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acroyearI'd have posted these in the particular thread, but LJ's marking that as "closed to read-only for maintenance" and I'm not in the mood to wait.
On the BBC's selection of Michael Moore and George Soros to do commentary on election night:
ok, i'll grant you that was also a plea for "ratings" rather than for fact or truth.
surprising considering that the BBC is state-supported through license fees...
but the Beeb has increasingly looked at "ratings" to make decisions even when ratings don't determine their income/budget the way it does in america through advertising rates...it certainly was the reason Dr. Who was finally pulled in 1984 and 1987...
and actually, consider this: the boob at the beeb (light drama dept) who finally killed dr. who, Michael Grade, because of "ratings" and "audience numbers", is the guy in charge at the Beeb today.
it might explain that selection, actually.
either that or the BBC aren't taking this election seriously. :)
My reply to his reply to me concerning media bias and my going on a rant here...
Ok, first off I apologize for letting emotions get to me again. There are personal reasons I hate this administration and everything they've done, not limited to my 5 months on the unemployment line as a direct result of the Iraqi war and the appointment of John Pointdexter to DARPA. Much as I try to stay somewhat objective, I fail to. With this administration, I probably always will. Had that Wormwood clone Karl Rove not been involved and McCain been nominated and eventually elected, the emotions that make these conversations tricky and painful would never have come about.
I realize (and recall from our in-person conversation) that the selection of facts to actually publish and report on and editorialize on in the first place is also a bias in and of itself.
But consider these 2 possibilities.
1) The power of a free press has ALWAYS been recognized as a check on incumbant power. It was written into the constitution specifically for that purpose. A press that does nothing but repeat what the government (or the ruling party) says is a press that does its readers and its nation an extreme disservice.
As such, members of the press (I use "press" to mean all news-type media) consider it their job and their constitutional (and to some, sacred) duty to point out the flaws in the system, the mistakes made by the people in charge, the potential for future problems that nobody else seems to want to talk about. If there are signs of corruption, the press MUST point it out. If there are things the White House public relations people aren't telling you about but you see it and think its important (yes, that's a bias, but a necessary one), then you MUST tell people about it. If people are lying in our faces, or to themselves, someone has to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
The press is a catalyst for change, and always has been, especially knowing that the use of the press enacted some of the most important changes in history, including the Reformation and the American Revolution. In France, they called the press the 4th Estate for a reason: in spite of having no official governmental power, they were considered equal in power to the other three (and in the end, more powerful than all three).
Sensationalism and bias have always been a part of that and always will be. If you don't like what you see, you have to say something about it in a way that will lead to change. If you don't, then nothing will change because nobody will see its importance.
Granted, its much easier to push for change than it is to push the idea that "everything's fine". The last time "everything was fine" to my mind was 1984, hence Reagan's overwhelming victory. Prior to that, it would have been 1956 (Ike's victory over Stevenson). Prior to that, 1944 (we were winning the war and we knew it).
But the truth to many people is that things are not fine and the country is headed in a direction that people dread. Change is needed and as such they will do what they need to do to push for that change. If that means negative stories against an incumbant, so be it.
Similarly, the press targetted Kerry much more during the primaries, but when the real desired effect is to have Bush out (because to many in the press, the Bush administration (Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and M. Powell most particularly) is a threat to a free press), then Bush becomes the more important target of attention.
That there are aspects of Bush's record, both in the White House and in Texas and the private sector that make him an easy target leads to my second observation:
2) The media is lazy. And broke.
Especially in this sound-byte driven, short-attention-span world, the agenda for press publication seems to be limited to what the API and Reuters newswires send out. If they don't see it, nobody knows its there.
That AP and Reuters have a liberal (or at the very least, anti-incumbant, in that they took on Clinton through Monica as if it was as important as Watergate) bias does lead to the impression that the whole of the press is liberal, but that's mostly because the majority of the whole press does little more these days than print up AP and Reuters stories.
Massive consolidation and cost-cutting have greatly reduced independent news coverage. When the St. Louis local news comes from a writers sweat-shop in Baltimore is just one symptom of this. The truth is few news houses can actually afford to have independent reporters actually looking stuff up anymore. What goes on the newswires goes on the page.
