Harry Shearer, the actor, writer, musician, and most recently filmmaker who is best known for being the voice of characters on “The Simpsons,” had some harsh words for the news media during a visit to the D.C. journalists’ private club Monday, accusing the industry of being driven by group-think and unable to divert from the narrative it creates, even when new facts dispute it.The article goes on to give examples of the media's failure to escape from groupthink and templates based on lazy reporting. Read the rest - it's good stuff.
The man behind the voices of Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders spared no one in his biting critique of the national news media, with some specifically tough words for Newsweek, CNN and NBC News. Shearer, who worked in journalism before joining the entertainment industry, said his castigation was a labor of love more than angry demagoguery.
“What I’m about to say comes not from hatred, but love of it,” he said during a speech at the National Press Club. “I spent much of my youth around journalism and journalists.”
“The press release for this talk said I’m accusing the media of ‘myth making’ today. I’m actually saying something a bit different. Myths I think are manufactured out of whole cloth. What I’m calling a ‘template,’ is based on facts. Some facts. A partial collection. The first dusting. It then becomes adopted as ‘the narrative,’” Shearer said. “The mental doors lock shut, and no further facts are allowed in.”
Shearer visited Washington this week to debut his new film, “The Big Uneasy,” which takes a serious look at the devastation in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — and sharply critiques the coverage the catastrophe received from national news outlets. Shearer lives in New Orleans, which he calls his “adopted” hometown.
He made the case, using coverage of Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War and Wikileaks as examples, that once a “template” is set, news practitioners have a hard time diverting from it.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns Blast the Mainstream Media
The actor who voices those iconic Simpsons characters has some tough words for the mainstream media:
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This surprises me, since I have heard a little of his radio show, and he always sounded like a standard liberal to me.
“Most journalists are vaguely liberal; most media owners are not so vaguely conservative,” he said.
Vaguely??? I think not. That sounds like standard liberal to me.
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