Where have all the anchors gone?
Another example of the sad truth about the American press:
http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/content/news/brown0126.html
Aaron Brown, lamenting the lack of integrity in the news media, acknowledges what we all ought to already know. The media is not a public service. It is a paid group of professionals whose livelihoods are based on keeping our attention.
That task has become increasingly difficult. Americans change channels enough times during a half hour news program to make thumb pumping an aerobic exercise.
Apparently, to keep up with the fickle American viewer, news sources are forced to jazz up what they do report and present it according to the rules of entertainment rather than the guidelines of journalistic integrity.
Now we have reporters interviewing other reporters as a substitute for any legitimate news. We get two people with peripheal expertise (at best) debating the merits of public policy and candidates giving speeches designed specifically for soundbite-ability. We get a Cliff's Notes version of serious news and it's always interjected with analysis (because, as you know, we are too stupid to analyze it ourselves). This sound bite culture makes for misunderstanding and allows for spinning. The political polarization in this country is a direct result of a 30 second commercial marketing style of the news.
The evidence is in the fact that from blogs to newspaper articles, from water cooler chit chat to televised interviews, reporting invariable centers around the most trivial of details and the most irrelevant of side issues. Consider how much time was dedicated to discussions about New Orleans Mayor Nagin's "chocolate" city remark or the deluge of drama released when we discovered that Bill Bennett rolls the dice occassionally. And of course, we've all just got to know what is on the presdient's I-pod.
The American press has become a free market nightmare. Driven by profits and trying desperately to capture the biggest market, "anything that's fit to print" has taken on a whole new meaning.
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Okay so we now know that the media is biased. Remember Rather's apology? (it was him wasn't it..they all sound alike to me-lol) But for the same reason that we slow down to gaze at the accident, we listen to all the bad, over emphasized crap. A good decent story gets a blip on the screen and the bad, or angry, or scandalous, get several repeats and pictures, commentary, a play by play, (remember OJ?). It's no wonder that they keep upping the anty with BS, we fall for it when we don't change the channel. It is the same with domestic abuse, we watch the yelling and screaming and perhaps even a beating or two, but do we ever call the authorities? We simply watch. It is our apathy that allows them to continue. It is time someone stood up and said: Can I have both sides of the story please? And while I'm at it, I don't really care that Brad and Jennifer are no more, but it makes it into the news cast? That's not news that affects me! What I want from my news hour is an honest telling of the events of the day. Not someone else's overblown and exagerated, biased opinion. Lately, that's all I hear in the news, someone else's opinion. Give me truth. Give me the opportunity to chose whose side I'm on by displaying the straight up and down mirror, and not the one that makes me look fat in the mall so that I'll do and feel what they want me to.
Comment by Verity— 2006/01/27 @ 12:26 PM — (Reply)
Couldn't agree more!!! Your experience with trolls also validates what the article says about many blog commentors - that they are mindless gossips and rumor mongers!
Sadly the import of this article is in evidence in every major, 'western' nation. The 'news as commodity' began, I suspect, harmlessly enough,(or should I say aimlessly enough?) with minor outlets fighting ratings wars, but once the commodification process began it only steam-rollered. Now,for all intents and purposes, our "media" is an out-of-control ideological behemoth.
Hence the rise of blogging? Is not ye olde 'umble blog just a bullshit detector by default?
There are only a handful of major media owners Internationally. Forget "the anchors", the limitations on objectivity and truth go even higher and become more perfidious.
Brad and Jennifer? Jerry Springer?? Schlock-jocks abounding.
"The News" has become burdensome to many people, part of the interminable babble and 'white noise' that infects their lives. Not without design, I imagine. Keeping people ignorant is a full-time job, and a bit more complex than bread and circuses! Keep blogging soccer mum. Your thoughts are needed!
Comment by Gravelrash— 2006/01/28 @ 12:13 PM — (Reply)
I spent a bit of time several years ago researching online the media and who actually owned the various outlets. If my recall is good there were less than ten independent owners of all of the widely known media sources - radio, magazines, film companies, tv stations/channels, all given different names but all owned by the same few people (corporations). And as long as we reward them for entertainment value and not journalistic integrity - they'll keep putting out the same lousy product (and we'll stay the same ill-informed and easily misled citizenry).
Comment by Cate— 2006/01/28 @ 08:42 PM — (Reply)