And rarely gets corrected later. (yes, this is also a problem)
This is even more important in the Web news world. CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and most other newspaper sites, and certainly news aggregators like Yahoo, need to keep eyeballs coming, meaning they need to continually have "new" content to keep eyeballs on advertisements. No one news source can write quickly enough, so the wire stories tend to go up unedited and oriented towards driving readership. again, this means that sensationalism and/or negative-to-the-incumbant stories get published and "everything's fine" stories.
Finally, because no other stories are known, all follow-up investigations by dedicated reporters tend to be on those stories because its what people now already know about so they have a potential audience.
Some stories point out that the original newswire story was wrong; others show the circumstances to be much worse than the newswire story could even hint at. A follow-on kind of bias is the degree to which the reporter thinks its one of these two cases, resulting finding all the facts that support that view and discard the contradictions. Yes this is a bias, but it happens on BOTH sides.
But the newswires themselves never apologize for their own mistakes. They correct them (eventually), but don't always make a note that its an amended/corrected story, and of course people already are talking about the incorrect one as if it was gospel truth (again this happens on BOTH sides). meanwhile, they're too busy wiring down the next story to really note their own flaws publically. Nobody pays for Reuters to apologize. They only pay for the next story to come along.
So the publication houses buy and print or read aloud the stories that the newswires print, and then do follow-up investigations only on those stories (and then send THOSE follow-ups down the wire so everybody else sees them), because that's the way the system has evolved to meet the financial requirements that the marketplace mentality has created. The market has created a world where everybody ends up seeing the same news because its the only thing the media can afford to show to stay in business.
Failure to do so would involve getting swallowed up into media giants that are the only companies that can do this sort of reporting on a massive international scale and still have that "ever-increasing profit margin" that makes Wall Street happy.
(side note, yes soapbox returns one last time: )
And when we end up with only 2 or 3 giant companies controlling all of the information that we see, we end up with a system where the FCC and Michael Powell has the capability for far more forms of censorship to "protect the American people". (His exact words, following his complaint about the Supreme Court restoring the consolidation restrictions)
So I say again, Mr. M Powell: Why do the American People need protection from what little free press and free media we have left?
On the BBC's selection of Michael Moore and George Soros to do commentary on election night:
ok, i'll grant you that was also a plea for "ratings" rather than for fact or truth.
surprising considering that the BBC is state-supported through license fees...
but the Beeb has increasingly looked at "ratings" to make decisions even when ratings don't determine their income/budget the way it does in america through advertising rates...it certainly was the reason Dr. Who was finally pulled in 1984 and 1987...
and actually, consider this: the boob at the beeb (light drama dept) who finally killed dr. who, Michael Grade, because of "ratings" and "audience numbers", is the guy in charge at the Beeb today.
it might explain that selection, actually.
either that or the BBC aren't taking this election seriously. :)
My reply to his reply to me concerning media bias and my going on a rant here...
Ok, first off I apologize for letting emotions get to me again. There are personal reasons I hate this administration and everything they've done, not limited to my 5 months on the unemployment line as a direct result of the Iraqi war and the appointment of John Pointdexter to DARPA. Much as I try to stay somewhat objective, I fail to. With this administration, I probably always will. Had that Wormwood clone Karl Rove not been involved and McCain been nominated and eventually elected, the emotions that make these conversations tricky and painful would never have come about.
I realize (and recall from our in-person conversation) that the selection of facts to actually publish and report on and editorialize on in the first place is also a bias in and of itself.
But consider these 2 possibilities.
1) The power of a free press has ALWAYS been recognized as a check on incumbant power. It was written into the constitution specifically for that purpose. A press that does nothing but repeat what the government (or the ruling party) says is a press that does its readers and its nation an extreme disservice.
