Slashdot Mirror
Tragedy, Media and Marketing
Magazine and newspaper critics -- like Liebling, Mencken and I.F. Stone -- once wrote bitingly and insightfully about the greed, hypocrisy and warped values of the people who ran conventional news organizations, and about how those traits affected media coverage. This criticism gave us some context with which to grasp and comprehend what we were reading and seeing. But as media became increasingly corporatized in the 80s and 90s, such critics vanished. Media criticism turned into celebrity journalism, with a growing focus on media moguls and TV superstars. Even greedy capitalists like Bill Gates were fawned over by the toughest reporters and critics, when they should have been paying more attention to his business practices.
Every now and then, however, an old and new media issue pops up. It's disingenuous for media gasbags to wonder why the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart from Salt Lake City gets tides of media hype while the kidnapping of 7-year-old Alexis Patterson from Milwaukee gets so little. We know why. The answer has been the same for years now, and only gets more clear with each corporate acquisition of a media property: modern media is about making money, and that depends entirely on selecting stories that entertain, titillate, blow up or confront.
Last week, CNN devoted a whole program to the mysterious process by which some tragedies -- the Death of Di to name one -- get staggering amounts of media coverage, while others -- like Mother Teresa's death the same week -- merit relatively little. CNN's high-minded panelists debated whether racism was the issue: Smart is a rich white kid, Alexis Patterson is poor and black. Is there a double standard? Others suggested Smart's parents were understandably working to promote media coverage, to involve more people in searching for their daughter. But this dichotomous coverage is familiar to Net veterans. Kevin Mitnick got as much media coverage in our time as Al Capone, even though he never killed anybody. Hacking gets vastly more media attention than assault or robbery, cyber-porn more than the newsstand kind. Media are always selective about what makes them hysterical.
It was striking to realize that none of CNN's panelists came close to the simple truth: media are market-driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven. Even the once-staid weekly newsmagazines are as likely as not to have movie stars on their covers, despite the number of important stories worthy of coverage. Cable channels, newspapers and newsmagazines cater to wealthy people -- no matter what color -- because those are the consumers advertisers want to reach. To some degree, this has always been true. But as more media have been taken over by massive corporations like AOL Time-Warner, Disney and General Electric, the process has vastly accelerated. News gets marketed just like cereal. Numbers rule. Ratings shape not only news coverage, but our very perceptions of the news. Such companies don't decide not to cover Alexis Patterson because she's poor and black. Profoundly pragmatic and opportunistic, they'd be happy to exploit blacks as well as whites, if the demographics worked. They don't cover Alexis Patterson's abduction because poor viewers in Milwaukee or elsewhere have nothing to do with ratings, ad revenue or profit margins. Blonde kids from wealthy families in Salt Lake City do.
Even so-called serious media like the New York Times and Washington Post are market-driven, focused increasingly on high-end consumer products spawned by digital technology, and on entertainment and controversy. The Times runs several weekly sections brazenly aimed at affluent second home buyers, wine connoisseurs and other high-end consumers. Stories about redecorating million-dollar cottages don't appear because they're newsworthy, but because they draw readers with money, thus advertisers with revenue.
The Elizabeth Smarts of the world will always trump the Alexis Pattersons. Modern media online or off, aren't steered by editors and producers making moral and creative judgments, but by business conglomerates, lawyers, analysts and market researchers. Their sole imperative: generate controversy (a la Monica Lewinsky), select stories that draw the most desirable readers and generate the greatest profits. This principle is evident in media coverage of computing and software as well, and has been for years. Stories about the Net invariably center on marketing -- what will make the most money, or what might be of interest to frightened and confused parents, rather than what is significant. Look how much coverage child pornography online gets, and how little coverage there is of truly revolutionary techno-stories, from gene mapping to AI. And most Americans have never even heard of open source, let alone had the chance to consider it's many implications. Intellectual property and copyright laws have been re-written, thanks to digital technology, yet these stories get sporadic and incomplete coverage.
