Just finished watching this show on netflix. Very well done and unbiased I think. It really does a great job showing the impact that the death of Kennedy had on ordinary people. One thing that really struck me was how scripted some of the news footage of the day seemed to be. I'm not going down the conspiracy rabbit hole here but just sharing my thoughts on it. From the arrest of Oswald to his murder by Ruby and the photo of Ruby at Dealy plaza. TV is such a powerful shaping tool of the narrative in the world and there is no way, that just like bombs and bullets, that there aren't people who use it for their evil schemes.
The Sixties
- Thread starter Sirk
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There was a book I read long ago called man in the mirror. If memory serves it talked about how after ww2 there were all these men coming home and all these factories used in the war effort that could be used to make stuff....cars and whatnot and also create jobs. The assertion in the book was that it was intentional in using the tv to make consumers out of us. That leaders of industry actually used psychologists to figure out and help them to use the tv and radio to get that done. Why is it that we need a new car or phone every year? TV helped to build the foundation of our current economy as well as shape public opinion....imo.
B
Reminds me.. We're going to be seeing how green our thumbs are at home this year! 
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D
Not trying to pick a fight. (Don't even know what I'd fight about if I did want to pick a fight with this post.) I didn't quite get what you meant by "scripted."
I was seven when JFK was shot. Don't even remember it when it happened. The best I do remember is the funeral cut into my cartoon time, why in the world do they have a cheap ole mule carrying his coffin, and poor JonJon and Caroline. (Just to get you into my mind as a seven year old viewing the events.)
But I grew up on news being like what that news was. Here's what I heard every night on the news, (except Simon and Garfunkel singing along with it.)
Is that what you mean by scripted? (This is all about trying to figure out what you meant by scripted.)
[video=youtube;WgYFXCUEL4Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgYFXCUEL4Y[/video]
I was seven when JFK was shot. Don't even remember it when it happened. The best I do remember is the funeral cut into my cartoon time, why in the world do they have a cheap ole mule carrying his coffin, and poor JonJon and Caroline. (Just to get you into my mind as a seven year old viewing the events.)
But I grew up on news being like what that news was. Here's what I heard every night on the news, (except Simon and Garfunkel singing along with it.)
Is that what you mean by scripted? (This is all about trying to figure out what you meant by scripted.)
[video=youtube;WgYFXCUEL4Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgYFXCUEL4Y[/video]
Scripted as in....here is how we are gonna spin this thing irrespective of what the truth is. I know it sounds conspiratorial but any sane person knows that the ptb censor and put out what they think is best for public consumption. There were lot's of players in the aftermath of Kennedy's murder. Some were just normal folk that wanted the truth and maybe some that wanted their 15 minutes but some were paid to spin it a certain way. Of that I am pretty sure. If you control the narrative it gives you a huge advantage as to what will be perceived as truth in the eyes of the public at large.
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Advertisers have admitted that they have it down to such a science, how to induce people to buy items, by using cues that they know emotionally and psychologically will produce certain responses, that they are now questioning the morality of it. They are actually saying that maybe they need to back off.
D
Ah, gotcha. I'm not a fan of reality TV, so I'm missing some cultural references now.
Okay, remember, I have a Communications background, so I'm combining a bit of what I learned in college with a whole bunch of "this is my idea of fun" books and articles I've read through the years.
Journalism in America. A very brief history. While it is true that newspapers started in American specifically to plug a political party and mudsling opponents, there was once, and only once, a very brief time in America history when journalists -- first print and then that new medium called "television"-- really went for the Sgt. Friday approach. "Just the facts, ma'am." That time was post WWII until Walter Cronkite decided to editorialize the news about that war in Vietnam. (I believe mid to late 60's, but I know it hadn't yet hit at JFK's assignation.)
So, TV news between the advent of TV's in the home until that (annoys-me-to-this-day) editorial from Cronkite really was all about one thing -- trying to be unbiased as possible. And that assassination caught everyone completely off guard, so the only scripting done was Sgt. Friday-like leans. (Not discounting journalists falling apart on air, but that wasn't planned back then, like it often is today.)
