Elizabeth Edwards has had it with the “shallow†media coverage of the presidential race, which she had the rare opportunity to observe as an insider during her husband’s run. “Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel,†she wrote in the New York Times.
She concluded: “If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie ‘Network’ but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can — as voters — do ours.â€
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HERE-HERE ! It is even more important in this two second sound bite culture that the media is as factual and unbiased as possible. The voters are better informed on the way a Candidate combs their hair than on what the plans are for this country. We have a better idea about those that are somehow associated with a candidate then we are the candidate themselves.
But the question remains is the media simply reflecting what we want to focus on or are they trying to steer us towards one candidate over another? We now know that Hillary does not know how to operate a self-serve coffee maker. But what is the foreseeable effect of her economic plan? We now know that Mc Cain’s plan for Iraq is to stay the course. But is his plan truly to just follow the current course or does he have a plan to follow up once the current plan has ran its course? We know that Obama attended a church where the pastor had on occasions made statements we did not like. But what would Obama do about the housing crisis?
Do we now know the only things that we are interested in, or are these the things that the media thinks we can understand? I do not worry about the bunch on this blog, we are informed and at least exposed to other insights and opinions. But the rest whom do not go in depth have only the two second sound bites to make a decision comes November. They would now know not to hire Hillary as a coffee shop waitress, but what do they know about her as President? Is a vote for Mc Cain really another four years of Bush? Or would it be that best of all worlds solution to Iraq? We have a better idea of whether we would want to attend Trinity church then if Obama would lead this country to a better nation.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE! I have found good balanced coverage on PBS but nowhere else.
God I totally agree.
Elizabeth Edwards is right in diagnosing the problem.
She’s wrong in offering the solution she does, however.
“The press needs to do their jobs.”
The media is absolutely doing their jobs . . . their only job is to generate income through advertising, and that means delivering eyeballs for advertisers.
The problem is the system itself, “news as a commodity to be sold,” rather than the way the press chooses to do its job.
Until news is no longer produced by for-profit corporations run to serve the needs of corporate advertisers, we will continue to get the crap that we get . . .
Noam Chomsky once cut out all the ads in The New York Times Sunday editon and place them end-to-end and side-by-side.
They covered like 100 square feet.
“Deliever eyeballs to ads” is the media’s only purpose. Never forget it.
I’m also sick of the partisian tabloid campaign coverage…I just want facts about what the candidates ideas are and what they’re planning to do if elected…nothing else.
It seems to me that election coverage has turned into the same kind of celebrity gossip garabage that the media often passes for news.
I agree about PBS 1000% Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill seemed to have the coolest heads that don’t lean towards either side. But I don’t think that voters have been doing a very important part of their job. Learning and practicing critical thinking skills so that they can continue to ask: GEE, is this BS? Even the opinions that they like. ESPECIALLY the opinions that they like.
Just make it mandatory for Newspapers to go back to the old Linotype days. That would slow down the production of exploitive news.
Heh, no kidding reg. I’ve actually run a linotype. And it aint easy. When I was in the newspaper biz some thirty years ago, we had an old guy who still ran the linotype. That guy could SPELL anything.
Which was good for me at the time. I’m STILL spelling challenged!
But I guess that’s not news to anyone who reads here.
I read a bunch of H. L. Mencken quotes this morning. Whether you agree or disagree with him and his philosophy his quotes still ring true almost a hundred years later.
“All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.”
H. L. Mencken
More of his quotes:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/H._L._Mencken/
Who would run it if it was not for profit?
The government? No WAY!
Let them be for profit, its the American people who are buying the crap.
“ksfarmgrrl” shares –
“…an old guy who still ran the linotype. That guy could SPELL anything.”
Ain’t it the truth?!
Mumblety-mumblety years ago I was a paper bow, and while waiting for our papers to come out of the press, I got to know this old guy who ran the linotype.
It was the absolute blue-collar job. He never ever admitted that he processes any of the stories and editorials he’d type-set. He used to talk about the day AP style decided it was one word: “Vietnam” rather than “Viet Nam.”
It’s kinda like the guy who know A above Middle C is exactly 440 cycles-per-second, but can’t read music.
I was a victim of Phonics. In 2nd grade I handed in a test with the header: “Fonix.” Three days’ detention.
My Dad was just the opposite. He could spell anything. He seemed to sense whether it was a word based on the Greek or the Latin or the Sanskrit… and applied the language rules’s to correctly spell the English version.
He tried to tutor me but it was like explaining Bach to an Airedale. I was impressed by the lesson but just couldn’t get it.
Concur with Elizabeth, but do not concur with the views expressed so far.
As a “member” of the media, let me tell you what has happened. This new generation of journalists is about one thing: calling attention to themselves. Facts, statistics–hell, even spelling and grammar–are an obstacle. Look at that headline box on the front page of today’s Eagle. What two-year-old strained his or her brain to put that together?
“The media is absolutely doing their jobs . . . their only job is to generate income through advertising, and that means delivering eyeballs for advertisers.
The problem is the system itself, “news as a commodity to be sold,” rather than the way the press chooses to do its job.