As such, members of the press (I use "press" to mean all news-type media) consider it their job and their constitutional (and to some, sacred) duty to point out the flaws in the system, the mistakes made by the people in charge, the potential for future problems that nobody else seems to want to talk about. If there are signs of corruption, the press MUST point it out. If there are things the White House public relations people aren't telling you about but you see it and think its important (yes, that's a bias, but a necessary one), then you MUST tell people about it. If people are lying in our faces, or to themselves, someone has to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
The press is a catalyst for change, and always has been, especially knowing that the use of the press enacted some of the most important changes in history, including the Reformation and the American Revolution. In France, they called the press the 4th Estate for a reason: in spite of having no official governmental power, they were considered equal in power to the other three (and in the end, more powerful than all three).
Sensationalism and bias have always been a part of that and always will be. If you don't like what you see, you have to say something about it in a way that will lead to change. If you don't, then nothing will change because nobody will see its importance.
Granted, its much easier to push for change than it is to push the idea that "everything's fine". The last time "everything was fine" to my mind was 1984, hence Reagan's overwhelming victory. Prior to that, it would have been 1956 (Ike's victory over Stevenson). Prior to that, 1944 (we were winning the war and we knew it).
But the truth to many people is that things are not fine and the country is headed in a direction that people dread. Change is needed and as such they will do what they need to do to push for that change. If that means negative stories against an incumbant, so be it.
Similarly, the press targetted Kerry much more during the primaries, but when the real desired effect is to have Bush out (because to many in the press, the Bush administration (Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and M. Powell most particularly) is a threat to a free press), then Bush becomes the more important target of attention.
That there are aspects of Bush's record, both in the White House and in Texas and the private sector that make him an easy target leads to my second observation:
2) The media is lazy. And broke.
Especially in this sound-byte driven, short-attention-span world, the agenda for press publication seems to be limited to what the API and Reuters newswires send out. If they don't see it, nobody knows its there.
That AP and Reuters have a liberal (or at the very least, anti-incumbant, in that they took on Clinton through Monica as if it was as important as Watergate) bias does lead to the impression that the whole of the press is liberal, but that's mostly because the majority of the whole press does little more these days than print up AP and Reuters stories.
Massive consolidation and cost-cutting have greatly reduced independent news coverage. When the St. Louis local news comes from a writers sweat-shop in Baltimore is just one symptom of this. The truth is few news houses can actually afford to have independent reporters actually looking stuff up anymore. What goes on the newswires goes on the page.
And rarely gets corrected later. (yes, this is also a problem)
This is even more important in the Web news world. CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and most other newspaper sites, and certainly news aggregators like Yahoo, need to keep eyeballs coming, meaning they need to continually have "new" content to keep eyeballs on advertisements. No one news source can write quickly enough, so the wire stories tend to go up unedited and oriented towards driving readership. again, this means that sensationalism and/or negative-to-the-incumbant stories get published and "everything's fine" stories.
Finally, because no other stories are known, all follow-up investigations by dedicated reporters tend to be on those stories because its what people now already know about so they have a potential audience.
Some stories point out that the original newswire story was wrong; others show the circumstances to be much worse than the newswire story could even hint at. A follow-on kind of bias is the degree to which the reporter thinks its one of these two cases, resulting finding all the facts that support that view and discard the contradictions. Yes this is a bias, but it happens on BOTH sides.
But the newswires themselves never apologize for their own mistakes. They correct them (eventually), but don't always make a note that its an amended/corrected story, and of course people already are talking about the incorrect one as if it was gospel truth (again this happens on BOTH sides). meanwhile, they're too busy wiring down the next story to really note their own flaws publically. Nobody pays for Reuters to apologize. They only pay for the next story to come along.
So the publication houses buy and print or read aloud the stories that the newswires print, and then do follow-up investigations only on those stories (and then send THOSE follow-ups down the wire so everybody else sees them), because that's the way the system has evolved to meet the financial requirements that the marketplace mentality has created. The market has created a world where everybody ends up seeing the same news because its the only thing the media can afford to show to stay in business.
Failure to do so would involve getting swallowed up into media giants that are the only companies that can do this sort of reporting on a massive international scale and still have that "ever-increasing profit margin" that makes Wall Street happy.