Media debates about story judgment and ethics are often this hypocritical and disingenuous, mostly because critics and panelists aren't really free to speak the truth -- moral media died decades ago. From Princess Di to terrorism to kidnapping, stories grow in a hyper-information environment, one which promotes argument and hysteria and, increasingly, filters out the lives of poor, ordinary, or non-marketable people. Modern media takes stories and filters them through an increasingly sophisticated marketing machine.Online, blogs and small sites are freer than conventional journalists to set a broader agenda, but their audiences remain small and fragmented.
Thus, there's no mystery about why Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping gets so much more attention than that of other kids. The only mystery is how long it will take the media -- and more importantly, the public -- to understand and acknowledge the reality of their own new, intensely corporate, value system.
Thought I'd repost the article since it's been slashdotted:
"If only H.L. Mencken or A.J. Liebling were still around to weigh in on the kidnapping stories suffusing our media lately. Alas, they're not. They wouldn't even be able to find work these days. And too bad..."
Heh just kidding...
"Derp de derp."
You might want to read Chomsky.
I can't believe it's not lard!
Their sole imperative: generate controversy (a la a MS vs. Linux war which doesn't exist), select stories that draw the most desirable readers and generate the greatest profits.
How quickly changing one example makes that description fit this place to a t.
well said
Every now and then, however, an old and new media issue pops up. It's disingenuous for media gasbags to wonder why the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart from Salt Lake City gets tides of media hype while the kidnapping of 7-year-old Alexis Patterson from Milwaukee gets so little.
Do you live in Milwaukee? Have you ever been to Milwaukee? Do you realize that for the past two months (or however long she's been missing) it's been on the news almost every day in Milwaukee? There are flyers in most local businesses with her picture. There are tons of things in the paper.
I've never said anything, JonKatz, about your unwarranted rantings, but this is too far. Oh, and by the way, how did you find out about Alexis Patterson? Doing an internet search about missing kids in the recent past and running across some media coverage of the story?
Please...
Companies are out to make money!!
*Gasp*
The sky is falling!
This space intentionally left blank.
Neither of these missing children have been found yet, so I don't see what impact the that media coverage has had on the ultimate goal: finding these kids.
Now if Elizabeth Smart had been found after a single day of media-blitz coverage, you might have a case. But I'm afraid the facts once again disprove your argument.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Hacking gets almost no coverage in the mainstream media outside of the 8 second blurb about some devastating email virus every now and then.
The Mitnick story makes no ripples when two airplanes crash into each other over Germany and American bombs mistakenly take out a wedding party instead of our bearded foes.
The news and hype around hackers that you speak of is only visible in dark reaches of the Net like ZDNet and Slashdot. CNN, MSNBC, and the other Major internet news outlets relegate these stories to the Technology page where they rightly belong.
I have been pwned because my
Its always been this way, and it always will. I mean, is something really being reported if no one picks up the newspaper to read the report?
Isen't this akin to online journels whose editors pander to the Post 9-11, or Post Columbine mems ad nausium?
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Looks to me like Katz just got done reading "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News".
That book came out about the beginning of the year, and recieved quite a bit of press and publicity a few months ago. It's an insiders view at CBS of what makes news become news, and what doesn't.
From the Publisher
IN HIS NEARLY thirty years at CBS News, Emmy Award- winner Bernard Goldberg earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: objective, disinterested reporting...
Talks about what he believes to be "liberal bias", although I think Katz's description is better than the term Goldberg puts on it.
If you are interested in this topic, you may want to give the book a read.
-Pete
(affiliate link above...just so ya know.)
Soccer Goal Plans
People who are in businees to make money are trying to make money?
Now I could be wrong, but I always thought the product mass-media was selling was a captive audience to advertisers. Content is the bait used to get that product. Stop paying attention, and the product is gone. So, in theory, the content will change to get the product to return. Or in other words, stop watching/reading this shit, complain about it to the source and maybe if enough people do this, then the content they are giving away will change.
Just MHO
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
Something I've been kicking around for a while, and I'm neither pro nor against, so I'm wondering if anyone would like to think this through with me, is the idea of strict rules (either from the govt or some trade organization) regarding what can and can't be called 'news'. If i make my orange juice from concentrate, i have to tell people. If i manufacture my sparkling wine in brooklyn, i can't call it champagne. Perhaps there's a public good in someone saying, "it's not news if it's for-profit", or "it's not news if there's any commercials", or something like that.
