This is how easily the Media becomes a bullshit peddler (PICTURES)

Now look carefully.



These pics that appeared on the front page of numerous newspapers are actually photoshopped. It looks like there are more missiles than there actually are. Ironically, if it was the Iranian Press Agency who did this, they did Dick Cheney a favor. Cheney and the Bush camp want to go to war with Iran. They pretend they don't but actually they are only to happy about this mistake. Below is the actual photo:



What's more serious though is when papers pontificate as they did about Mugabe, when Mugabe was nowhere near out of the picture. I also fail to understand why we need to see the same pictures and stories in 4 or 5 different newspapers. I don't know about you, but I only read a story once, and I only need one picture to get an idea what is going on. So this thing of newspapers pouncing on the same story, repeating and recycling the same 2nd,3rd and 4th hand accounts...well, it seems not to make my sense.

Doommedia

What's worse than warning the world in advance about bad news like this? Not warning the world. Talking up a good situation and then having to report - after the fact, when it is too self evident to do any freaking thing about it - on a new reality that falls pretty freakin' short of all that 'optimistic and uncritical' speculation.

clipped from www.businessday.co.za A global sell-off pushes world stocks to five-month low Reuters E-Mail article Print-Friendly LONDON - A global sell-off knocked world shares to a five-month low today as surging oil fanned concerns about inflation and slowing growth, ahead of an expected euro zone interest rate hike and a key US jobs report. The gloom was all-pervasive, with Tokyo stocks setting their longest losing streak in more than half a century while the dollar hit a two-month low against the euro.

Bullshit Report predicts eventual drop in oil prices - The Boston Globe

The Energy Department report also included a "high price" projection, which calls for oil to rise to $186 a barrel by 2030.

"Given current market conditions, it appears that world oil prices are on a path that more closely resembles the projection in the high price case than the reference case," the department said.

More: Report predicts eventual drop in oil prices - The Boston Globe

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Iran Iraq Irate

Larijani, one of Iran's most powerful politicians, did not directly warn that Iran could change its intentions, but his vague comment appeared aimed at raising that possibility.

NVDL: Fuck, here we go again with western media talking up a war with Iran. This time why don't you guys just say: 'Hey people, we reckon a war is the way to go. Here are a list of reasons. If we fuck up, we might unleash a nuclear war but we reckon it's worth the risk.' Save us fgrom the bullshit media propaganda. Where the hell is the hard news reporting in: Iran could change its intentions, but his vague comment appeared aimed at raising that possibility.

TJDR Prize Winning Campaign for ABSA is a Joke

The Jupiter Drawing Room are a creative lot, I'm not going to argue that point. Since the days when the creative director visited AAA and drew a schlong on a white board, said, "You need to put that into advertising," I started treating TJDR product with circumcision...err...I mean ...circumspection.

Really? You've got to put a penis into your marketing message? Drive your point home eh? Thrust your creativity into the marketing mix? In theory yes, and it's always great to have an excuse, a license to be creative. But we have some some of the most awful architecture and other blunders in the marketing mainstream because the average person who considers him or herself creative, is actually far from it. An artistic streak - the real thing that courses through a rare few individuals blood, is not always a blessing, and while genius is a whisker away from madness (creatively speaking), there are few that know the difference.

Which brings us to the ABSA campaign. I remember reading Brendan Seery in The Star praising this campaign. I was in ABSA this morning and saw a beautiful and artistic depiction of feet, a child's ballet feet with the sort of whorly leafy folds in a pixie book, or in Lord of the Rings illustration. I don't know about you, but I'm not a hobbit, and I am in the bank to make a serious transaction.

Meanwhile, the message ABSA conveys (against a climate of growing financial austerity both here and abroad), is:

These feet have been
to a place
where the world cannot hold them down.
To the edge of dreams
where pain is nothing and glory
but a step away.

No matter where your dreams lead you
we'd like to help you get there.

So here you have a major financial institution basically reinforcing this disconnect with reality (I alluded to it below in the media and the financial markets). Daydream away, experience no pain - what fantasy world of finance is this?
Because right now a lot of ordinary people are feeling plenty of pain. They are starting to think of giving up their homes; they're certainly finding their lifestyles are no longer within reach.
Yet: ...these feet have been to places where the world cannot hold them down.
Ummm...right now, the world has taken hold, and in the real world food prices are affecting a global population. So while ABSA is saying you can get a house TODAY, in fact house prices are high, about to devalue, whoever is foolhardy enough to purchase in this market, will see their mortgage payments escalate while the value depreciates.

But hey it's a creative ad and it's all dreamy and that's all that matters? In reality what our friend from the advertising agency was saying, is when you put a penis into your advertising message, you're just sodomising a market, getting what you want out of it and leaving it in ruins. The media and advertising are culpable for this massive manipulation, to get consumers to sleep, perchance to dream, and to awaken in a nightmare. This was clear when I studied advertising, and it was clear when I did my internship at TJDR. Maybe ad executives can live with themselves (despite a job that requires the spreading of lies and unsustainable deceits), but we don't have to. But that requires a collective wake up, the start of critical thinking, and the end of our sleepwalk into the future.