(side note, yes soapbox returns one last time: )
And when we end up with only 2 or 3 giant companies controlling all of the information that we see, we end up with a system where the FCC and Michael Powell has the capability for far more forms of censorship to "protect the American people". (His exact words, following his complaint about the Supreme Court restoring the consolidation restrictions)
So I say again, Mr. M Powell: Why do the American People need protection from what little free press and free media we have left?
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Well, at least we can continue to communicate :-)
Date: 2004-10-29 10:30 am (UTC)Thanks for posting your responses here. I hope you'll copy them over to my entries when the porkchop hub is finally working again. You make excellent points and I agree with the principles you point out (though I might quibble over specifics smaller points. Hey - I'm a Libra. Gotta quibble). It is how to implement the principles of a free press, the concept of "watchdog", and fair reporting in this world of conglomeration and 24/7 news feeds that makes modern journalism and reporting so difficult.
The media's refusal to even acknowledge to the public the bias contributes greatly to the problem. After all, you can't fix it if you refuse to admit the problem. Here at work, bias is kept out or to a minimum by the story selection and review procedures we have in place. Our reporters do a damn fine job of monitoring themselves and each other. Even our analysis pieces maintain balanced of views and report mostly factual information. So the problem is not unsolvable.
Thanks for bring the "old" Joe back into the conversation. I can sympathize with what you went through and why you'd react as you did. Glad your personal economics are on an even keel for you and faireraven again.
Re: Well, at least we can continue to communicate :-)
Date: 2004-10-29 11:36 am (UTC)It happens on both sides.
While I will agree that more of the stations have a liberal bent than a conservative one, I think that both sides of this are equally guilty of claiming they have no bias at all.
Both the liberal and conservative stations and conglomerates need to acknowledge it. But like both of the presidential candidates, how many of them actually want to have to admit that it's possible they could make a mistake? Or for that matter, how many of them can actually see they're doing it?
The reason I believe there is a liberal slant to begin with (although I don't think I personally think it's as slanted as you think it is) is because traditionally conservatives have represented holding to traditional values and holding the course, while traditionally liberals have been the ones who want to change things. And as Joe pointed out, the media has always been the proponent for change. Not only because of the liberal view, but because change and sensationalism are news. Nobody ever really wants to hear that the world is exactly the same way it was yesterday. The more change or the more off the beaten track the daily news is, the more ratings it gets, the more it sells, and the more money they earn. So it actually is a natural direction that the news tends to go to anyway.
Personally, I think a whole lot of groups in this world would learn a whole lot about themselves if they could just admit who they are... To themselves as well as everyone else. That includes the news media, on both sides.
Re: Well, at least we can continue to communicate :-)
Date: 2004-10-29 12:00 pm (UTC)Yes, there are conservative media who are obdurate as well. However, the two main conservative news sources in D.C. (Fox News and the Washington Times) have both in the past freely admitted that their editorial slant/bias is to the right. I don't know of any liberal news source that has admitted a bias of *any* kind. (I don't count the recent attempted syndicated network of liberal talk radio since I am not counting *any* talk radio as a news source. They are opinion providers/commentators only.)
I find it difficult to believe that any legitimate news source cannot recognize what kind of bias they have. Not with as much scrutiny as goes on nowadays.
Re: Well, at least we can continue to communicate :-)
Date: 2004-10-29 03:15 pm (UTC)Sorry, just to come back to that momentarily...
You know how they say to look back four years and ask if you're in a better situation now than you were then?
Four years ago I was earning a whole lot more money for a job that had less responsibility than I do now. My own layoff occurred shortly after 9/11. While we own a house now, it's namely because I scrimped and saved one hell of a lot of money prior to having moved down here to begin with, and THAT became our downpayment. The only positive that's come out of all of this is that we have a lot more equity in our home now than we would have had otherwise... However, I was watching market forcasts the other day, and within the next two years those same equity projections may come back down to what they were two years ago... Or at least, down to a year ago. Home equity is meaningless unless someone is willing to pay for it. But as far as my own personal income goes, it's far less than it was when bush came into office.
I'm looking forward to the day I actually get paid what I'm worth again. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 10:34 am (UTC)