CNN is lulz

[Vegeta2711]

My friends watch a bit of wrestling off and on and directed me to this CNN interview with John Cena. They ask him if he's ever taken performance enhancing substances before.

This is the version that got shown:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pVm29YcTNMM

This is the unedited answer:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dkj-vd-q5A8

Now for as much shit as I mock the WWE for, I've gotta say this is kind of ridiculous.

[Demonic Attorney]

Just another drop in the bucket which contains the mounting evidence of the mainstream media's growing irrelevance.  I hope the consolidated news conglomerates enjoyed the days of controlling the information that reached most of America, because that time is rapidly coming to an end, thanks to the internet.

[LotusHead]

That was pretty subtle.  I don't care about sports or it's performance enhancing issues, but it is nice to see how "the news" can edit an answer.  Thanks for sharing!

[TopSecret]

Just another drop in the bucket which contains the mounting evidence of the mainstream media's growing irrelevance.  I hope the consolidated news conglomerates enjoyed the days of controlling the information that reached most of America, because that time is rapidly coming to an end, thanks to the internet.

I agree,
but I fear that the media conglomerates know this,
and are taking steps towards controlling the internet, as well.

[Moxlotus]

So does Ted Turner have any sway at CNN anymore?

[ELD]

I saw this when WWE Posted it to their site, and I was disgusted.  If you want more examples of how the media has it's own agenda, take a look at how they have been covering Ron Paul. 

[Klep]

I saw this when WWE Posted it to their site, and I was disgusted.  If you want more examples of how the media has it's own agenda, take a look at how they have been covering Ron Paul. 

Or not covering Ron Paul, as it were.  I'm not going to comment one way or the other on his politics, but the support the man has and the amount of money he has been able to raise deserve at least some serious media attention.

[diopter]

I don't see why everyone is getting so upset. The guy sounded like a sleazebag in both interviews. "You'll never be able to prove I took steroids" - what an arrogant thing to say.

And if you think that the Internet is a better, more objective news source, then you're kidding yourself. People can lie on the Internet too - in fact it's even easier and you're way less accountable.

[Moxlotus]

I don't see why everyone is getting so upset. The guy sounded like a sleazebag in both interviews. "You'll never be able to prove I took steroids" - what an arrogant thing to say.

And if you think that the Internet is a better, more objective news source, then you're kidding yourself. People can lie on the Internet too - in fact it's even easier and you're way less accountable.

So when Cena answered "no, I do not take steroids" and it was edited out--you don't see why people are upset?  He was saying "you'll never be able to prove I took steroids" because no matter how many tests he takes that are clean, there will always be people who say he is hiding it somehow.  It was satire and disgust--not arrogance.

[Anusien]

I saw this when WWE Posted it to their site, and I was disgusted.  If you want more examples of how the media has it's own agenda, take a look at how they have been covering Ron Paul. 

Or not covering Ron Paul, as it were.  I'm not going to comment one way or the other on his politics, but the support the man has and the amount of money he has been able to raise deserve at least some serious media attention.

He seems to have Dean-level grassroots appeal.  How did that happen, anyway?

[kirdape3]

2/3 of Americans want out of Iraq, like yesterday.  Of the major party candidates, only Paul, Kucinich, and Gravel advocate such a complete withdrawal (Obama's on record for pulling out just combat troops, which leaves 50,000 logistics guys in the super-bases that we have over there, and Edwards is just now trying to pick up on this).  Of those three, only Paul has any meaningful support because of his stance against government power and dollar devaluation.

Basically, he's got a real shot of breaking up the Republican Party, and with his polling data if he actually does win the nomination he might just be able to take down Clinton (he's the only one that polls well head-to-head against her).

[ELD]

Since this is turning into a Ron Paul thread -

He seems to have Dean-level grassroots appeal.  How did that happen, anyway?

It has happened because he stands for what this country was founded on.  There are millions and millions of people who still believe in this.  People like myself who are disgusted with our world-wide empire, and the taxation at gun point that funds it.  The reality is, he's not just talking about Iraq specifically.  He's talking about our role in the world.  He doesn't believe we should try and police the world and force our "values" down their throats using violence.  Most people believe this to be true, and certainly don't want to pay for all this bloodshed. 

[Matt]

You don't have to go nearly as far as Ron Paul to find the media being goddamn ridiculous. Everyone here was alive for the 1997-1998 Clinton impeachment, and the 2000 election, and 2004 election, and the media are being Goddamn Ridiculous towards almost every candidate from both parties. I can't think of a single candidate who has gotten his or her fair shake from the big media outlets - maybe some of the lesser-known Republican guys like Tancredo.

It's not just who they choose to cover and who they ignore. There's enormous problems even of the coverage they do - refusing to ask the right questions, asking the wrong questions, and just general disrespect for the intelligence of both their subjects and their audience.

Note to everyone, please keep this discussion about the media, and not about promoting politics; otherwise, it gets shut down pronto.

[LotusHead]

I get much of my initial news from trolling www.DrudgeReport.com (check it out at least once if you haven't). It's just a site with links to other headlines.

One interesting thing that happened dealt with RadioHead's new album.  The headline and article basically say more than half of the fans chose to pay nothing for the new CD (RadioHead got stiffed by fans, etc). Basically, about 60% chose to pay nothing.

What "I" noticed was that 40% of the fans chose to give RadioHead some money for their work (support the artists) when they didn't have to.  How nice!

[Bram]

He doesn't believe we should try and police the world and force our "values" down their throats using violence.

I recently attended a lecture by Victoria de Graza, who wrote a fantastic book called Irresistible Empire that deals with how this has been happening thoughout the last century, but that violence (or even a clash of ideologies) was not even the primary means. Rather, the export of american consumerism, a sort of "cultural imperialism", was.

U.S. innovation treated foreign territories as extensions of domestic markets. While Old Europe's bourgeois culture emphasized class differences and focused on the luxury of aesthetically pleasing goods, American consumer capitalism concentrated instead on mass-produced items that appealed to the middle-class consumer. By the end of the 20th century, European markets had embraced American consumerism to such an extent that social equality came to mean the ability to participate in mass consumer culture—as it does, she argues, in the U.S. She places the U.S.'s final triumph in 1986, when the first McDonald's in Italy opened next to the mosaics of Rome's Spanish Steps.

Note that, even though this has introduced a whole new array of problems, I would not say that this was necessarily A Bad Thing. And it is important to acknowledge the role of the media in general - and perhaps US news channels such as CNN in particular - in promoting the American consumerist lifestyle and standards of living.