Why is the "Media" controlled by profits?
I keep seeing posts where people are blaming the "mainstream media" for not picking up on major points and stories that appear only in webblogs. They are also blaming them for not digging to the truth anymore or only writing soft stories that just scratch the surface. To quote Will Pitt
Honesty and tenacity (and for that matter, the working class) seem to
have taken backseats to the sort of 'snappy news', sensationalism,
scandal-for-the-sake of scandal crap that sells. This is not a uniquely
Tribune or even newspaper industry problem: this is true from the
Atlanta mixing rooms of CNN to Sulzberger's offices in Times Square.
Profits: that's what it's all about now.
I guess my question is why are these practices and ideals being cultivated in this country? So many people seem outraged but very little seems to change as the machine plows onward. It has to be getting it's fuel from somwhere, and please don't tell me it's shareholders. I feel that a media backlash is emminent.
Meanwhile Bush critisized Putin of his control over the media...
This is one of those issues that is partly
a result of us facing a Cultural Myth. We used the IDEA of a free and er...journalistic press...to contrast ourselves with the enemy. We talked about how in RUSSIA or CHINA there wasn't FREEDOM and, by extension, truth being transmitted to the people.
The problem with this is it never was all that true. We may have had MORE freedom and journalism (i.e. transmittion of truths) but we were never all that sparkly clean about it. We've had yellow journalism, corporate manipulation of news, etc...for about as long as Newspapers have been around.
Look to the pamphleteer Tomas Paine...I love his work, but he was purely agenda driven, using a great deal of hyperbole to advance his political view. Go back and watch Citizen Kane...you'll see it sharply exposed there as the Rich manipulate the press (well own it and direct it...not all that hidden of a manipulation) for political and profit ends. Heck, even Mr. Smith goes to Washington has a great scene showing how the papers were used to advance the interests of TPTB.
In other words, our media has always been in the pockets of, and advancing the economic interests of, the owners of those media outlets. That shouldn't really be suprising to us since we have no codified expectation for what the media SHOULD DO...we only have the myth and expectation that they ARE doing something that is objective and truth seeking.
It doesn't mean it can't be better...it was, for a while, when we tried have a Fairness Doctrine to just keep things balanced out a bit. But with the very deliberate death of that, and the FCC's promotion of Media consolidation we're seeing (finally) that Corporatism sees Media exactly like every other industry...something to be consolidated, and promoted for maximum profit...nothing more.
LIBERAL: If the word bothers you, then you don't know what it means.