Until news is no longer produced by for-profit corporations run to serve the needs of corporate advertisers, we will continue to get the crap that we get . . .”
I don’t agree with Capn much, but he’s exactly right. However, if news is not to be produced by “for profit corporations,” just who will produce it? Any suggestions?
The fact of the matter is that media IS a commodity to be sold, just like nearly everything else. Ultimately the enemy, of course, is us. We WATCH this crap, and watch the advertising. Media, like any other product, responds to what consumers buy.
It’s just easier to blame someone, anyone, else.
In the age of the information economy, you need to own the information or the means of distributing the information. Or both.
Case in point–the truth about the DTV conversion isn’t being told in the media–and the Eagle doesn’t want you to know.
I sent an email to their consumer reporter, giving information to the fact that only 8 of the 14 television stations in Wichita will be allowed to go digital on 2/17/09.
She said I had to contact the entertainment reporter. I called Denise Neal, who told me I have to speak with Lori Linenberger.
I promise not to hold my breath waiting for her to return my phone call.
Back in Lincoln’s day, Politicians gave four hour speeches, and newspapers printed them in their entirety. Today we’re lucky to hear a ten-second soundbite on the evening news. Surely there’s a happy media somewhere between!
“Who will run the news? any suggestions?”
Yes, gov’t subsidized news agencies that get their money no matter what kind of stories they run–the BBC is a perfect example.
When you want to find out about the massive corruption in Iraq, for example, the only place you can find it is the foreign press.
“Ultimately the enemy, of course, is us. We WATCH this crap, and watch the advertising.”
I disagree. A cable channel brought Phil Donough back a few years ago, and then cancelled him.
Bad ratings? Not at all. He was too liberal for the company execs.
Meanwhile, Fox News is run by the Reagan-Bush Smear Master, Roger Ailes, and has as its paid shills his younger disciple, the excerable and odious KKKarl Rove.
It’s not what we watch. It’s what they let us watch.
“Too liberal for the company execs.”
Balony.
The company execs care about one thing - profitability. Period. They’d broadcast Lenin himself, from the grave, spouting the Communist International creed, if it would get sufficient ratings and make a tidy profit. They fired Donahue, I have no doubt, because they thought other programming was more profitable.
Fax broadcasts it’s “bias” (no more than the rest, just the other way) because the saw a niche for it that would be profitable. And they were right (pun sorta intended).
In the private sector, profit always wins out over ideology.
And the LAST agency that should control media is gov’t. Gov’t money ALWAYS brings gov’t control. You have more faith in gov’t than I do; I have nearly none, no matter which party holds the White House &/or Congress. If it can be corrupted, gov’t will corrupt it. It’s fundamental human nature.
Coming from the woman married to Mr “Oops, I just mussed my new manicure…drat,” that pronouncement seems more than a little ironic.
They fired Donahue, I have no doubt, because they thought other programming was more profitable.
Well, that’s always the ultimate criterion, but they specific reason is that the other networks “were waving the flag at every opportunity,” and Donahue had the nerve not to fall into lockstep.
http://www.fair.org/activism/savage-donahue.html
And we think it can’t happen here. Ha! It did.
Mr.C, is of course, correct (and the DTV issue blackout, disturbing enough on its own, serves to remind of us other chilling things left unreported–I know numerous people who know nothing about either the “torture meeting” or the paid-off “consultants.”
By the way: in my youth, the Tulsa CBS affiliate had a reporter who was, basically, a moron. He best claim to infamy: a “special investigation” on UFOs which, if I recall correctly, uncritically parroted the claims of the UFO cult industry (something the History channel, unfortunately, has also done recenrly).
About 7 years later, I saw him on as an anchor on CNN Headline News. A pleasant voice, a good delivery, nice hair. Hey, what’s not to like?
Cap’n,
“It’s not what we watch. It’s what they let us watch.”
It still feeds off ratings, whether it’s Pox, CNN or CBS. The ratings determine the ad prices, and the ad prices determine the profitability. You don’t have to be a slave to big media; Cox channel 204 is BBC, and a host of others, up to and including including an English edition of Al Jazeera are available online. Read it all, and somewhere between the various lines you’ll find the truth. Pointedly don’t watch what isn’t and they’ll get the message right in their bottom line!
In some ways I think it started with USA Today. We became lazy - we wanted our news in short easy-to-read snippits. Preferably with words containing no more than two syllables.
Where I worked once they brought in a writing coach to teach us how to write reports. She harped on what she called a “fog index” - it was supposedly an indicator of how easy/hard it was to understand the writing. Mine was consistently high (hard). I did a little digging and found that this index represented the grade level of the reader - she wanted it below 10. I balked - pointed out that my audience should be able to read at a level of 16-20.
Newspapers target about 8 or less. Television even lower. This all represents more of the dumbing down of the public.
bth,
When I worked for the Eagle, we were told to make the stories readable by an average 12 yr old, the age at which they wanted to start snagging a regular readership that would continue on into adulthood. That’s not exactly “dumbing down.”
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