Do TV Newspeople Tend to Hype Weather to Keep Viewers Inside Watching TV?

Why Would They do that? Maybe because it Generates Higher Ratings, which Increases Revenue & Profits

January 28, 2022 / NYC Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

The TV newspeople appear to hype weather systems, to keep viewers inside all weekend, so they'll watch TV, and boost the corporate TV ratings to generate more revenue.

You can see an example of this in the graphic at right which shows a June 13, 2019 Washington Post report where a weatherman was fired by Sinclair Broadcasting, at a Murdoch ABC News station affiliate, because the weatherman wasn't going to use 'Code Red' to hype inclement weather systems, if he didn't think they merited such labeling.

This weekend the weather system coming in this evening is expected to end by about 3 pm Saturday, so while there may be an unknown number of inches of snow on the ground in NYC in January [what a concept], it shouldn't prevent New Yorkers from enjoying at least part of the weekend. But that said, be advised that while the snow should end by 3 pm, the winds die down more slowly, lasting the remainder of Saturday. And these comments apply to activities within NYC [not Long Island nor New Jersey] as public transit may be used in lieu of an auto, and as of this report, the MTA has no plans of shutting down.

The weatherman mentioned in the graphic above, was fired for not distorting the truth, in a manner not unlike what one would expect at a state-controlled media outlet in Russia or China. Hyping weather systems out of proportion, like distorting the proportions of other stories, appears to be one of the Murdoch mass media trademark ploys to deceive / fear monger the viewers in order to win higher rating$$$, take control the national conversation and tip the scales in favor of the pols he favors and against those he does not.

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian born billionaire press lord who controls about half of America's daily national news media including Fox News, the NY Post, the Wall St. Journal and increasingly ABC News where he and two funds control about a quarter of that company's shares.

While Weather Sensationalism is Dishonest Truth Distortion, it's Relatively Harmless vis a vis Most Other News Distortions which can be Dangerous to Democracy

In Australia - where Murdoch has been operating all his life - former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described, "Murdoch's media empire as a cancer on democracy" because of Murdoch media news omissions and distortions.

And in Britain, a Spring 2012 Parliamentary Report stated that, [Murdoch] "was not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company] because his company broke the law by tapping British citizens' private phones to get racy stories and the details of their personal tragedies in order to generate higher ratings and sell more newspapers. Murdoch denied he knew anything, blamed his underlings and then reportedly Murdoch's [Fox] Newscorp spent $1.6 BILLION in legal fees and payouts - TO DEFEND THEIR INNOCENCE?

In the graphic at right is a July 28, 2011 Guardian report stating that people working for Murdoch's company were believed to have hacked the phone of Sara Payne to publish her anguish over her daughter's murder at the hands of a pedophile. Murdoch reportedly spent $1.6 billion in settlements and legal fees to extricate the company and its officers from the corruption and scandal. But money can't buy Murdoch out of what Newscorp's actions say about his and his companies' moral compass.

• CLICK here to read more about how the Pied Piper of Propaganda, Rupert Murdoch, uses his media outlets to hype the weather,distort the news and lead us into a post truth[ is] pre-fascist world.

Audience of True Believers - Not in Search of Truth, like Scientists & Historians

Prefer a Selective Collection of Simple Facts that Support What They Want to Hear & Believe

This is Analogous to What Happened in Germany in the 1930's & 1940's

A sick, ironic - but instructive - twist to this story is that one of the mothers of one of the slain children was reportedly a staunch supporter of Murdoch's newspaper News of the World that was alleged to be involved in hacking her phone.

This reminded me of an conversation I had with someone I believe to be an American born descendant of a former Nazi who immigrated here in the 1950's. I had this conversation within the past five years, where he told me that his father had told him that "Hitler was misunderstood [by historians]. He built roads. He gave people jobs. Hitler was like FDR."

In hopes of getting more information, I didn't confront him. But probably because of the disbelief on my face, he quickly caught himself and stopped, realizing what he had just revealed to me. It was something of an incredible moment.

So here we were, over 70 years after Hitler and Goebbels 'hypnotized' the German people into believing whatever the Nazi Party broadcast on the radio, put in films and published in their newspapers, and someone I believe to be a Nazi descendant, is still at least partially a believer. I assume that his father admitted to him [his son] that he [the father] had been a Nazi. And in justification of his [the father's] participation in 'the [Nazi] movement', I conjectured that his father had probably told him that the historical accounts of Hitler and the Nazis were distorted. So, over 70 years after WWII, this son still believed what his father had told him, which translated into modern parlance is, that the historical accounts of Hitler are 'fake news'.

That's a good example of the strong hold and influential power of propaganda. It's like a Jedi mind trick. While it won't work on everyone, it's provides an extremely powerful hold on those people who are susceptible to it. And this is the danger of Murdoch media. Through his control of Fox News, the Wall St Journal, the NY Post and increasingly ABC News, hundreds of millions of Americans are repeatedly exposed to manipulative narratives about government officials, societal events and public policy.

Is the Murdoch Cancer Infecting ABC News?

The graphic above right makes two important points. The first point is that Murdoch is exerting influence on the content produced by ABC News, as a Fox News video about immigration was inserted into an ABC News report about crime. The second point is that ABC News is repeating a subtle [Murdoch inspired] racist message linking immigrants to crime. On Fox News they are not so subtle about asserting this false racist linkage / narrative, as a prior report we did on Bill O'Reilly on September 3, 2017 will show, along with others such as an August 18, 2020 report we did about Tucker Carlson's treatment of the shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta [see our report series about Rupert Murdoch and the Rise of the 21st Century Propaganda Press].

If you ignore enough facts, you can believe anything, about anyone. And this is why the parts of the governments of Britain and Australia that are not under the boot of the dictator-like, billionaire press lord Rupert Murdoch, made the statements I've quoted above under the second segment / headline of this report.

