The Media

[Asso]

As long as we have freedom of speech, which I hope is forever, we will always have people pushing their agendas by any means they can think of. I would hope, though, that the people of Earth are more educated in general in the future and a little less likely to fall for fallacious arguments.

However, even the most rational human will turn tribal if he feels his tribe is under threat. After the Xindi attack, there's NO WAY everyone on Earth would remain calm and accepting of aliens. Terra Prime or its equivalent is an inevitable political development.

I also think that celebrity gossip outlets will never die. Humans are just too interested in each other. The worst excesses might be curbed, but that's about it.

Well said.

[Silverbullet]

Today, even the "Respectable" TV Networks act like vultures. Shoving Cameras in the faces of people who have suffered a loss or some kind of Tragedy. All for ratings,which translates into Advertising dollars via Commericals. They also practice a form of "checkbook" journalism by on occasion paying for an interview.

I really belive that if there are Commercial Networks in the 22nd Cetury that would still remain. The Rags will never disappear too much purient interest among the bored with little lives.

Trip and T-POl would be sensational news for the Rags and Rating worth for the Commercial Networks. Too goood to pass up and far too good to miss smearing.

Think that Starfleet would go in to a defensive crouch protecting itself even at the cost of Trip and T-Pol's welfare.

[Transwarp]

Wow, there sure is a lot of doom and gloom around this topic. The consensus seems to be that humanity will remain stuck in the gutter with no hope of ever getting out...

How depressing. I think I'll go jump off a building now.

Darn. No tall buildings here at Kandahar. I guess you're stuck with me.

[Asso]

Wow, there sure is a lot of doom and gloom around this topic. The consensus seems to be that humanity will remain stuck in the gutter with no hope of ever getting out...

No, I don't think so, but the road is long...

[Aikiweezie]

Wow, there sure is a lot of doom and gloom around this topic. The consensus seems to be that humanity will remain stuck in the gutter with no hope of ever getting out...

How depressing. I think I'll go jump off a building now.

Darn. No tall buildings here at Kandahar. I guess you're stuck with me.

Welll, I sure hope we're stuck with you. You have intersting opinions.

I really am an optimist, but I think we're a long way from every last person on this planet being perfect. Wouldn't it be boring if we all were?

[Dinah]

I'm glad there are no tall buildings, Transwarp. We don't want to lose you.

I think Silverbullet has hit on a good point. Commercialism in the media. If ratings determine whether your station makes money or not, you're probably going to make broadcasting decisions which you wouldn't in a more perfect world. I'm always appalled when a reporter sticks a microphone in the face of a mother who's just lost her child in a car accident and asks her, "How do you feel?" What a complete and utter moron! If there was no financial motivation to "make" news or dish the dirt, things might change somewhat for the better. At least I'd like to think so.

Government-run news feeds aren't the answer. That places the news squarely in the commercial sector. There may be a few small independent news feeds, done as a public service, but I don't think they'd have much impact.

I'm not sure a hundred years is enough time for mankind to evolve for the better, though.

[Asso]

I'm glad there are no tall buildings, Transwarp. We don't want to lose you.

OF COURSE!

I'm always appalled when a reporter sticks a microphone in the face of a mother who's just lost her child in a car accident and asks her, "How do you feel?"

Dinah, you gave voice to my thoughts. When I see and hear scenes like this.... I WOULD WANT TO HAVE THAT REPORTER BETWEEN MY HANDS!

I'm not sure a hundred years is enough time for mankind to evolve for the better, though.

That's my fear, but, in the end, I am hopeful.

[Pegmumm]

Yep, this is the noob...
Having had training in journalism early in my life... and having watched the fiascos of the last 9 years... the objectivity of the media as I knew it in my younger years (ahem, I am old) has disappeared.

Reporting in the future will change only if the demand for information changes within our society. The speed with which information is disseminated can only increase. Due to this simple fact, accuracy of the information will degrade since it takes time to verify facts. It becomes a game of he said, she said.

Having not had a television for 10 years has really made me understand the level of societal change that the device has caused. Will the media of the future be immune to the desire to groom its viewers to want more of their product? Anyone here remember the dystopian society that Max Headroom or Brazil depicted? They really aren't that unimaginable.

I would suggest you avoid tall buildings in the future... and be aware that what you are reading and watching is a prepackaged product designed to be sold to an individual groomed to crave that product. I grieve for the future.