It doesn't solve the problem, but it does highlight the phenomenon. Anyone?
god is just pretend.
Every weekday Howard Kurtz (author of Spin Cycle), runs a column in the Washington Post called Media Notes. He summarizes the reporting on big and small issues, and provides great context to the media in general. He wrote about the Elizabeth Smart / Alexis Patterson issue over a week ago. He's very balanced, so don't go expecting either side of the Crossfire type of approach. All in all, I highly recommend his column if you're in to this kind of stuff.
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
Just consider the hacking and porno scares and insane coverage of offspring companies like Microsoft and Amazon.
I'm not sure that I understand this statement. What makes Microsoft an offspring company? Or Amazon for that matter?!
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
The answer is as obvious as it is depressing
yes, the answer was obvious
and it was depressing that someone would spend a whole article writing about it
on a related side note... anyone ever watch CNN headline news anymore? That drastic stupid change they went through makes me want to shoot my TV.
Here's a real life example I've seen several times now:
"Hey, thanks for watching CNN Headline News! We'll leave you with music by 'Insert Lame Band Here' who just happened to stop by our studios to play for us"
Oh... and I bet they just happen to be signed by a AOL/Time Warner record label.
WTF is up with that. CNN Headline News used to be a somewhat reliable source of important news. Now they lead with how Britney Spears is starting her concert tour, and then 18 minutes into the half our, they mention a little blurb about bombing in Israel or something
Casual Games/Downloads
It was striking to realize that none of CNN's panelists came close to the simple truth: media are market-driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven.
Do you think CNN will admit that? The media loves its image of brave reporters going in to find the story that no one else will, but it all boils down to one thing: money. Remember, media (electrronic, dead-tree or otherwise) is a business like any other, out to maximize profit.
More viewers for CNN will mean more money for ads, cable fees, etc. So they'll get the sensational, demographically correct stories to attract them.
hey katz,
you should really read chomsky's "manufacturing consent" before writing an article like this.
I don't want to be here.
What a surprise. Katz says nothing particularly original .
If you're not white, christian, and upper middle class or higher in this country, very few will give you a headline when you turn up missing. If you're a poor black family and you get salughtered by a gang, the news media will not cover your death, beacuse "Black on black violence doesn't get viewers". The Elizabeth Smart incident is an example. What about the other missing children? I hate to be cynical, but it's not going to change anytime soon.
The Daily Show had an ABC reporter on discussing this very kidnapping, and she said that if the victim isn't pretty enough, or the footage isn't compelling enough, it will not get airplay. Jon Stewart pointed out the difference between TV and newspapers, that a newspaper will print a story on page 50 that is the lead for TV news. Lack of footage does not affect the importance of stories in the newspaper. I'm guessing that he would except The New York Post and all tabloids from that.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
out of how many thousands each year.
It's been suggested that one reason for the discrepancy in media coverage is the nature of the two cases. One little girl goes missing on the way to school IIRC, the other is taken from her home.
I don't know if I believe that necessarily, neither do I necessarily believe it's a case of black v. white or rich v. poor. All I know is, it seems the more content (TV, web, etc.) I get, the less actual information it contains. And above all else, the more I follow the news, the sadder the world seems.
Sigh. Can we get back to some good old-fashioned MS-bashing, please?I see Elizabeth Smart's mother organizing rallys and press conferences all the time. This isn't about race or money, it's about effort. When was the last time Alexis Patterson's mother held a press conference? Hell, when was the last time she put down the cigarette, actually got off the steps to her apartment, stood up, and got the message out to more people?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Almost every article I read about the Smart case includes some worthless information about the Smart family's house/estate. I keep wondering why is it important how much the house cost or how many bathrooms it has.
For once, Katz is on target.
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Agreed. It all comes down to the fact that newspapers/other media costs alot more to produce now than they charge, leaving the companies completely dependent on advertising. And we can guess where that might lead. Of course if they didn't spend all their bucks on speculative investments, color photos, and whiz bang infographics, they might actually have some money left over for reporting, and not be in this stitch. Call it survival of the fittest, or the stench of monopolies (what is it, something like 5 companies control essentially all the news and media outlets in the U.S....thats worse than the 7 oil companies [though i guess they overlap]), or even the fucking fascists, any way you cut it the comman man gets screwed. And the common stupid man gets it doubly.
