Adam Curtis - The Rise and Fall of the TV Journalist

[zappey68]

I also want Personal Helicopter 0:33 On my roof

[Yezpahr]

The pause at the start, it was a distraction so you won't really hear or remember the start of the video

Because your brains are too busy rewiring itself to what happened.

And you might be thinking about a joke about it or sth, instead of listening.

They always do that with important things, heads up.

[koyaanis2403]

whats the piano tune at 0:52 - 1:00?

[labour12312]

@koyaanis2403 on the rebound

[MoonstompingMike1985]

@koyaanis2403 on the rebound by floyd kramer

[mourantell]

ok this guy is amazingly intelligent

[rogierz]

watched this a minute ago and just know that it will be in my top 10 of favourite youtube clips EVER

[BikersFromIreland]

Liars, Thieves, Crooks, overpaid collaborators of truth for the lie by being paid millions of dollars. Aids, unemployment, crime rates, collapse of the financial system, they have all lied and sold out the American people by being paid off with high salaries and to report what they are told to report. Total traitors and back stabbers of the American people. That is your American TV Journalist, scum of the earth. Telling lies instead of the real truth for greed.

[28g34ajbsd]

Curtis is asking the broad questions journalists should be asking all the time when presupposing a cohesive narrative background for their stories.

[Rationalific]

This only covers about 10% of the story.  The other 90% involves the rise of 24-hour news, along with ratings wars and huge companies (which eat up and merge with the smaller ones) owned by people like Rupert Murdoch, and which only hire "journalists" who will do their bidding.

[emathy]

@Rationalific I agree but are you talking about the rest of the documentary or the general situation in mainstream news media today? I'm going to see the rest of the documentary and find out if it covers some or all of these topics, myself.

[jesuslover037]

TV journalism has become infotainment.  We're more concerned with the President's dog and Lindsey Lohan than in actually solving problems. The govt's strategy is working: keep the public dumb, well fed, and entertained and you can literally get away with murder.

[sysarchitect]

I looooooooooooooooooooooooove Adam Curtis!

[tsummerlin84]

I'm a freelance journalist for the alternative news daily site

[DrThorpeLee]

A little outdated already. Becasue we're telling them (the journalists) what matters and whats going on, and very few of them are tredding outside the party line to boradcast it.

[ptwob]

watch the shortfilm by adam curtis on richerd nixon, its kinda like this one but more politics, if u havent seen it on newswipe

[quizmasterp]

does anyone know what the first bit of music is?

[gregpovy]

Very superficial indeed. News organizations are owned by major corporations whose priorities are to their share holders, advertisers and the bottom line. News doesn't make money with expensive investigative reporters with their health plans, pensions, and controversies scaring away advertisers. So, leach off the masses, do puff-pieces and voila, you've got your profit margin back up again.

[54321Ahem]

@gregpovy well said

[Hallibutbouy]

Very poor theory Adam, I would have expected much better from u. If people really want 2 understand the media here r some documentaries & videos they should c: 1) Orwell Rolls in his grave. 2) Outfoxed. 3) John Pilger The Invisible Government. 4) Manufacturing Consent. I don't think much of his account of Oh Dearism either, there is something much more sinister about it than he recognises. Any truly educated person understands the root cause of the woes of the third world but u wont c it on TV

[Malaka57]

I actually saw the berlin wall fall coming, and queried dozens of media outlets... the editors just ignoring it or poohpoohing the idea, even though the evidence was glaring. Anyway, not complaining, just laughing it off...

[BikersFromIreland]

I hate American TV Journalist the most.

[Ironskillet]

@BikersFromIreland I dunno, those Brits are awful whiney pansies. But the Americans do set a standard in awfulness.

[BikersFromIreland]

I am sorry, I just hate TV Journalist, these fuckers will say and do anything their master tells them to do, just to keep their paychecks and Job. Fuck these pretentious assholes. STAND UP FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE ONCE YOU LYING MONEY GRUBBING CAREER POWER SEEKING BASTARDS. Oh, and each and everyone of these FUCKERS has a "MY NEW BOOK", "MY NEW BOOK", "MY NEXT BOOK", like I care about your FUCKING BOOK PRICKS. Your GHOST writers writes your books because your fucking FACE is own TV.

[TheVJMovement]

Screenwipe is excellent. Nice one Brooker for promoting Adam Curtis - he could use the exposure :)

[supermaccarenzo]

Does anyone know the name of the funky piano tune that kicks in at 0.51?

[boardsenseless]

It's called On the Rebound and it's by Floyd Cramer Jr.