MLK and RFK assassinations did lean more to the emotional/sensational side. The "think like I do or you're wrong" mentality of today, albeit they were just getting into it then, so tried to sound unbiased. But honestly? JFK's assassination events were as good as Man can get for reporting the news without a bias -- unscripted.
I haven't seen the documentary you've seen, but I suspect what you're getting is the "I'm not biased, you were" viewpoint usually used in 21st century (and quite a bit of 20th century) mentality without the documentors even understanding they're doing that.
The unbiased approach has to be taught, and it's not anymore. It wasn't even taught when I was in school in the 70's, (they pretended it was, but if we weren't liberals, well... the grade slipped if it showed), so the only ones taught that are pretty much retired or dead.
Okay, remember, I have a Communications background, so I'm combining a bit of what I learned in college with a whole bunch of "this is my idea of fun" books and articles I've read through the years.
Journalism in America. A very brief history. While it is true that newspapers started in American specifically to plug a political party and mudsling opponents, there was once, and only once, a very brief time in America history when journalists -- first print and then that new medium called "television"-- really went for the Sgt. Friday approach. "Just the facts, ma'am." That time was post WWII until Walter Cronkite decided to editorialize the news about that war in Vietnam. (I believe mid to late 60's, but I know it hadn't yet hit at JFK's assignation.)
So, TV news between the advent of TV's in the home until that (annoys-me-to-this-day) editorial from Cronkite really was all about one thing -- trying to be unbiased as possible. And that assassination caught everyone completely off guard, so the only scripting done was Sgt. Friday-like leans. (Not discounting journalists falling apart on air, but that wasn't planned back then, like it often is today.)
MLK and RFK assassinations did lean more to the emotional/sensational side. The "think like I do or you're wrong" mentality of today, albeit they were just getting into it then, so tried to sound unbiased. But honestly? JFK's assassination events were as good as Man can get for reporting the news without a bias -- unscripted.
I haven't seen the documentary you've seen, but I suspect what you're getting is the "I'm not biased, you were" viewpoint usually used in 21st century (and quite a bit of 20th century) mentality without the documentors even understanding they're doing that.
The unbiased approach has to be taught, and it's not anymore. It wasn't even taught when I was in school in the 70's, (they pretended it was, but if we weren't liberals, well... the grade slipped if it showed), so the only ones taught that are pretty much retired or dead.
The 60's were a time when my sisters and I grew up on a farm and then moved to a city and attended great big schools. On the farm, we played outside with our dogs and wandered around the farm buildings, observing the cows and chickens. I got to ride on a tractor and watch how hay was bailed. We went to a one room school house with one teacher for eight grades. There were three boys and one girl in my second grade class.
I don't remember the news much. I do remember sitting in front of the television on Sunday night to watch the Wonderful World of Disney. As I grew, I went from watching mostly cartoons like Underdog and Rocky and Bullwinkle, to watching football and evening television shows like Bewitched and Petticoat Junction (...and there's uncle Joe, he is moving mighty slow at the junction....petticoat junction). Was it in the 60's that cigarette commercials finally ended? The products I remember were the ones with a catchy jingle that some marketing team must have thought up. When I look back at the 60's, I don't miss much. We only had three channels of television and the picture and sound were awful. Cars fell apart and ran poorly. Less options for eating out. A lot less information about the world around us. Had I known more about the weather and beauty of places like California and Oregon, back in the 60's, I would have left Nebraska much sooner than I did.
I don't remember the news much. I do remember sitting in front of the television on Sunday night to watch the Wonderful World of Disney. As I grew, I went from watching mostly cartoons like Underdog and Rocky and Bullwinkle, to watching football and evening television shows like Bewitched and Petticoat Junction (...and there's uncle Joe, he is moving mighty slow at the junction....petticoat junction). Was it in the 60's that cigarette commercials finally ended? The products I remember were the ones with a catchy jingle that some marketing team must have thought up. When I look back at the 60's, I don't miss much. We only had three channels of television and the picture and sound were awful. Cars fell apart and ran poorly. Less options for eating out. A lot less information about the world around us. Had I known more about the weather and beauty of places like California and Oregon, back in the 60's, I would have left Nebraska much sooner than I did.