Couple of days back US warplanes dropped a bomb on a marriage party in Afghanistan killing over 50. And there hasnt been more than a couple of columns in the western media about the whole story. Is it because their lives are not important as the ones who perished on 9/11. If its confirmed that US fscked up by dropping the bomb, would the 40 men,women and children get any justice as well ?
Also recently Salon had an article on US Military Contractors buying and selling under age girls in troubled areas in Europe (Bosnia etc.). Would any western news firm pick up this story and let the world know that the Army isnt full of people who would lay down their lives in the blink of an eye for freedom and against oppression ? In this post 9/11 world, I would suprised if that news story ever got out. MSNBC ran a story on this a few weeks back, but didnt touch on the Military Contractors aspect. And then we wonder why everyone hates US ?
Being rich, being powerful, being able to garner the most media coverage seems to be the only way now to live.
Around 1800 people lost their livelihood because of some assholes in Worldcom. Would CNN/MSNBC etc. care a fsck about those people. Nope, we linger upon the luxurious indulgences of the CEOS and CFOs, but doesnt care jackshit about the ordinary guy who got laidoff and now has to find a job to support his family.
Companies screw each other and the public over and over everyday. I just heard a story of the root cause of all this being blamed on Clinton and Ben&Jerry. The reason being, Clinton and his Govt mandating that a CEOs base salary should never be over 1 million, but doesnt impose any ceiling on the amount of stock he could receive. Which leads to cooking the books and then laying of hundreds of people because the company cant survive.
Its a shitty world out there folks. And its not getting better day by day.
Rapid Nirvana
NEWS = NEWS, Entertainment, Weather, Sports
I.e, all news is entertainment, weather or sports.
A fundamental differnce was the direction of deathtoll. Courtesy? Morale? National security? Whatever the reason, the full count of dead wasn't finally estimated until approximately one year later. A day after the attack, estimates ranged from 11 to 30 dead and dozens wounded, despite the sunken Arizona and the hundreds of sailors she entombed.
Seems to me during Sept. 11 and days following that the media was in some competition to outbid each other on the death toll. Macabre and demoralizing. Then the chutzpah of the media to paint such a gallant NYPD and NYFD men and women doing their best in a bad situation, as they, the media, continue to drive up the body count and crush morale. Sick.
Ironic that as I'd check to see what was going on in such a serious affair, I still got pop-up adds (*flash* *flash* X10.com *flash* *flash, 'Hey, I suppose they could have used those in UA and AA jets, eh?')
It's not the ones playing the violent computer games that worry me, it's the editors and directors who decide what to run on the toob and in papers, though papers tend to be far more tame. You'll know they're trying to uphold the same journalistic standards as TV when they put pictures of topless women between articles so they know you'll at least look at the page.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If you're digusted with the media, listen to NPR, they covered this story a few days ago
m ?s egID=145727
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/segment_display.cf
I think because they are federally funded they don't need the hype as much and cover real stories. Of course there I can't say if they would be biased towards the government, but better the the regular media monguls.
Elizabeth Smart's family is getting more coverage for two reasons:
1) The State of Utah activated their "Amber Alert" system (here's some information about that: Amber Alert). This is a system that involves the news media and requires them to interrupt all broadcasts with information about the missing child. The national media picked up on it.
2) The Smart family hired a PR firm to get the word out.
That is why there is so much coverage of the event.
One should be concerned whenever ANY child goes missing, anywhere in the country of any ethnicity or social background. Alert systems like the "Amber Alert" should be mandatory.
Why does a case like the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart get so much attention when others just as horrific get none at all?
Let us not forget that news has exactly one purpose: to sell advertising.
The real tragedy here is that we've got a pabulum-spouting geek who writes for a news source that can't even be bothered to spell-check headlines implying that H.L. Mencken or A.J. Liebling couldn't fill his shoes.
