A few words in praise, kinda, of the media

This was inspired by Writer's comments on a thread started by jaysunb:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x730449

While you may disagree with the tone and/or the substance of the remarks, I think they bear some consideration.

Our perception - well, my perception - is generally that the MSM are the enemy, just as much as the crooks in power in Washington, just as much as the feebs who post their pre-chewed, regurgitated, regressive talking points at Frei Republik, just as much as the Corporate Fascists who have redefined the word Citizen to mean Consumer and redefined Consumer to mean Chump.

That perception is faulty.

Writer describes the media as a "large, complicated, diverse group of people". That description of course works equally well to describe Democratic Underground. I don't like to paraphrase another poster's thoughts, but I think this is an essential thing to consider. This is not a monolith we're dealing with. It's much more complicated and nuanced than that.

Certainly there's a distinction to be drawn, when discussing the media, between courageous little guys like Al-Jazeera or the editorial page of the Madison Capital Times, and craven giants like Fox or the Washington Post. But all media outlets that could reasonably be considered "mainstream" have a commercial agenda. They want to sell papers, or they want to attract viewers, or they want their websites to be "sticky".

Thus, there's always a tendency for these outlets to try and anticipate what their consumers want. If the OJ Bronco chase glued millions of eyeballs to TV screens, it's only logical that the next ephemeral celebrity crime story will get even more saturation coverage.

Hell, Writer says it much more succintly:



The moral here, I think, is that we have two choices:

1) Tune out the media. Many of us have done just that, completely or at least to the point where we don't check to see what breathless stories about nail fungus Paula Zahn is offering up, but will try to catch Randi Rhodes if she's guesting on the program. Fewer readers, fewer viewers, boycotted sponsors: all these things will force the mainstream media to react.

or

2) Exercise our critical faculties, and by that I don't mean ranting about every sin of omission, every subtle ideological slant perceived or real, given to the way stories are covered. Approach everything with scepticism. And provide polite but firm feedback when mistakes need to be pointed out, through LTTEs, emailed comments on TV segments, and so on. A vigorous, impartial Free Press is not a luxury. It's a vital component of a living democracy.

Many of us opt for the Internet not only because it helps remove filters from the truth, but because it is - still, for now - participatory democracy at work. To whatever degree our participation is possible with the MSM, it needs to be exercised. Without that participation, change will not occur.

I don't want my news to have a right-wing bias. Nor do I want it to have a left-wing bias. I want facts, information, reality. I can make my own judgments. I can take commentary with an ideological slant one way or the other, but I don't want it to masquerade as news reporting.

And a final thought, again referencing Writer's comments: here's to the 87 journalists martyred in Iraq. God rest their souls.

... is his best comment of all on the state of the news media today:

"The journalist who is on MY side is the journalist who is on NOBODY'S side."

And ain't THAT the truth?

:applause:

it's that mass media is less and less independent of other concerns. When GE makes big money as a defense contractor and its subsid NBC is touting a brand new war, guess what? It doesn't matter if you "tune out" or not. They'll make their projections by selling more jet engines, thanks very much.

But the "defense head of the hydra" needs to be addressed in other ways entirely. If NBC as a business unit of GE doesn't make money, GE will sell it, though sadly they'll sell it to another corporate behemoth.

I'm aware that the links between MSM and corporations are not something I dealt with above, and that increasing concentration of ownership is perhaps the biggest single issue influencing media bias.

But all that is for another thread.