Dear Readers,
What’s your favorite flavor of miscommunication? MSNBC, Link, FOX, OAN, Newsmax?
I suspect you will object to having your favorite source demeaned like this but be patient. There are reasons. Every channel I’ve watched based on opinion format has had likeminded pundits and pols discussing any issue. I suppose this format started when station owners, program directors and talent were no longer happy with Limbaugh or Hannity and Colmes. No longer willing to just pot callers down who challenge the mindset of the base that listens. No longer happy with picking a weak debater to challenge the politically correct one.
Why not just have discussions with likeminded people? It’s easier, less offensive to those who hate to think and the fiunal nail in free thought’s coffin: CHEAPER.
Of the ones I listed one could argue which tells more lies, more distraction, more cover for their side, but that’s not my point here. My point here is a discussion of a topic without civil disagreement is almost pointless. Almost. There are a very few, very few, VERY few exceptions. Part of the problem is framing, where instead of discussing substance people are allowed to jump to some version of, “You’re an idiot,” “That’s what all you mindless ____ think,” “you and your kind ARE the problem…” the last being akin to labels like “vermin.”
 You know where that kind of rhetoric comes from, right?
Here’s one I am willing to admit to: I do listen to some of this. But that doesn’t mean people who we disagree with have no valid points. Maybe you dislike Rachel Maddow, but everyone should listen to her Ultra podcasts. This doesn’t cover Trump, or Republicans, or MAGA: all the targets that might negate my suggestion. The Ultra podcasts report on Nazis, Nazi sympathizers and Nazi enablers during the 30’s and mostly 40’s. I think most of us would agree Nazis are bad. If not then don’t bother reading since you have no interest in free speech, except those who agree with you.
But, otherwise, listen and be proud. You could turn those who tried to have stop them into villains, if you prefer. But the podcasts should work for you either way. Eight programs that use straight news, only historical.
Straight news: objective news, is hard to find these days because the aforementioned networks have weaponized division. Provided haven for one dimensional thinking. Encouraged discussion panels that are no discussion at all: bobbleheads mostly agreeing with some base.
True newsworthy discussions panels should be among people with various opinions and be civil. Not controlled by or featuring those who try to turn these panels into insult framing fests. That is neither debate nor discussion. It is an attempt to get off topic, make people defend themselves, and get everyone to talk about anything but what they were talking about.
The Communications Curmudgeon doesn’t care what flavor you watch, what flavor you prefer. He just thinks you need to be aware you’re being jerked around if you think you’re watching something remotely educational. Unless your goal is self-satisfaction that you’re right. That may feed weak egos, and universe size egos, but it’s not communication. It’s miscommunication. As is the core of the phrase “communicate.”
Sincerely,
The Communications Curmudgeon
Ken Carman is “The Communications Curmudgeon:” a 76 graduate of SUNY @ Plattsburgh School of Communications. He did have good grades, but not grand. Ken specializes in taking what he has learned from music, being a music business student in Nashville, an English major at two colleges, a Communications/Mass Media Major and seeing what PhD’s might not see. Think of it like horses at a track with blinders on. They see the track, where they need to go. Like most generalists, Ken sees beyond the track and how it all can fit together in unique ways. In the future expect more off kilter editions. Ken hopes his perspective may widen the perspective of others, and the perspectives of his readers do the same for him. Ken lives in Eagle Bay and Beaver River, NY. He is formerly form Nashville, TN, then Old Forge, NY, then Utica, NY where he met Millie the marvelous, and born in Nyack, NY.
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