The Media/Journalism Thread

[BetterForgotten]

Britney was and continues to be very tightly controlled by her handlers. She was never allowed to control her own narrative - when people claim her to be a puppet, they're not kidding. That allowed many in the media to get a free pass for harassing her for years, because those leeching off of her knew it was often good for business to have her name out there in the press and being reported on. Her star power has died down a lot since then, so all of this can be bubbled up to the surface and dissected now. 

The big difference is Madonna controlled her narrative, something Britney has never been allowed to do in her entire career or life in general. Her team crafted that virginal image around her, and then intentionally crafted the sexpot image to go in contrast to it. Britney continuously got lost in that shuffle. When she's allowed to speak for herself, Britney is often the first to say she was never comfortable with how "sexy" some of her videos and photoshoots had to be. 

 

I remember an article a few years back talking about what a dangerous precedent it would have set if Madonna had apologized for the Sex book (like many wanted her to) and that era of her career. To this day, she never has. VICE is generally trash, but this was a good take on it.

 

 

[Vee]

No, I'm not linking to it. Yes, it tries hard to mindfuck you into thinking it's not what it is.

 

 

 

 

 

[Skin]

 

The Justin Timberlake stuff is honestly disgusting, as it's basically the only reason Justin had a career to begin with. He hitched his wagon to a bigger star, and he was able to separate himself from the rest of the boy banders and create an image of himself as a "man" precisely because he had Britney, who at the time was the hottest and most popular female star in the late 90's and early 00's. Kathy Griffin also said while they dated Britney, he was a controlling presence in her life. 

 

It's really sickening to hear that the reason radio played his songs was because he shared details of their sex life during his radio promo tours. He used her name so many times during the promotion of Justified (most of the songs were about her, or at least he played it off like they were), and then again with FutureSex/LoveSounds during the campaign with What Goes Around Comes Around. It's really a shame, how he got away with stuff like this, and how anti-women the early 00's were. 

 

We can see the way he treats women is awful: Janet, Britney, Jessica Simpson, etc. 

[Vee]

Update! 

 

 

[DRW50]

 

[Vee]

 

 

[Faulkner]

I can’t with the constant NYT soap opera. Better than anything on daytime in years. 

All of the healthy people I know who’ve worked there have gotten out of there as quickly as possible. One guy I know, a college classmate, has worked there since *high school*, but left NYC and files from California.

[DramatistDreamer]

[Vee]

 

[Khan]

IOW, the media tried to control the American public, instead of just reporting the news.

 

Man, I am so sick of the media.  The mainstream media AND the fringe media.

[JaneAusten]

They are still doing it. I see Joe Scarborough was on a tirade for a week about means testing the $1400.  Sounds like that went nowhere. Now he's been on a rampage beating up teachers unions and apparently using Chicago as an example. These people have no awareness.  In Chicago the polling of families show that only 31% of parents support sending their kids back with the remaining majority only will if it is proven to them the schools are safe for their kids AND the staff. Most of the students and families are of color. That 31% are white.

[Khan]

 

And you have the mayor -- who's been sort of a disappointment to me, quite frankly -- siding with the 31%.  Madness.

[JaneAusten]

Lightfoot has been disappointing. It's hard to see how Chicago has improved much since Rahm was mayor. She ran as a reform candidate and I will give her some latitude due to COVID but from day 1 she hasn't negotiated in good faith in my opinion  with CTU. Now her opponent was the candidate endorsed by the union so there was already some tension there and one could think the union is playing harder because of that who knows. But she ran on reform and also an elected school board and yet here we are. Chicago has proposed no police reforms(although Illinois has). But there is a push right now to get rid of the head of the FOP in Chicago.

 

That tape of that black female social worker that was released several weeks ago where the cops busted into her home, she kept telling them they were in the wrong house, they didn't listen and left her standing nude for 30 minutes before someone put a blanket over her. And still searched. The city attorneys fought against her lawyers for over a year for that tape and it was finally the push by one of the local news outlets with a dynamo investigative reporter(he's done other great work) that pressured the judge to finally order the release. Then it was shown. She was interviewed on GMA and Robin Roberts told her the story sounded almost the same as Breonna Taylor. Lightfoot at first claimed she didn't know about this then admitted she did after the press discovered she was aware of the case. Now I  won't blame Lightfoot for the incident. This happened under Rahm's watch, but she's certainly not convincing many she's a reformer. She was on the police accountability board which has proved over the years to be worthless.

[DRW50]

This is going to be the big Beltway story for a while. I'm not surprised most political and press operatives are scum but this is the worst time to employ people who make themselves the story.

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/i-will-destroy-you-biden-aide-threatened-a-politico-reporter-pursuing-a-story-on-his-relationship

[Vee]

I really don't think It will be that huge. There will be momentary furor (Maggie Haberman is already sniffing about 'what would people say if this was the Trump WH'), but Biden will fire him and that will be that.