reporters and rhetoric

Geoffrey Cowan writes about how the government misnames their practices to make them sound better than they really are. He points out that things like "villages being bombarded fromte air, the inhabitants friven out into the countryside, the cattle machinegunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullet" would be called pacification which sounds pretty calm and unharming. It sounds like pacifier, something that you give to a baby when it cries. He attacks word usage such as democracy, where there is no real and set definition. He also focuses on the use of the words "Civil War" to describe the war in iraq. Politicians did not want to use this word because the people would see it as a war that we should not be in. He also talks about the words that politicians use to get a feeling into the people who are listening and watching. His essay was very well written but not very clearly understood. I feel like he attacked other people so much that it got ridiculous at how much information he actually used. But then again, maybe that was his intention. Maybe he wanted the reader to see exactly how much misleading and wrong words that politician use. I think he hates the misleading language and the misnomers of things that he had to do this to make himself feel better. Just my opinion.

Infotainment freak show by Martin Kaplan

well, i read the essay called "Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show." i thought it was written very well and was very clear to understand. In this essay, Martin Kaplan writes his opinions on the information in the media and news of today. He writes about how high ratings and popularity get coverage on the news when the more important things do not. He writes about how politics and news coverage have become more entertainment than real news and truthfulness. Kaplan says about journalism, "Instead of trying to tell us whats true, journalism now prides itself on finding two sides to every story, no matter how feeble one side may be"(140). In this quote he is speaking of the news not being a straight forward source of information. There must be two sides to a story so that not one group gets offended by what they are saying. Instead of seeking a knowledgeable point of view, they seek balance which is much easier to achieve (140). It seem like Kaplan is outraged by the lack of real information in the media. He doesn't like the fact that big news headlines can be pushed down to something that does not seem as big while the smaller less urgent things can be headline news for days at a time. Why would one missing woman be more important than a whole entire holocaust in Africa? (143) The news media feeds us what we want and that is entertainment. They give us what gives them ratings. This leads to the politicians doing whatever else they want because we as a whole country are not paying attention to them anyways. It is the TV conglomerates jobs to make money, but isn't it also their job to bring us information. And the information should be truthful also. I don't want to hear lies and cover ups, i would like to turn to the news channel and not see someone who is dead. These days the news is very depressing and it seems like everywhere i turn there is another woman missing or another mother killing her children. These events are very sad and i feel for the families, but i would also like to know about the things that effect me. I want to know what the government is doing right and wrong and i am done watching the dumb debates that people have on the TV who complain about one aspect of the story they are given and they only give me their own opinion. I would like to be given the whole story and the truth so that i can make my own opinion about things. I am tired of hearing what other people think. I completely agree with Kaplan on this one. It is incredibly annoying to see the news and watch Michael jacksons death for like 2 weeks and barely anything on Iraq or Afghanistan.

Politics and the english language response.

In this essay by George Orwell, we read about the opinions of Orwell on the use of language as a way to confuse people. He thinks that the english language is being manipulated into something that it never was meant to be. His thesis is that we use language foolishly because our minds are foolish, but our minds are foolish because our language is "slovenly"(206). He does not believe in flowery language and i do have to agree with Orwell on that one. He also has rules that he thinks people should follow in writing and speaking. He says to never use flowery language when a simpler form is better. Dont use unnessecary words in unnessecary sentences. If a work does not have to be used, don't use it. He also goes on to say that breaking the rules is better that not meaning what you say. Orwell pretty much follows all of his own rules but he does break some of them. It is probably just the time period that he has written in, but his language is somewhat flowery at points, but i think it was just because he was a scholar. He could have taken out some of the more flowery language and put in more easily understood words. As Orwell is writing, i get the feeling that he feels very strongly about the downhill slope of the English language. I did have a few questions though. I didn't understand why this was so important to him. Is dissecting the English language really as important as he says it is? And in dissecting it, doesn't he really just make it more complicated also? Of course there are the college professors and scholar who do over complicate a very simple thing. But i think that Orwell could have made his own rules simpler by just saying, "keep the language so that all different types of people can understand it, but do not lose the point of your ideas by oversimplifying either. I don't know. maybe that would make it more complicated also.