Pervert of the Day

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Turner Says CNN Should Cover Politics, Environment
Mogul Says Cable Network Too Focused on 'Pervert of the Day'

"I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first aired.

"You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."

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[ 06-02-2005, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson ) ]

[Meerkat]

CNN = Children's Nookie Network? ;) tongue.gif

[BrianW]

Good grief, I agree with Ted!

[Jack Heinlen]

Perversion: be it unreflective promiscuity, murder, cannibalism, child murder, etc, pumped into the culture, day in and day out, is going to make copycats among the unbalanced, and a lowering of discourse among the rest of us. I don't need a study; Turner's right to point it out.

[Victor]

Columbine, what a shame, how did those boys ever get an idea like that? Hey, let's go play some video games! And then watch those adorable Sopranos!

[ 06-02-2005, 08:58 PM: Message edited by: Victor ]

[LeeG]

that does it,,Ted isn't getting any Neverland invites.

[ahp]

H. L. Menken said you can never go wrong underestimating the taste of the average American. Makes you wonder how Ted got where he is.

Now look at the magazines at the checkout line. Do you see headlines about balance of trade, global warming, the European Economic Union? Nooo. Pervert of the Day works.

[Katherine]

Ahp, I take it you don't want to know how to have an hour long orgasm or which movie star is really an alien? :D

[Bob Cleek]

"If it bleeds, it leads"

[Sea Frog]

Originally posted by Katherine:
Ahp, I take it you don't want to know how to have an hour long orgasm or which movie star is really an alien? :D Aliens are easy to spot as they don't reach orgasm using the same body parts as we do, but checking all Hollywood stars for that matter is quite a personal commitment. :D

[huisjen]

Canabalism? :D

[Memphis Mike]

And the child support people need to know how many children Bigfoot is fathering, just to keep their records straight.

-Sue

[Popeye]

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/waves-ondes/2002/images/09story1_2.jpg

Fisherman Bobby Strickland poses by his 420-pound flounder, from the waters near Burnt Islands. He was quoted in the Halibut News as saying he thought he had hooked into some old trawl gear. It took four men to get the mammoth beast on board.

[Ian McColgin]

Everyone should go fishing for the halibut.

Ah well.

It amazes me that anyone thinks that scandal mongering is some new phenomenon. We have abundant records of catty gossip, viscious stories, and anything else you want from the days of Babalon and from the Old Testiment, should anyone today actually read it.

I happen to think the media can elevate the national discourse if it tries but at no time in human history has whatever media were at work actually done that as the major mission. The 'free press' is essential to democratic governance but it is also part of a mass market.

It's good for the media to give itself pep talks on the big mission but:

Remember,

When faced with the choise,

More people watched who shot JR than actually voted for the allegedly popular Ronald Reagan.

[huisjen]

Yeah, there's fish.

But people are made of meat too.

Dan

[Jack Heinlen]

"It amazes me that anyone thinks that scandal mongering is some new phenomenon."

Not the topic, Ian.

I object to a purient and violent nature that is much different than simply "trying to sell papers" harking back to Mr. Cleek's post.

It's everywhere, and it is distructive to genuine human discourse. I don't know what to do with that observation, I surely don't want to hand it back to those who self-style as the cultural finger in the dike these days, but we must take control of it, OR THEY WILL!

I mean our children don't need to hear on Oprah, at four o'clock, from some British, self-styled sex expert, that oral sex is healthy, because a typical ejaculate contains more protein than a typical porkchop. And, it's been clocked, 28 miles and hour.

And we don't need bombardment by heinous violence, every night. The magazines and the dramas all present the most twisted of the human experience.

The cat's out of the bag;, here I am speaking those words! Getting it back into the bag of respect, honor, love is going to be a lot more difficult than letting it out was.

Do you wish to join me in the attempt?

[ 06-03-2005, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[martin schulz]

Man bites dog!

[Katherine]

Dog sues man!

[martin schulz]

:D

[Ian McColgin]

However you parse this topic, I suspect we disagree profoundly.

Turner was focused a bit more narrowly than my remarks but he did not appear to be addressing one way or the other bits of mass media like show and tell group encounters with whatever might be regarded as prurient, nasty or generally bad for children.

These distinguishable topics are related in that they really are not at all new. Reading Dickens will show some pretty nasty childhood experiences. When I hiked in Afghanistan in the late '60's I saw some stuff for sport I'd rather the children both watching and participating had no part of. When I read Catullus my eyes were certainly opened to forms of juvenile deviance I'd previously never even imagined and would, but for the sourse, have thought thoroughly modern.

Perhaps I read entirely too much history to be much surprised by contemporary depravity.

Perhaps I'm theologically tranied to view the human fall from grace with not much shock.

Whatever, I am not one of those who think the media form a new problem in child raising, cultural development, or much else.

I do not want my perspective to be a conversation stopper like, "It was ever thus, so now shut up." And I do not subscribe to a purely cyclical view of history that imagines there are no such things as evolution and growth and unfolding meaning. I see the problems but I don't believe in solutions that simply limit or hide the exposures. I believe that people can encounter human diversity, including the bad bits, in healthy and loving ways. I believe parents can and must teach their children how, always presuming that the parents know.

Since so many of us do not actually know that much and are not so marvelously integrated in our own souls, it's a matter of parents and children somehow struggling to cope together.

[Bill Perkins]

No part of Human Nature is new .What's new , in my lifetime , is television and Internet ,with video of All kinds available everywhere ,to anyone , all the time .The little moving pictures are far more compelling and accessible to most people than the printed word .For a kid to isolate himself with a violent video game , for instance ,playing it again and again ,is a far cry from reading the sad parts in Dickens .