That makes me sad.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
So Jon, your conclusion that everyone is too afraid to say why the Elisabeth Smart case is probably true. But it has nothing to do with media conglomerates, wealthy people, or race (which you correctly discarded). It has to do with sex. What you were afraid to say is that the pictures of this little girl were perfect to entice audiences in a sex crime story. Sex sells, especially sex with little girls. And especially when there's violence involved. This is America, and sure there is corporate greed involved, but its method of exploiting the story is being glossed over.
I think I'll stop here.
Not to be off-topic - and let me stress that I'm not a Katz basher - but I got pretty much sick of this article right away. Why? Lets say I stopped reading right about here:
"Even greedy capitalists like Bill Gates..."
It seems that capitalism is wrong in america these days. Nobody is preaching socialism, but everybody is dissing capitalism. Yes, Bill Gates is a capitalist. But come to think of it, so am I. And so are almost all Americans. The real problem with Bill Gates is not that he's a capitalist, and not that he controls a monopoly (let me remind you that having a monopoly is not illegal), but that he illegaly uses his monopoly.
Just because Bill Gates was successful doesn't make him an eeeeevil greedy capitalist. Mind you, he's given billions to charities.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Katz claims that Smart's disappearance is being more heavily covered because wealthy professionals with kids, a coveted group for advertising purposes, are likely to be interested.
I don't understand how, if Smart were found tomorrow, anything would change about the motivations of the media folk who covered her apparent kidnapping. It neither proves nor disproves anything about Katz's main point.
One death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic.
I agree with you completely I have thought that the media (which shouldn't even be called Fair and Balanced) has done more damage to our country by the stories they pick then anyother area of pop culture. The only thing in their defense is that this has been going on since the days of yellow journalism and probably long before that. If it is truely supply and demand then obviously this is what the ignorant masses want and the non ignorant slashdot crowd :) will have to resort to basement web publishing journalists. Very good article and excellent point
***I GOT NUTHIN***
While this article is very true, what else can we do? Do we give control of the news media to the government? Not in my lifetime, I hope. We criticize other governments, ie. Cuba and Afghanistan for filtering news and distributing the propaganda they want their citizens to hear. Do we want to be subject to this more than we already are?
Do we make news organizations strictly non-profit groups? Would this work in the T.V. and radio markets? If the stations were making no money running news, would they bother, or just re-run Seinfeld episodes so we could hear about "nothing". Easier to do in the print and internet larket, but still not easy. Those entities need to make enough money to keep the presses running and the data lines live.
In the end, news as a free market entity means that we can all get it. If it weren't for advertisers in a newspaper, the cover price would be quite significantly more than $.50 or so. It may be manipulated by corporate America to a certain extent, but it is also flowing with idealistic people that want to tell us something. Until we can come up with a cheap system that doesn't need sponsorship or government intervention, this might be the best system on the planet.
It's just ridiculous how much "news" time is devoted to following one story that really isn't remotely important on a national scale. Obviously any kidnapping/murder is a tragedy, but isn't there anything more significant to devote hours and hours of breathless reporting to? JonBenet Ramsey, Chandra Levy, whoever this little girl is -- these stories are not news, they're human interest.
You could argue that 24 hours of several different networks is just too much time to fill with real news, but surely they could use it for more in-depth reporting on real issues. Maybe they could actually educate the public somewhat. Didn't that use to be their job? News should not be entertainment, except in the sense that learning stuff is entertaining.
I'm not saying they shouldn't have a network or two just for little white girl stories if that's what people want to watch, but there should be SOMEBODY other than public radio/tv to provide actual news and important information.
It's like radio stations - okay, have a few top 40s stations. But can't we have a couple that play quality music too? Other than public radio?
I guess these are just ends that the free market goes to automatically, but it sure is depressing. There must be some way to correct the problem without introducing bigger ones.
The inherent fault of Bernard Goldberg's book is his accusation of "liberal bias" which is tragically narrow-minded (not to mention ironically partisan). Journalists who push certain issues, such as campaign finance reform etc., don't do so under the banner of anything other than:
1. Saving their ass.
2. Getting a promotion.
3. Making money for their organization/themselves.
To say that it's in the name of "liberal bias" is to resort to silly conspiracy theories that only undermine what should've been the point of this book (though if it was the point, it would've had to have been written by someone else): self-interest.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I also used to watch CNN headline news a lot, sometimes for hours at a time, when they used to carry news.Now I never watch it, it's much more about advertising whatever will be on CNN later and promoting whatever films CNN's sister companies happen to have in the box office at the moment. Sometimes the only way to tell what's 'news' and what's a commercial is because the ludicrous graphics disappear during commercials.