And I avoid tall buildings.
-------
As to the media attention on Trip and T'Pol after the fiasco of Paxton. If it bleeds it leads. There would be no peace for them for the first few weeks. Then they would be forgotten. The public has no attention span . They would simply become the object of pity, 2 has beens best forgotten.

peg

[pdsldl]

The media is out of control currently and I keep hoping that we as their audience will burn out on the supposed realism and sensationalism but it's not happening. Celebs have died, a man pretended to send his 6 year old up in a hot air balloon to get a TV show, and we as viewers can't seem to get enough of spying on what passes for real lives on TV (they follow around parking meter police and pest control guys killing roaches for pete's sake). Until we cease having a need for it will continue to grow and even if it slows down there will always be an appetite for such nonsense. Those people who feed on everyone else's hurt and pain to hide from their own. It's sad really and while I do think somewhere down the road a majority of the population will mature or something catastrophic will happen to make us walk away from it there will always be the Court TV and TRU TV channels and National Enquirer type gossip outlets out there and TnT would be a hot ticket to ratings and circulation numbers so they would be found out and hounded. Starfleet would most likely try to help them be anonymous if they chose to come to Earth but it's not realistic that two talented, involved people would find work and become obscure members of society on any planets they choose to settle on. Plus after the Xindi, Terra Prime, and the Coalition etc...their faces have been plastered all over the airwaves and on news covers so where could they go and not be recognized.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

No matter how the media has developed, I think that the mere fact that TnT would be aboard the Enterprise, far out there where there are no reporters, would lead to there being not much news about them.

Even the Terra Prime incident wouldn't necessarily be spun as a TnT love story. It was Paxton who made baby Elizabeth after all.

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned is the rather scandalous fact that a reporter, Gannet Brooks, is actually a government agent. What does that tell us about not just her, but about the kind of governance that exists om Earth in the 2150s.

[Asso]

The media is out of control currently and I keep hoping that we as their audience will burn out on the supposed realism and sensationalism but it's not happening. Celebs have died, a man pretended to send his 6 year old up in a hot air balloon to get a TV show, and we as viewers can't seem to get enough of spying on what passes for real lives on TV (they follow around parking meter police and pest control guys killing roaches for pete's sake). Until we cease having a need for it will continue to grow and even if it slows down there will always be an appetite for such nonsense. Those people who feed on everyone else's hurt and pain to hide from their own. It's sad really and while I do think somewhere down the road a majority of the population will mature or something catastrophic will happen to make us walk away from it there will always be the Court TV and TRU TV channels and National Enquirer type gossip outlets out there and TnT would be a hot ticket to ratings and circulation numbers so they would be found out and hounded. Starfleet would most likely try to help them be anonymous if they chose to come to Earth but it's not realistic that two talented, involved people would find work and become obscure members of society on any planets they choose to settle on. Plus after the Xindi, Terra Prime, and the Coalition etc...their faces have been plastered all over the airwaves and on news covers so where could they go and not be recognized.

Just so. Vulcan - maybe - could be their home.

[Asso]

I would suggest you avoid tall buildings in the future...
And I avoid tall buildings.

Damn! There also are domestic accidents, and plane crash, and car accidents, and industrial accidents, and road accidents, and...

[Pegmumm]

As a mental health professional, I have an intense interest in what makes people do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do... and the influences and experiences that make them act out of character. This causes growth in whatever direction it takes you. I reflect that interest in motivation and change in my stories. I refuse to allow my characters to just stagnate.The point of writing fiction is to expand our understanding of the characters we write about.

It's important to understand that in most of our life's pursuits we have a choice. Even making no choice is still a choice. (shrug)

Are we, as a society, allowing what we watch to build walls in our minds and influencing what is and isn't possible for us as individuals?

And who needs physical walls when they are already built in your head?

The media in the future is really as malleable as we want them to be. I would say feel free to speculate about changes you want to see. It is only by conceiving of these changes that change will come about. Til then you're stuck in the mud with the other lemmings.

Do what you want... it can't hurt.

peg

[Alelou]

I'm sitting here thinking, sheesh, Transwarp, if I were in Kandahar, I wouldn't be worried about jumping off buildings (of any size) but about buildings etc. jumping on me. Media in 200 years seems like a relatively distant problem...

And since I'm sitting here on battery back-up because the power is out probably because of the wind I guess I might as well shut down before any surge comes along.

Got my grades done already, thank God.

[Silverbullet]

Come on KTR, using a reporters cover for a government agent happens often.

There had ben an agreement that Diplomatic Coruiers would not be CIA or KGB because they travelled in and out of each others Airports and might see things. Well guess what. Even if they weren't CIA or KGB they had eyes and reguarly reported to both those agencies. Same thing for the Peace Corps. No CIA to be in the corps. But I have a good idea there wre some. Too good to pass up.

So Gannet could be a Spy for Starfleet. She could travel freely and to different places as a reporter and not be questioned.

The Soviet news agency was notorius for having KGB agents in its Ranks.