopter men.

Certainly there does not seem to be much in common across the gender lines between ages 18-49, nor does there seem to be compromise or peace any time soon. One side must win, and the other lose. For decades, technology and business have conspired to make men the losers. Events and trends may make that, however, a thing of the past.

22 comments:

Truth(er) said...

Huh.

Affirmative action as a way of filtering out the betas so that only the most prominent white men succeed.

Interesting. I see that game here is even more important.

I wonder of there is a way for a beta to play this to his advantage. I've always wanted to wreak havoc on a big corporation.

Anonymous said...

I have just finished reading a very shattering book that has relevance here:

TV news is just entertainment. - Once you start thinking of it in that vein instead of taking it seriously it all makes sense.

Anyway, the book I am referring to is 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman. The book was written back in '85 and deals primarly with television. It is about how the culture and people's thinking changed with the coming of television.

It is a very prescient book. Unfortunately the author died in 2003, before the internet became massive. The internet, is in my view, the accumulation of everything he is talking about.

Some internet hippie drew a cartoon of the foreward. View it here:

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.recombinantrecords.net/images/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death-card.png&imgrefurl=http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/05/24/amusing-ourselves-to-death/&usg=__cmAPeI2gx3I5c4ZsjrLAaGfORxg=&h=260&w=430&sz=19&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=aGrLZ7ilh1Sd_M:&tbnh=76&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damusing%2Bourselves%2Bto%2Bdeath%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1


Cheers
- Breeze

Teresita said...

Whiskey: Meanwhile, TV, print media, big media, and movies are undeniably feminine for the most part.

What are you alpha males doing watching TV anyway? Get out there and fix the lawnmower. Put down that Newsweek with the Obama-penned cover story and go take in a ball game. Put on some hip waders instead of three-D Avatar goggles and go catch some fish. Don't watch Transformers II, go stock your basement with survival gear.

Anonymous said...

TV, print media, big media, and movies are undeniably feminine for the most part.

I don't have the slightest use for any of them!

Anonymous said...

Tucker Carlson faced a ridiculous false rape charge/allegation years ago.

Maybe that was his wake-up call that allows him to go against the PC tide

Anonymous said...

A near total reliance on women (almost exclusively White) ages 18-49 by local news

Aren't there are a disproportionate
number of Asian females in local TV news?

Anonymous said...

A near total reliance on women (almost exclusively White) ages 18-49 by local news

Aren't there are a disproportionate
number of Asian females in local TV news?

Advocatus Diaboli said...

What do you say.. whiskey?

http://dissention.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/questions-to-ponder-over-02/

Jack said...

I see a decent amount of white guys doing the TV news where I am, with the allowance that more "diverse" areas will want more diverse newscasts to gain more viewers. It appears to be more women than men, but that seems to me to attract male viewers...many of the new weather and sports casters are hot women. Seems more likely to appeal to guys than to women.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey, found a nice little quote a German blog that I translated for you:

"After women in the western world have succeeded in weakening, demonizing and unnerving the male part of their [indigenous] populations they will have ample opportunity to realize that they also have succeeded in making sure there is no longer anyone to defend them."

SL said...

Don't forget Sailer's Law of female journalism:

The most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be overturned in order that, Come the Revolution, the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking.

Tarl said...

Whiskey - your comment about Avatar over at iSteve was outstanding!

Sandra Bullock's Unborn White Son said...

somewhat germane: two feminists argue for women to host late night talk shows "to tap into new audiences" and "earn more profit"

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/29/exposing-the-boys-club-of-late-night-tv/

http://womensissues.about.com/b/2010/01/18/why-are-there-no-women-on-late-night-tv.htm

Anonymous said...

Women have a huge complaint with modern men: they are not masculine enough (i.e. not dominant, powerful, Alpha men), and worse they are in competition with them while expressing often "icky" (i.e. unwanted sexual/romantic attention). Attention that might dissuade the intentions or distract the attention of the Alpha Male. Modern women, most of them unmarried, have an objective: find and hold an Alpha Male. Successful romantic comedies aimed at women ("the Proposal," "The Ugly Truth," "27 Dresses," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") paint a good picture of the Alpha Male, as does of course "Sex and the City." He must be attractive, powerful, socially dominating, and wealthy. He can be informal or formal, country or city, WASP or ethnic, but must meet these important criteria. Most of a modern woman's social life is spent rejecting or forestalling advances from unsuitable, provider-status at best Beta Males, and winkling out the comparative Alpha status of the putative Alpha males.

In this, PC and "diversity" plays a huge role.


Whiskey, I don't get the connection between the fisrt para up above and the opening line to the subsequent one. Would you mind explaining?

Anonymous said...

Whiskey,

I have to give your props on one observation that I didn't believe, but I think you might be right.


You have stated that women hate Game because it allows non-alpha men to trick women into thinking they are alpha, and hence is a betrayal in evolutionary terms.

Based on some comments by Lady Shitstain at The Spearhead, I think you are right. She was bellowing about "how some women are really out of your league" and some such (as influenced by a one Denise Romano). You know, thats really it. Loads of confident men out there who dont defer or pedestalize women make it difficult for women to tell who the highest status men are. Its as if all the chimps and orangutans out in the forrest no longer fought each other to establish who the alpha males were and just all started making advances on the females. The females only want to fuck the absolute winners of the free-for-all-MMA-Wrestlemania and fuck the men who are deferred to by the other males. If men dont behave in this way, but too many of them are confident and peacocking, its confusing to them and they hate it.


