Please, someone, say it ain’t so!
Daily Kos: ESPN FAKED STADIUM CHEERS FOR BUSH SR.: For several years, ESPN has been manufacturing fake cheers and fake boos for politicians. It’s a very simple rule. If you are a Democrat not named Joe Lieberman, ESPN will play a tape of boos previously recorded and insert them into the audio after the Democrat is announced. If you are a Republican and ESPN is expecting boos, ESPN will play a pre-recorded tape of cheers unrelated to the Republican.
I’d really, really like this to be tin-foil. There’s something pathetic and offensive about the idea that the propagandists are taking over the national pastime. And yet, in our debased discourse, one no longer knows how low we can go. Circuses indeed!
I want proof.
Ditto on the need for proof.
However, anyone can note the images used by TV news networks in association with various public figures. What images play in the background when the subject of a news story is Bush, Ahmadinejad, Chavez? Or Israel versus Hezbollah? How about black “looters” versus white “survivors” in the wake of Katrina?
I have often found William S. Burroughs’ writing to be helpful in understanding such phenomenon. The early propagandists (Bernays, Goebbels, etc.) are a good place to look. More recently try Virilio, Zizek, Baudrillard, Debord.
It sounds outlandish I agree. I would guess if it is true it is actually the network not wanting to make viewers have to face contention. You wouldn’t want that during a sports competition!
But even saying that, I would want proof too – – but y’know with these guys I now subscribe to the maxim that it is worse than you imagine even when you take into consideration that it is worse than you imagine.