[koyaanis2403]

@supermaccarenzo

+1



[k9thru12]

Right Left or the Berlin Wall

Money Class

Waited a Generation

And then Introduced Personal Interest Stories, Rolling Repeating News Channels and Manufactured Reality Programs. Adam Curtis Egocentrics POV?

I use to watch a lot of BBC now I suffer with a lot less depression.

Big Banks the Biggest source of Crime and Poverty on the Planet?

[Hallibutbouy]

I couldn't agree more.

[k9thru12]

Read Steve Coll

Niall Ferguson

Christopher Andrew

and the

"Fools Experiment"

Dump Gold

New Stock Bubble based on Police State Tactics

Google and Wikipedia are now false "MANAGE"

[Yehbytheway]

They have cctv we have a billion camera phones.

They have the BBC we have the internet.

We are winning and they dont like it .

the flow of information is in our hands.

Law ,information and quotes are just a click away.

The average jane and joe can find the true facts instantly.

The tide is with us use it!

[matchbox555]

adam curtis is such a dark dismal pessimistic idiot.

he has no idea what the fuck he is talking about but trys to convey an air of authority when he talks his bullshit

he should just kill himself to put himself out of his dismal misery

[oix]

Can anyone tell me the name of sad classical music that starts at 1.30?

Thanks

[Dodec84]

Thème de Camille - Georges Delerue

[911truthseekers]

CFR Zionist Bankers Control Media Lies!

[KorlaPlankton]

The Media is turning more and more to Citizen Journalism not because they don't know what's going on or that the citizenry can tell the story better, but because there are tiny changes that are taking place within society and the effects of such changes are huge b/c of technology. The only way to know what those changes are is to dupe the citizens into reporting it themselves. If reporters had no idea about the Berlin Wall, what makes them think that they can see the seeds of Anarchy growing?

[escooler]

whats the name of the track that kicks in at 1min? the electronic sounding one that intrupts - on the rebound.

[zece1314]

The Dust Brothers - Stealing Fat ( Fight Club Soundtrack )

[whalefish83]

were those tears of joy?

Finally, after three days of searching, some scally makes off with my phone- im gonna be famous...sob!

[tellyisrubbish]

Curtis does what most journalists have ceased to do - join the dots in an earnest attempt to explain our situation.

[charlespycraft]

Adam Curtis is a genius...very inspiring olde school awareness

[boomchilds]

Nice use of The Fog soundtrack.

[Dodec84]

in fact: adam curtis introduced me to a lot of new music i didn't know .... soundtrack of the fog ... songs from yo le tengo ... brian eno .... etc

[mf91007]

God, people are insatiable. Media has spoiled us. Do you really think that if we keep complaining about the state of journalism news network bigwigs will one day cave in and say "alright, you win! We'll be good guys now!"? Real news is dead and cannot be revived because it simply isn't profitable. I'm not going to offer a solution.

[jjrevans]

Curtis is always interesting, but simplistic.

Citizen journalism relies on the fact that while ordinary people might be clueless about distant events, they are the best informed observers about the events that directly affect them in their local environment.

[eustatic]

you're missing the point

[gerardoates]

Wrong. People aren't the best informed observers about events that affect them directly, they are merely the best observers as to how these events affect them. They inform us as to how they feel about these events. This is because they are the receivers of events; from their positiion along the "event chain", they can't explain the hows, whats and whys of an action. They can only see it from their own end, not with an overall view. This doesn't mean to say that they are biased.

[Luk333]

I hope Curtis will have time to make more satirical pieces like this, next to his excellent documentaries.

[TulseLuper]

Apparently he'll have another one for the next episode of Newswipe.

[nosferatudasvampir]

His documentaries are always the same: it was once good, it got bad recently and we have the power to make it good again. Curtis' inability to deal with complexity always manages to entertain me.

[MollyCDgirl]

"it was once good, it got bad recently and we have the power to make it good again."

Mostly, they are about the chaos that results when elites impose an ideology from the top down.

"Curtis' inability to deal with complexity always manages to entertain me."

Funny you should say that, since he most often documents how technocracies fall down when scientists create oversimplified models (especially of human behavior) in their efforts to create predictability and control.

[raskolniki]

damn

[Junkkcom]

I might need to play this again to hear it properly in context but, nice and thoughtful as this was, it rather seemed to be saying the 'problem' is that now we don't have nice, well-placed, cosy, smarter journalists deciding what we get served and what to think about what we do. Not sure I agree with that.

[MaxTallon]

Journalists, mostly, have always been slime-balls - but they've just branched out to include a different type of slime-ball, too.