It really is all about status with females. A nice-looking, polite guy who has a decent office job, but is nobody's boss and doesn't condescend to others socially is a loser in their books, while a man doesn't have the same critera: a woman only need be pretty and nice, and he'll look past other faults.

I have to tip my hat to you, I think you were right on that contention. She really is a world-class liar btw

feeblemind said...

bigjournalism.com gas an article by Ron Futrell titled 'Lorraine needs our help: How and why local TV news tries to scare women'. It lends credence to the anonymous anchor post at DC Caller and jibes with your thoughts on women in the news business.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey, you have to see this latest outpouring from Sandra Tsing Loh's schizophrenic mind:

"as my 40s and Verizon bills and mortgage payments roll on, I seem to have an ever more recurring 1950s housewife fantasy"

Truth(er) said...

I have a more general question about the the interconnection between Hollywood executives, profitability of movies and the agency problem.

If you notice the opening credits to any film, you will see all kinds of deeply nested corporate entities. For example, you may see something like: Time Warner presents a Spyglass Studio production in association with Legendary Pictures and Village Roadshow Productions, or something like that.

In other words, there seem to be a lot of "shell" corporations operating in the production of movie.

Might it be possible that the profitability of these shell corporations is not the utmost priority? What we may be seeing is a similar confusion noted in non-profit entities: just because the corporation is a non-profit does not mean nobody is making money. Likewise, just because "Avatar" may not be profitable for a studio does not mean that all kinds of principals are not making money.

January 17, 2010 7:31 AM

Get Real said...

Whiskey,

I have to give your props on one observation that I didn't believe, but I think you might be right.


You have stated that women hate Game because it allows non-alpha men to trick women into thinking they are alpha, and hence is a betrayal in evolutionary terms.

__

Brother blogger Snark makes this point as well with the Femarxists attempting to link 'game' with rape -

Remasculation: Why Do Women Link Game With Rape?

...

They're all about status; but not the kind of status which men appreciate.

Male hierarchy is based on functionality; the ‘alpha’, if you will, is the leader, because he is deemed most competent in that role by his followers.

When women rank men in hierarchy, it is not based on this at all; it is social hierarchy. There is no moral judgement involved. This is why they go for serial killers. Everyone knows them. They’re popular. Doesn’t matter that they killed people for fun. They’re high up on the social ladder – they’ve made a name for themselves.

What those women who conflate Game with ‘rape’ object to is not so much that they, personally, may get ‘tricked’ into believing that a ‘beta’ is an ‘alpha’ -

But that Game threatens their entire conceptual system.

There is a certain type of woman who likes to ascribe men and women to ‘leagues’, and believes that men should not try to rise out of their ‘league’ and associate with women in higher ‘leagues’. Much like white supremacists, who believe that different races of people shouldn't associate with each other.

This is what her worldview is based around: the stratification of people into different levels of social and sexual hierarchy.

Game shits all over that, and allows men to climb up, down and all over the social and sexual hierarchy, with the consent and blessings of the women whom they attract, who would otherwise have been out of their ‘league’.

Women like this will try to defend this ‘league’ hierarchy – in which 90% of women are eligible for 10% of men, and the rest can simply starve – at all costs. Because it shatters her worldview to think otherwise.

The connection of Game with rape is just a convenience. The term ‘rape’ is emotionally-charged. Who doesn’t oppose rape? So she conflates Game with rape, to preserve a hierarchy system which benefits her and excludes the majority of men.

The reason it can’t work, is that Game is composed of thousands upon thousands of potentialities and variables and mannerisms which cannot simply be banned, without calling upon the law to regulate our words, our expressions, our most personal choices in private as well as in public. ...


http://remasculation.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-do-women-link-game-with-rape.html#comments

Anonymous said...

The Marriage Strike means this Recession may never end.

The media caters to women because that's the audience advertisers pay for. But women can only decide to spend money they have control over.

Where are women getting the money for all their purchases?


Men Afraid of Bad Marriages


"At my church singles group, 48 out of 50 women are divorced. Nearly every single one of them lives in a huge, new, luxurious house and drives a brand new $40K SUV monster truck – in most cases all by their lonesome.

Some of the houses are 4000 sq footers with marble floors and of course they are full of the most expensive solid wood furniture.

My take is that they have cleaned the ex out for all he was worth, or they are very very deep in debt. Either case scares me, and if it is fiscal irresponsibility, I for sure would be afraid of marrying them less the financial troubles precipitate a second divorce.
"

That's a powerful engine of consumerism.

I'm confident that the women blew through their divorce settlement and then burned through their credit lines. They're the equivalent of high-school girls with maxed-out credit cards at every clothing store, desperate for a husband to pay their debts.

Here's where the Marriage Strike comes in.

Unlike the aforementioned High School girls, these women can no longer find replacement husbands. The alimony's going to run out sometime. Sooner rather than later given how long ago the Marriage Strike started.

As the Mancession bites deeper alimony stops being paid. You can't get blood from a stone. Putting the ex-husband in jail for not being able to pay alimony due to lack of job only ensures no further alimony.

The Marriage Strike also means fewer women with hubby's money to play with. That turns off the continuing supply of male money to female spenders.

Whiskey said...

That is a very good point Truther.

I will address this in a later post.

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