I think people about my age who lived in big cities were probably the last to experience the innocence of being a child growing up. I recall walking about 5 or 6 blocks to school starting in first grade, not often, but enough that I remember. That was in Brooklyn, NY, no less. Just about no parent, just about anywhere in about any city, even in a lot of smaller cities, will allow that today.
Our parents themselves (a lot of them born in the '30's, kids and teenagers in the 40's and 50's) were often not so sophisticated as to even have the capacity to communicate the worries of the world to us, unlike today. TV was so innocent. School programs and concerns were innocuous compared to today. And that was our world; our parents/family, TV, and school. The big issues for parents raising young kids in the early and middle sixties were making enough money, and the cold war, and maybe civil rights. Really, that was it, outside of the usual life stuff that is a constant with every generation.
Our parents themselves (a lot of them born in the '30's, kids and teenagers in the 40's and 50's) were often not so sophisticated as to even have the capacity to communicate the worries of the world to us, unlike today. TV was so innocent. School programs and concerns were innocuous compared to today. And that was our world; our parents/family, TV, and school. The big issues for parents raising young kids in the early and middle sixties were making enough money, and the cold war, and maybe civil rights. Really, that was it, outside of the usual life stuff that is a constant with every generation.
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I have to admit that I do not understand all the "consumerism" talk... as though you are mindless robots.
Despite the fact that I have made substantial sums of money in my life, I have never felt compelled to have the latest and greatest of everything. Yes, I have bought 6 or 7 extravagant items in my lifetime, even bought a new car once, but it has never been an ongoing thing with me.
In fact, I live in a house built in 1954, and I drive a 1988 truck, own a 1990 motorcycle, and my wife drives a 1999 car.
How do you guys let yourselves be controlled and manipulated this way? I honestly don't understand it.
Despite the fact that I have made substantial sums of money in my life, I have never felt compelled to have the latest and greatest of everything. Yes, I have bought 6 or 7 extravagant items in my lifetime, even bought a new car once, but it has never been an ongoing thing with me.
In fact, I live in a house built in 1954, and I drive a 1988 truck, own a 1990 motorcycle, and my wife drives a 1999 car.
How do you guys let yourselves be controlled and manipulated this way? I honestly don't understand it.
I have this contractor friend who has boatloads of money. He drives an old pickup, lives in a house that was probably paid for decades ago. He has a few nice things like a harley and cabin in the mountains. The thing about him is that he strikes me as a person who idolizes his simplicity. So it can go the other way too Willie.
I grew up on a small farm in the deep south during a transition from a time of transition from mules to machinery, from kerosene lamps to electricity, from a wood stove to an electric stove, from no phones to party lines, from war to peace to peace to the cold war, from a small school that scheduled classes around farm needs, from radio to television, from depression to plenty, from loving God to questioning God. By the sixties the world had morphed into a totally different place. My family had left the farm for the greener pastures of the city. Like you I don't understand all the consumerism talk. We own two vehicles, one with 400K miles on it and the other with 200K miles on it. We made a considerable amount of money, and are able to enjoy the fruits of our hard work well into the future. I don't understand the necessity to have the latest and greatest status symbol. There is nothing like sitting in the swing under the big oak tree in my front yard, watching the sun rise and set, along with watching our grandchildren playing, or the birds playing in the garden, or watching the stars and moon in the early evening. I was a beautiful morning that God made especially for me today.
If someone ask me if I want to go back to the fifties and sixties. The answer is yes ans no. Yes to return to the closeness of family and community. No to return to the struggles to make sure a family of 8 had enough to eat, clothes to wear, and an education on an annual paycheck that depended on the weather, bugs, and weeds.