Fortunately TIVO allows me to record BBC news and get a news fix whenever I need it.
...but everytime I read through the description of a slashdot news story and do not get what the story is about, I can be sure that JonKatz was the author.
No flaming intended and nothing personal, but just now I read through it, continued surfing and suddenly I thought "hell..what was that story on slashdot again?" That only happens with JonKatz stories...
Elizabeth Smart was taken from her home, at night, in front of her younger sister, at gun point, while her parents slept. This kind of situation is perty terible if you ask me and warrents news coverage.
"I would rather have your time than your money" --Henry Rollins Jan 14 2003 on the topic on internet file trading
Greta van Sustren and Larry King are really just providing a televised version of the National Enquirerer.
I live in Kansas City. And I haven't heard word boo about this Alexis Patterson child. But I have seen the horrendous story of the abduction of Elizabeth Smart on national news networks. That is what this whole Katz Rant is about.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Anyone interested in truely alternative modern mass media critiques should read Noam Chomsky's "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies" or "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" (or watch the documentary by the same name by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick).
A quote from the zmag chomsky archive website says "The authors identify the forces that they contend make the national media propagandistic -- the major three being the motivation for profit through ad revenue, the media's close links to and often ownership by corporations, and their acceptance of information from biased sources."
Chomsky's writing don't touch on the processes that make one young girl's kidnapping more
from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel I've read a few articles in the Milwaukee papers about this issue.. nothing new, but interesting to note anyhow.
1) Mainstream media is all about the making money.
2) Mainstream America has an attention span of 20 seconds.
3) A vacuum of media critics.
I pretty much agree with the above, though recently you see the right and left sides of the media attacking/criticising each other. Limbaugh and Fox News vs. CNN and the Networks ("Let's get ready to ruuuuuummmmmmble!"), but this is even probably more suited for marketing rather than fair criticism. The fairest critic I've found, even though he is a conservative, is Sean Hannity. Obviously there are others that I just don't know about.
I think that the first two points really emphasize why web news is popular. For anything in depth you have to go someplace, while maybe biased, that at least doesn't leave out large chunks of the story and the background of the story. This depth is not sexy (ad friendly) nor quick to read and understand (shiny toy).
I can't stand TV news anymore; "3 dead in sex farm explosion", "look at all the pretty people", sports, weather, "feel good story about Foo-Foo the super bunny". Newspapers aren't much better. There are more stories and they are longer, but some of them read like a 14 year old wrote it.
For once Katz is pretty well on target, but could use some word chopping. More is not always neccesarily better.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
The problem is not that the media picks one kidnapping over another. It's that it reports on kidnapping AT ALL. Many people tend to measure their threats by how much media coverage they get, which is why many people have a ridiculously distorted perception of the risks they face in the world.
If there are some good independent media outlets out there, the ones that don't get much press, why don't you write a story about them? It's nice and easy to point out the fact that multi-national exist to make the most money possible and the effects of that ethos of media coverage are deplorable. That much is obvious. But give us a hint on where to focus our attention to alleviate the problem. Tell us what is being done to combat the problem, because there are people out there fighting it. Find 'em and point 'em out. The rest of use have real work to do.
+&x
First, Katz says the media seek out stories that "entertain, titillate, blow up or confront". Hello?! This is what American reporters have been doing since Zenger published the first newspaper in the new world. Katz is simply missing the point: It's not about what the media focuses on so much as how the media is focused. The corporate owners hire managers and editorial staff with like political convictions and like profit-making ambitions. Therefore it is not the content of what we see but the fact that we see it that makes any difference at all.
Second, isn't slashdot guilty of the same offense being complained about? These rantings of drivel are posted on the home page alongside other news. They are labeled "Features" but nowhere do I see "Commentary" (nor even "Comedy"). By posting this piece Slashdot is ironically blurring the news and opinion -- and this is the maybe not-so-obviously-stated subtext of Katz's opining ramblings. Please, give us a break!