[Dodec84]

No, journalists should show us what the authority hides for us and the things we tend to run away from. It doesn't mean we should believe everything they say, though.

Journalists are not messengers for the government or 'infotainment managers' for the viewers.

[ukeuwatcher]

It's satirically over-simplistic, though I think it does make a fair comment: journalists shouldn't just rely on the "some say" and "have your say" type reporting, and actually try to learn the underlying indisputable facts about topics they're reporting on.

[number3assassin]

"journalists deciding what we get served and what to think about what we do"

The good thing with journalists is that you build up a relation to them. Either you find journalists you trust or distrust. That's not possible by looking at private news clips from mobile phones on youtube. A good journalist can dig much deeper and give a bigger picture than any private news clip on the internet. There's nothing wrong with people being on the spot with their mobile phones but I want more.

[DominationCorp]

I hope Mr Curtis makes another documentary soon. Does anyone know of anything that he could be working on?

[MaxTallon]

I haven't seen the documentary, yet, but am a fan of Curtis. I hope he pointed out in his documentary that Donal McIntyre (in the featured clip)spent hours wandering the streets of Brixton dressed up as obvious bait but the vast majority of the people who approached him did so to tell him to be careful. The featured 'mugging' was, in fact, a 'dry-run' set up by McIntyre - and when he finally did have his phone stolen, it was a non-violent 'snatch' - not a mugging.

[ubuibiok]

Now a days the TV shows report on themselves reporting on themselves.....the line that drives me bonkers is " "Exclusive Report", only shown here "....It makes me want to rip there tonsils out.

Think about it, after telling the story, the teller shut there mouths and never repeated it again, ever.

[kromeuno]

Does anyone know what piece of music that is at the beginning and the end.

[tehmushroom]

The beginning, the classical music piece is being played with the fight club soundtrack (the dust brothers), the same thing in the end, scratching in the end is from a dust brothers song.

You were probably after the classical piece i'm assuming..sorry i couldn't be an help!

[jayflo92008]

The piece just after the Dust Brothers song is from Le Mepris. It's called Theme de Camille, and it's by Georges Delerue.

[CRAPCANNONS]

it's one of the greatest pieces of film music ever made.

[msbizzee]

The journalists haven't given up, they've been given the boot by the owners.

[danieleriskay]

I'd wish they'd give up a little more. I've known far too many journalists who fancied themselves as having some kind of divine mission to enlighten their fellow citizens. Every one of them has had an average IQ at best and a very limited knowledge of history and geography.

What most of them are, in fact, is little more than boring ignoramuses who think they are special. Average people with streaks of narcissism and grandiosity.

[wwwPNACATTACKcom]

right!

[densaner77]

Tongue in cheek as Curtis sometimes is in his documentaries. However the points he is making here are as serious as anything else he has done.

[joven35]

I love this man! Thank you Adam Curtis!

[PollenB]

Then they all sold out on 9/11 and 7/7...bigtime.

[wwwPNACATTACKcom]

''Seven Seven - Stay on the Oilfields of Shell and BP heaven'' ;-)

[josephdrew87]

This is brilliant! Curtis does a great self-spoof (with a bit of reality thrown in for good measure). But Curtis could read out a shopping list of the instructions on an electric razor and make it sound, deep profound and meaningful. Cool! I think I'm going to practise patterning my voice after his...

[NikoGot]

It is not if the media is manipulated, it's who is manipulating the media and why?

[harmonickev]

Adam Curtis could do a film on geothermal boreholes and chances are I would find it fascinating.

[Dodec84]

Adam Curtis could do a remake of movies from Joseph Goebbels and I would start a book BBQ. I have the (bad) tendency to believe everything Curtis says.

[ChocolateExplosion]

Curtis' voice sends shivers down my spine

love it love it love it

[badnewswade]

Masterful. Good ole Curtis

[wanageeska]

Perhaps because he was only referencing the british news, Mr. Curtis failed to mention the mechanism for this, at least in the US: The transition of the news to being a profit orient and even entertainment oriented medium. You can even go father to state how money and politics shape the news now.

[replayzero]

All we can do is offer the world our perspective - is this dangerous no? what is dangerous is the fact that we cannot see the whole picture, Only offer our flux perspective. You can't fool all the people all the time....Indeed.

[jarlabrelk]

i could never work out since i saw this on BBC 4 whether it was a parody or a stinging critique

[elstonieo]

I think its both m8

[BionicChango]

Nice close up on Wigan at the end.

And why is "Wigan" pinging my spellchecker?

[diegocerda]

who drives who?

[josephdrew87]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?