RE: Propoganda (was boston media/globe celtic coverage)

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

Having read the Globe through the Carr regime and into the Pitino era it's
easy to conclude that the globe's sports coverage is, at best, tabloid and
poorly reasoned garbage or, at worst, intentional propaganda.
	To me, It's propaganda of the style described by Noam Chomsky in his books
manufacturing consent and _necessary illusions_. Rather than going blatantly
against obvious reality in the style of soviet propaganda, Ryan and his
cronies are far more insidious. Instead of lying they merely limit the range
of their topic and insert opinions as fact(credit to Jo Hironaka for this
observation[Jo: How does this relate to Goebels? I'm not familiar with his
tactics. Since Goebels was the pioneer of modern propaganda, information
about his methods should help frame the argument]).
	From reading one of Ryan's articles on would suppose that Antoine's greed
and ill manneredliness occurred in a vacuum of pure altruism, where the
owners engage in desperate attempts to reduce ticket prices and provide for
the poor and sickly --their own profits be damned-- only to be thwarted by
greedy players. The sportswriters too merely write their columns as a public
service. In short Ryan assumes that we live in a state of ideal communism,
where everyone works together, lives happily and never worries about such
petty contrivances as "money". Only "punks" like Antoine screw everything up
with their greed. "Good riddance" to these "punks", their loss wouldn't
bother us at all. God would rebound for us in our holiness, our divine
providence would make the ball go in the basket. We wouldn't need people
like Pedro or David Robinson to make our teams better, it's just the "punks"
that made it bad. No, Antoine was a cancer, someone who shot so poorly even
a new point guard couldn't help him. Even if a new point guard did, we won't
mention it, it would just weaken our argument. The world needs to know about
this *punk* without little niggly things like the truth to alter their
viewpoint. We don't need *punks* like him and we'll do anything to prove it.
	While the previous paragraph was an embellishment, it resides on the same
plane as the effluence disguised as reporting from Ryan. In Ryan's world
there are no mitigating circumstances for a player's crimes. Ryan sees no
ambiguity, Antoine's myriad skills are just something to be discounted in
light of Antoine's supposed hubris. Antoine's kindness to children is
immaterial, his contributions to the Boston community worthless. All that
matters is Antoine's emotive nature and implied contract demands. Those
alone make Antoine evil, the enemy that we are supposed to be proud to see
leave. We are supposed to forget Antoine's game winner against Detroit, his
scoring outburst against the Wizards and all of our other memories of
Antoine's burgeoning greatness. We must only recall Antoine the wiggling
demon, enemy to profit margins and management, raiser of ticket prices.
	Of course when Antoine the great Satan leaves and proceeds to win 13
straight championships in Chicago, it won't be the Boston media's fault.
They told us to keep Antoine, that Antoine was worth 100 million, that it
was foolish to trade a 22 year old all-star with limitless potential--a
player that improved exponentially from his first season to his second-- for
an aging "soft" center. No, the media didn't have anything to do with it(we
were always at war with Eurasia). It was tight fisted Boston Management's
fault.
	I'm tired of Boston's media always telling us that 2+2=5(to plagiarize 1984
a little more--sorry Orwell). I really hope that, in the miraculous instant
when Antoine resigns, the Globe--hit by a brief flash of credulity-- fires
all of their sorry excuses for sportswriters and hires objective
*journalists* to go with Holley. People who won't engage in demagoguery.
Journalists who actually report something resembling the facts, not what
they want us to believe.


"While I'm dreaming I want pony"

		-- Bill Watterson

Noah