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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Previous item was cut and pasted from a Dallas Morning News blog posting by Dallas Morning News Assistant Editorial Page Editor Michael Landauer.
politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/1208/Obama_to_press_youre_having_fun.html?showall
December 01, 2008
[...]
In his fourth press conference in eight days, Obama took questions from six outlets: Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, New York Times, Tribune, and CBS.
Fox News still hasn't been called on in the five post-election press conferences. Each of the other networks -- NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN -- have had two questions a piece.
[...]
- - Michael Calderone
What this is is a direct result of the wholesale purchasing by large corporate interests of what WAS ONCE our much vaunted free press.
A freedom maintained not by force of law as much as the multiplicity of strong, independent voices vying for Attn, and who's legitimacy rested on getting the story out
Once ACNE became the norm, the reasons for "news" changed dramatically.
The function of ACNE is NOT reporting the news accurately or in a timely manner rather,
News from the POV of the corporate mindset is part of the mix of "product" that has been purposely doctored and altered as needed to MAXIMIZE the profit potential.
Corporations see truthfulness and honesty as merely aspects of "news" that can be altered at will to increase the marketability of said news.
That being the case "full disclosures" are seen as "party poopers, negatives" that can be ignored when the "excitement" a story can generate is higher without that.
And having "experts" testify "impartially" does add so much weight to the "propaganda news" promulgated by ACNE.
This will NOT change until the "corporate mindset" is removed wholesale from our media, and "true independence in terms of reason to report the news" becomes the mainstay again.
Until then we're going to see this sort of behavior over and over again.
OH and to ensure the "media" never gets in the pocket with our military again, a law needs to be passed FORBIDDING THE EMBEDDING of REPORTERS FOR ANY REASON AMONG MILITARY STAFF AND PERSONNEL - NOT EVEN FOR PERSONAL SAFETY of said NEWS MEDIA PERSONNEL
Honesty, accuracy and truth are the first victims of this sort of policy.
IN allowing embedding, reporters became beholden to the military they were supposed to cover honestly.
It's very easy to ignore wrongdoing on the part of someone who is keeping you alive and regularly saving your life in a dangerous war zone, or giving you great inside information thanks to all barriers disappearing between media and military.
You only need to look at the headline to know the byline. Glenn "Everything's a Conspiracy" Greenwald still doesn't know how the world works. Even as we ask Republican's to look at how conservatism has failed, some liberals (their self-deceit can be summed up in one word - "progressive") still can't undertand that their ideology failed a long time ago. This General BM story is a non-story. The retired general with numerous ties to the military-industrial complex happens to be entertaining. END OF STORY. Aren't there real crimes to report on, conficts of interest that matter. Just because the NYT considers this a story does not mean it really is. NBC is competitor to the NYT, and that paper still hasn't admitted their own culpability in the Iraq War. Anyone who still believes that TV "journalism" is, or should be, anything more than a way to sell advertising is stuck in a past that never really existed in the first place. It cost lots of money to make TV news, and that cost needs to ensure big rewards or the effort just isn't worth it. It is silly to expect a private sector industry to behave like a government accounting office. Grow up.
that came up earlier.
Glenn seemed to indicate that as bad as leaving media to its own uncontrolled efforts at consolidation and corporate and political cross-over, any state efforts would only make things worse.
If that's what he was saying, then I'm not sure I agree with that. The government sure is a cesspool, but that's all we have at the moment, and there are things it has done decently in terms of regulation. Leaving aside the fact that corporate lobbying tends to get rid of much of effective oversight and regulation (but not all of it), and while we're waiting for Adnoto to get his revolution going, we may only have the federal government to turn to in terms of ameliorating the media's inherent shittiness.
I'm not talking about regulations that prevent or limit consolidation. That's another conversation. What I am proposing is the idea of regulatory oversight in the same vein as the kind that banks operated under until the end of the Glass Steagal Act. Such acts would limit certain interests and businesses from having a stake in national level media--nationally circulated newspapers, periodicals, and cable and network television and syndicated radio.
Its a pipe dream of course. But I think it might be a place to put energy in terms of advocacy. Someone here mentioned that in a regulated media environment, there would be no profit motive for individuals or corporations to purchase or start media. But looked at another way, it would limit the size and scope of media, creating a more diverse and regionally based market pursuing niches--such as specific politics, economy, etc. This is already happening anyway, and media has become a losing proposition in the last few years, especially network and print, except for those that have already gone after those niche markets [Politico comes to mind, though I don't necessarily endorse it] and are electronic only. The Politico is interesting because it has actually reversed the current business model of creating a websit to hawk your paper. The Politico's limited run and sporadically released paper is branding for its website
Perhaps, one place to put efforts would be in the aftermath of the coming media collapse. One lesson to be drawn, at least in print media, is that the more papers consolidate, the less competitive and profitable they become.
The restructuring would focus on smaller, more focused media companies with little consolidation and no interest cross-overs. This would probably kill print. Oh well.
Anyway, now that I've written this, the question, who will freakin read it? Oh well, more crap into the ether I suppose.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
