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Originally Posted by mcelheny
Indy Guy,
Thank you so much for an excellent post!!!!
You can BS the people all the time with your total control of the media and brainwash with meetings and the paper. The people will follow like sheep.
But this is America and there are laws.
Thanks again!
I bet the Buffalo issue is the same thing. The pastures will bring in money and we can't say we are greedy and we don't give a :edit: what the residents want so we lie. It won't be the first time. |
Well, it's good to see a reasoned response.
Indy, thanx for posting the commentary. The Orlando Slantenal is my last paper on Sundays and I hadn't gotten to this yet. I wonder what Lauren Ritchie does with her money when she could be donating it to charity to make the world a nicer place. She's probably blowing it on nice clothes, expensive restaurants, and a car better than some others have. Hope, you are right on the ball with that comment. How the Morse's spend their private money is not my business and it's certainly not Ms Ritchie's.
07, I beg to disagree a bit about the role of VNN. I don't see it as much of a marketing tool other than a "Hey, we got our own television station" blurb and the show of homes for Properties of TV. That's nice, and might sell a few homes, but the real value aside from something like yesterday's great replays of the Morse speech and the good work they did at tornado time is the sense of community it provides. I don't know Priscilla Salute, nor will I likely ever meet her, but I've seen her kicking tail on the golf course for several years on VNN and I feel a connection. I don't know anyone in the Village Idiots or Golf Cart Drill Team, but their appearances on VNN makes them real people. The neighborhood buzzes on occasion with news that Bob and Carol were on VNN --- watch for the story on the new bank --- they're in it. You feel the time you're devoting to your Animal Husbandry group is wasted, right up until they do a 5 minute story on your group and suddenly strangers are stopping you at Publix to ask about it. Yeah, yeah, it's mostly puff. But that's okay.
News --- no, no, VNN is not going to be doing investigative pieces to try to uncover scandal in the Morse family, embezzlement from Citizen's First, or kickbacks to POA from home inspectors. The news that they will cover will be what the Developer and, to a lesser degree, the CDD want out there. They want good news. It benefits TV. It benefits us. If there is bad news, they'd like it presented in a context that might provide a more favorable or at least more complete picture. There are ample organs around to provide negative coverage of TV. The Slantenal, the Ocala and Leesburg papers, several small papers in Sumter County, even the St. Pete's Times and whatever that Tampa paper is. It's understandable to see the bias in the Sumter County, Leesburg, and even Ocala paper (remember who put out The Reporter). They're scared. They are, in many cases, being overwhelmed by the sheer size of TV. Bushnell is used to running Sumter County. Now it's about the population of a couple villages. Leesburg's been the big dog in this immediate area. Today Leesburg has 20,000 people, TV 70,000. Oh, and Ocala has 50some thousand. And we're all newbies, perceived to be northerner and perceived to be rich. ~~~~ oh did I go off on a tangent. sorry about that. Back to VNN news. They will cover stuff like the murder last year and the baby disappearance and cute mother's suicide, but that's the exception. If I want to hear about raising gas prices and not drilling for oil or natural gas in the US, I'd best change channels. Same if I want to hear the latest electioneering, unless a candidate happens to appear here. I'll hear nothing about the fighting in the Near East except for a lot of features on the wonderful work being done by the great folks at Operation Shoebox ---- unless, of course, the child or grandchild of one of my neighbors does something notable or, God forbid, has something bad happen to them.
Many years ago, when cable was first starting, I think the concept was to have at least one station available dedicated to local stuff. This was the station that broadcast the town council meetings live, as well as the school board, generally with really poor production values. But it didn't matter, cuz nobody watched. The goal for those channels, what the original concept foresaw, was what we have in VNN. Anyone surprised it doesn't make money?