A Concerned Cowardous not News-Challenged Reader
Im normally not a big fan, but this was a good Katz article despite the fact that it held all of the typical Katizms (stating the mostly-obvious, preaching to the converted) which are the inspiration for so many flame wars. More people really need to be aware of the fact that media is market driven.
Simple awareness of the motivation behind the media (in all its forms, the internet is not innocent) can do wonders to promote the media literacy that we teach our kids in school, but remain so terribly wanting ourselves.
Problems is: Media would never let it be suggested that what they present is anything but gods full honest truth. If the media doesnt take this message to the masses, who will?
That was my exact thought when I read the article. I watch the news at least 2 hours a day. I read Drudge, MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, and of course /. on the internet. I've never once heard of this poor child.
John caught my attention because I was thinking the exact same thing as I watched the O'Reily Factor on Fox last night. O'Reily has had updates on the Start case since the poor kid was snatched. I was sitting there thinking, "I wonder how many black children were kidnapped this week that didn't make national news?" Only America's Most Wanted seems to truly cover child abductions across racial and economic lines.
John's comments about the Smart case and the news being about money is definitly something to think about. I was thinking along racial lines myself but, IMO, he has made a good point.
I only pray that both these kids are found ALIVE.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Moral media isn't dead. You just have to look harder for it.
Now that the Sept 11th jingoism has died down and it's starting to be a non-terminal offence to express discontent versus the powers that be, you're starting to see the creepings of independent thought show up even in CNN. Up here in Canada, CTV's been doing it for a while. But even then there's a huge under-reporting of stories that would knock the comfort zone of the average person.
The basic problem is this -- any media outlet is a slave to the mandate of its publisher. This isn't really new, it's as old as newspapers themselves (it used to be that if you wanted to be a politician it was a shrewd move to found your own newspaper). So, if you've got nothing but biased media out there, the only way to really inform yourself is to (a) check up on all the biases and try to develop your own conclusions from them, and (b) realize that there's no substitute for actually being at the scene of the event, or at the very least talking to someone who is.
People who critique the media as having a bias often make the mistake of trying to sound like it's forced upon them, when really, you can choose to go out and find different information from a different source. Some options include:
ZNet
The Guardian
The Independent
Le Monde Diplomatique (English version here)
Tom Tommorow
It also helps in times of conflict to go to the media outlets or websites of your political enemies to see what they're saying. It's amazing how they often take as gospel a premise that is completely different from your own. It's also amazing how often the exact same coercive techniques are used by both sides. Makes you wonder if there are average citizens over there are pissed off at their media as much as some of us are at ours.
By the way, I know I went off on a bit of a tangent, but if you click on any of the links above you'll see minimal coverage of the Elizabeth Smart case. There might be a story in there at some point to tell everyone how it all turns out, but nothing like the usual CNN sensationalism. The point is, if you don't like your media, don't go back to it -- go elsewhere. It's not like we have battered wife syndrome or something.
(or maybe we do???)
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
If healthy media criticism still existed, someone might have pointed out the insane hype that shrouded tragedies like the death of Princess Di and TWA Flight 800.
Notably absent from your list is Columbine and 911.
Oh wait those are the ones you use. It all makes sense now.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Our society is a capitalist one; If pandering to humans' morbid curiosities didn't make money, they wouldn't do it, that's the bottom line.
I think it's very misguided and self-righteous to ascribe the term "corporate values system" to what the media presents. It's not a values system, it's a responsibility to the shareholders of the media entities.
There is a logical explanation for this, and it doesn't require racism, conspiracies or any other nonsense. First of all, "News" is about reporting things that are "new".
Child disappearances are rare, but not totally unknown. The difference between Alexis Patterson and Elizabeth Smart is that Alexis is a straight disappearance. There's nothing unusual about that beyond a child disappearing.
Elizabeth Smart, on the other hand, was taken AT GUNPOINT FROM HER HOME with her sister witnessing the act. How often does that happen? Almost never.
John, as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Everything doesn't have to have a sinister reason behind it.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
... is that it has competition: The internet. Thanks to broadband connections at both work and home, I don't need really TV for news. The more they express twisted values (like Robert Blake preempting the news about a plane crashing into the tallest building of Italy...) the less I want to wander over to that channel.
