Political Scales (Sep. 8th)

Last class, we watched a documentary on Rupert Murdoch's journalism and, Fox News, which Murdoch owns. I had not finished the entire documentary, but after watching a substantial amount, I was overwhelmed by how much information was congested in the documentary. Adding on, one of the most shocking segments in the film was Fox News reporters' usage of language towards liberal commentators on the show. It was disgraceful. Nonetheless, all the information presented was relevant. And listening to Mr.Paterson's lecture today, enhanced my comprehension of the matter talked about in the film. What I learned this class is that there is a lot of background information needed to fully understand the topic at hand. For example, Mr.Paterson elucidated on the political system in the U.S., its flaws, and how journalism is severely and almost systematically affected by that. Not only did he speak about the right-wing side (republicans), but he also touched on news outlets such as CNN who have a biased point of view, and are far to the left-wing side. To end the class with even more astonishing news, Mr.Paterson divulged information on the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). On Japanese TV, I frequently see broadcasters talking about the quantity of nuclear weapons worldwide and which countries have the most. Notwithstanding, exposing the obvious fraud in Fox's broadcasting has never been brought to my attention. 

Mr.Paterson's explanation and demonstration of the contrasting sides (the right-wing and the left-wing) were informative and something I am glad I now know. I felt this way because when the Black Lives Matter movement received global attention last year, Fox News also became a talking point. Due to the criticism Fox News received last year, I had known watching Fox News to seek information is not deal, but no one told me about the opposing side. Furthermore, being told that the "centerline" of America's political scale is already on the right-wing compared to the global standards was devastating. Even if someone were reporting from the "center" and be considered "neutral", that may not be "neutral" from a global perspective. Being inundated by all this information today naturally had me wondering about Japan's journalism. I wonder if documentaries like Outfoxed even exist, where the dirty truths of Japanese journalism are exposed. I wonder how biased the Japanese mainstream is. I wonder how other countries like Australia and European countries (which from my understanding seems more informative than Japan) are interms of journalism. For the vast majority of my life, I had always thought Japanese news consists of a plethora of irrelevant, superficial stories, but could focused on how bias it was. Subsequently, that is something I need to look into, moving forward. 

Notes: 

"we weren't much of a news-gathering organization so much, as we were a proponent of a point of view"

on a true political scale, democrats should be near the center

america's center is right-wing compared to the global standards 

the media should be reporting from a "center" point of view, (so the media in America who's center is already right-wing, is far too right)

political propaganda organization is what fox news became around the 1990s. 

CNN is just as biased on the left side, when fox 

documentary probably started forming its idea in 2002, 

Fox thought they needed togive George Bush a good story. 

even the supreme court took Bush's side. 

the first election was decided by judges with biases.s did not equally fairly apply the law. took a political decision, not amoral not an ethical decision, not a legal decision. (1999-2000) went to extremes, so blunted, so obvious, 

CNN did the opposite, centrist, support the democrats, an opposite,