At right is a graphic taken from a February 26, 2020 report in Crikey, an Australian magazine, indicating that Murdoch's Newscorp paid $1.6 billion to sweep his company's alleged malfeasance under the rug.

Murdoch appeared to keep his company and himself out of prison vis a vis the hacking scandal, by using what seemed like payola and puppetry. Various accounts indicate that Murdoch pulled many of the numerous strings he has with British government officials to extricate his company and himself.

These pols seem like Murdoch's British political puppets. He helps get them elected by producing distorted mass media accounts in favor of them, while attacking their competition in 'news accounts' that are, in essence, attack ads and infommercials.

After the favored pols are elected, Murdoch appears quick to to call upon them for tax breaks, regulatory changes, and to further legislation which favors Rupert Murdoch, his businesses and his self-serving agenda. See just such an example below, where Murdoch appears to call upon British Prime Minister Thatcher - who he promoted into office - for government help in squashing a labor union strike.

Republican & Former Defense Secretary says "Post Truth is Pre-Fascism"

On Amanapour & Company, Former Republican Defense Secretary William Cohen, quoted Holocaust author Timothy Snyder, telling us that "post-truth is pre-Fascism" because it erodes the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. And if you use these admonitions, combine it with recent events, and connect the dots - it appears we came very close to fascism with the Trump Administration, which ended [at least for the moment] with the January 6th, 2021 attempted coup.

Fascism is defined as,

"... a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy ... Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete..."

Murdoch's dishonest media tactics oftentimes appear similar to those of Joseph Goebbels, the famed Nazi propagandist in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's. Just as back then, stories built on distortions, lies and deceit, generally don't end well for the gullible believers, nor anyone else in the audience. Look up Sara Payne, Millie Dowler and Rupert Murdoch to become more familiar with the billionaire who controls more of the daily national news media in America than anyone else. What you find should scare you. It scares me, which is why I keep shining the light on this man, and what appear his ongoing lies, deceits and deceptions.

In the photo above right you can see how Murdoch used British Prime Minister Thatcher's government power and the London police to put down a year-long strike at his newspaper printing plant. This year long event hints at Murdoch's fascist tendencies. The use of the London police, and Prime Minister Thatcher who Murdoch supported and promoted into her job through his mass media outlets, is one of the many significant 'favors' Murdoch has obtained from the government officials he has used his mass media to promote into their offices in the U.S., Britain and Australia.

A rare public admission by Murdoch [bragging really], on the front page of his British tabloid the Sun, shows that Murdoch knowingly uses his mass media to manipulate voters' perception of people, places and events [see graphic below]. And, as noted above, Murdoch doesn't do it because he gives a damn about the community. Murdoch does it out of unbridled greed and lust for more and more power - regardless of the cost to others - including the members of his audience. Many of the Sun readers were working class folks and union members, to whom Murdoch's media pander, because this segment of the population is comprised of low information, no information and disinformation voters, who aren't that interested in public affairs, so they can be manipulated more easily because they lack awareness / context.

In the graphic above right, you see Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox & Friends host from 2005 to 2013 and host of her own current affairs show on Fox News from 2013 to 2016. In a January 29, 2022 report Carlson told The Hill that in the years since she parted ways with Fox News, it had devolved into purveyors of,

"... non-fact-based conspiracy theories" and "outright dangerous rhetoric" and that she ... " think[s] it [Fox News] is a complete disservice to our country ..."

Distortions, Hype & Omissions - the Stuff of an Experienced & Well Oiled Propaganda Machine

So New Yorkers and other American TV viewers need to take what they hear and see on TV with a grain of salt. And if something seems downright wrong or not quite right, viewers should be encouraged to use the internet to conduct their own research, to satisfy their questions and curiosities.

This weekend New Yorkers can start that process, by sampling the weather themselves. They can go out to see and experience the weather for themselves this weekend to evaluate whether the big bad 'Noreaster' the TV weather people warned us about lives up to its theatrical-like billing. And then readers must ask themselves, was this weather system as bad as I thought it would be, given the reports I saw on TV? On Long Island and New Jersey, the answer may possibly be yes, but in NYC, I suspect the answer will be no.

So that said, I know I'm not always right, and I admit that there have been instances where I've been wrong. So I'm just encouraging readers to compare what the corporate TV teleprompter actors / readers tell them about the world around them [perception], to what the readers see and experience in their own lives [reality] and we're starting with something fairly simple, like the weather.

In this manner audiences can evaluate the veracity of the news sources they use. These days it seems that many of the mass media brands built up over decades, even centuries, are being purchased by billionaires or corporations which - in some cases - are using their outlets to shape their audiences views of the world [specifically vis a vis government officials, social issues and public policy], in order to profit from it. This contrasts with the mid 20th century standards of journalism wherein media outlets were entrusted to report the news in order to inform their audiences about what's happening in the world around them.

The Pied Piper of Propaganda - Leading Mice off the Docks of Democracy

The purpose of giving the audience the facts, is so that they can make an intelligent decision based on them. This contrasts with autocratic nations where totalitarian dictators make the decisions for their nations - essentially disrespecting their people and treating them like children. A rendition of this, is what Murdoch's media appear to be doing in three of the largest English speaking democracies - Australia, Britain and the U.S.. By shaping people's perceptions with a combination of news distortions, twisted tales, key fact omissions, distractions, hype in tandem with outright lies and fiction - Murdoch media is making decisions for those who entrust his media to tell them the truth about what's going on. The members of the Murdoch audience are like mice, and they are being led off the docks of democracy by the Pied Piper of Propaganda.

This is just a bit of food for thought. Have a nice wintry weekend.