Background music in politics is wrong.

It seems all the political documentaries you see out there advertise that they have "the truth". And of course, im sure that the people selling their political documentaries really believe this. I myself do feel that these people are telling you the truth. They are not lying to you. To blatantly lie to your audience will definitely end your career in making documentaries that will actually sell. So why do I feel that these documentaries which do in fact tell you the truth are misleading?

First of all, i'd like to talk about an issue that was brought up in, well, a documentary! It is called, "Patriocracy" I believe. This particular documentary really points out what ive noticed in political discussions on television for awhile. There is a particular scene in patriocracy that points out how two different new channels discuss the exact same issue. If you watch Keith Olberman, for example he will tell you the truth, but what happens is he tells it to you along with his personal opinion! Then if you watch Sean Hannity he will report the same exact news, but along with his personal opinion. What happens is you don't get the news. You get commentary ON the news. Your being diverted away from the real issue and the focus is placed on a personal opinion. If one wants to become informed on the news, why must you also hear the opinion of the person reporting it to you, and at the same time have it given to you along with comedy. Why must you also have people brought into the show who are either praised for agreeing with the individual running the show, or smeared for disagreeing with the individual who runs the show? Cant we just get the facts?

In Patriocracy, another very important point was made: We have a very bad diet in the country when it comes to news. News is like a restaurant anymore, you can get it seasoned and flavored however you like. If you like tons of sugar and a particular seasoning you can go to the restaurant that serves it to you that way, or you can go to the restaurant that serves it the exact opposite way. These aren't the exact words, no, but the concept is the same. And they did use a restaurant analogy as well.

So what is wrong with these methods of reporting the news? What is said in Patriocracy, is that these individuals are not themselves doing the work it takes to go out and get the news. And they most certainly are doing more than just reporting it by the way the comment on it. So what your getting is not news, it is "political commentary" or "entertainment". If this is what your going to watch all the time for news its like eating a bad diet of pop, candy, and chips. You get all the flavor you want, but none of the nutrition. Nutrition being the bare unbiased facts so that YOU are allowed to come to the conclusions yourself. It is bad very bad for the country when you have people listening to someone all the time who has already come to the conclusions FOR them!

Now, back to the topic of documentaries. They are much the same thing, someone has examined the bare facts, the "real news" and they report it to you based on their own personal conclusions! They take the facts and spice them up and season them so that you will get a particular audience that loves to consume the news that way. Not only are they doing this but they do much worse, especially when they add BACKGROUND MUSIC to the documentary.

To be honest the very reason I just had to write this article was because of the fact that I watched a documentary today, and sure enough I had once again heard background music playing as the story was told. Now as I listened to the scary music along with the scary message that our country is doomed, I began to want to believe it. Took me some time to catch myself and remember how much emotion is actually being implanted into my from the simple fact that there was a particular kind of music in the background. Why do we need to hear music that gives you the feeling that we are all doomed as certain pictures are being pushed into our faces that tell us we are in trouble?

Background music along with pictures and scenes being edited and strung together to pull at our feelings is NOT truth! All it is is emotion. No of course your probably not being lied to. But you are being pushed to come to the same conclusion based on the facts, rather than just being given the facts. You do not need background music to tell the truth, you do not need to edit and string scenes together. You cannot tell the truth by telling people some of the facts, but leaving out others or by bringing more attention to the facts that you like than the ones that you do not like.

If you really think about it its really amazing how good background music is at doing this sort of thing. Be honest with yourself for a moment, when have you really truly even noticed that background music is even being played in a documentary or a political commentary show? When have you really noticed that these shows are more than likely editing and stringing things together much like they do in movies created purely for entertainment? Background music has a very powerful effect on the mind. And so does editing. When you string together a scene where you have one photo or video after another of a bunch of starving poor people and on top of that play sad music you are implanting feelings into your audience. This is wrong, and even if it is trying to get people to sympathize with starving poor people. No one has a right to coerce someone into thinking a certain way about something. If someone really truly doesn't care about the poor, or about someone's death or suffering then they have every right to not care. If someone does care about the poor and starving individuals there is no need to stir up their feelings and force them to feel even more sad about it than they would without the background music and the editing.

Music is entertainment. It stirs up our emotions, that's why you hear it when your watching an action film. It exaggerates the feelings that you would feel if it was not there. I wonder how much fun it would be to watch an action movie without slow motion scenes were the main character(who is made invincible by the author of the script) is dominating his opponents along with the sound of music. Makes a lot of young guys want to be just like that. Problem is they forget to recognize that in real life there's no script, background music, or slow motion in real life. And being a bodybuilder like the actor who played that role doesn't make you any more likely to survive when your in a gang, fighting crime, or fighting a war. Try making an action movie without background music, without all the fake recorded sound effects for modern weapons, without the bodybuilder actor who works out for a living, and without the slow motion scenes and what do you get? A very boring show. Who wants to eat a cookie that doesn't have the sugar added to it?

I think its a serious problem that these methods of stirring up our feelings are being used to give us the facts, AND the conclusion. Someone else's conclusion of course. No one wants the facts, they want the sugar coating to go along with it. As a result, we end up with all these political factions that we have today that are all seasoning their sugar coated facts in the way they prefer it and selling it off to us all. So now we have very few people who are actually coming to conclusions, there having someone else feed them their conclusions because its the flavor they like.