this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.

Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn't exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as "police", and now to "the files".

He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry...), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and "illegal" immigrants (nearly all of which don't have a criminal record, don't think 3 years olds are gang members...), and still using the military in various different cities as "police".

Questioning orange man's relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)

The American media can only latch onto one "hot" topic at a time and it's infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it's all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as "one brain cell" as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it's ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)

Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the "scary" proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.

Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies

Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying "haha Americans are dumb", that wouldn't be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I've been noticing and it drives me crazy.

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 4 points 24 minutes ago* (last edited 23 minutes ago)

I think you are confusing what the purpose of media is. You think the media exists to keep the public informed. When, in fact, the corporate media in the US exists to sell ad space. You are not the customer, you are the product. Just like a chicken farm doesn't exist for the benefit of the chickens.

So, as such, the job of the media (especially TV media) is to grab your attention so thoroughly that you stay for the ads. This creates a fine line between reporting on hyped-up scandals and ignoring larger systemic faults that might make viewers themselves feel targeted. It means that once a particular narrative is seen to grab attention, everyone runs with it. However, that narrative can't go too far in turning off people on one side of the issue unless the "news" outlet aims to only cater to the other side.

This also, to some extent, explains the sanewashing of the President that is currently going on. This President is a thin-skinned crybaby, and will whine about any little thing. And his supporters follow his every word like a new Messiah. News outlets who want to cultivate a broad viewership base (to sell them ads, of course) can only go so far with certain storylines before his followers change the channel.

Of course, the joke is on these news outlets. No matter how they try to comply in advance, the fascists will come for them eventually....