The value of TV as a news media is starting to dwindle. This is the worst time for the media to play games like this. If it's easy for me to turn off the TV and go to a news site, then what could make me stay anchored to CNN or MSNBC or anybody else?
I hope they ask themselves that question.
More than 130 comments and none of them higher than threshold 2...that's why I love those JonKatz stories ;-)))
is why does repeating the same damn story over and over again make anybody money?
During the chandra levy spectacle i would have to switch the channel every time the news mentioned chandra because i had already heard every thing they had to say ten times and did not want to hear it again. Same thing with oj simpson and monice lewinsky.
I can imagine that many other people are like me.
So why does repeating those things ad naseum make media companie smoney?
Specifically in the case of Elizabeth Smart, this article is missing something. It's called the LDS church. Besides being among the richest (probably the richest?) churches in the world, it is easily the most media savvy, and the most committed to its members. It also has many many connections to opinion makers. Personally, I am not surprised at all that the Smart case is getting so much coverage.
It's hard to add to the pile, but here goes:
About 4 years ago, during the height of the Clinton hate pander, a 12 year old kid called the on-air host of an MS-NBC program. I was watching: it was about a minute before 1 PM. The kid got through the call screeners somehow.
The kid asked why the immense coverage of so inconsequentual an act as Clinton-Lewinski, when so many more imporant things were happening -- especially the 24/7 coverage of the MonicaStain-NBC network.
The host, John Gibson, who is on FoxNews now (of course), looked the camera straight in the eye, and said:
Kid? (disbelieving shake of head) You're watching this show right now, aren't you? We put on the air what you want to watch. If you didn't watch, we wouldn't show it. We have to make a profit. We have to make money, and this makes money. We have to go to the news now.
(exit, with kid trying to respond as he was drowned out by Gibson).
--
I knew news was dead in the U.S. when I heard that said so blatantly on the air.
I respect the old guard at CBS news. They still hold the line on credibility. The others have become, as Katz said, magazines to sell stuff to rich people. And to impress their neoconservative bosses, the news journalists are censoring themselves every day. It's the only way to get promotions, and money.
News, as a profession, used to be low-paying work, with the ownership separate from the editors. Now the head of GE wanders into the NBC election coverage headquarters on election night to make his wishes known. Journalists are being canned for criticizing the president, and need I remind you all that criticizing the President was a 24/7 religion 3-10 years ago?
As for the kidnapping cases, you bet. Here in Chicago, kids are kidnapped every month on the south side. News will not cover that, not the innumerable shootings, stabbings, and rapes that occur. But a single beautiful white teenage girl from the suburbs, if SHE'S hurt, there is endless concern. It's so obvious.
Maybe it's because I don't live in the USA, but I've never heard of this Elizabeth Smart person. Anyone care to clarify?
My 5-year-old daughter was abducted by my ex-wife over 2 months ago. I have sole custody, and my ex has some pretty serious mental health problems. Sabrina is in a dangerous situation.
The media is not very interested because she's with her mother. That's not sensational enough. Obviously they don't know the history.
Please mod me up, and please visit my website: FindSabrina.org
Please help find my missing daughter: FindSabrina.org
We live in a capatilist society and the newspapers all have to make money. Granted - it should be a given that the stories should not be advertising-related, but the media has been controlled by money since the days of Hearst.
I have relegated myself to listening to NPR instead of reading these news sources. Public Radio (at least in the US) has strict rules about the funding of programming and conflicting interests.
One of the most interesting shows on my local NPR station is called The Media Project, which talks weekly about these kinds of conflicts. Check it out.
-Montag
The girl in Milwaukee vanished while out of the house. Sadly, that happens all the time. A story in the same vein was the Molly Bish story two years ago - a teenager was snatched right after being dropped off for her summer job as a lifeguard outside of Boston. it got big play in New England, nowhere near as much nationally.
The Smart story strikes a vein that makes it especially newsworthy. She was taken from her house in the middle of the night. To have someone stolen in your own home like that strikes a nerve in virtually everyone.
Whenever I hear a "vanished child" story, regardless of the details it bugs me. But my wife and I just had our first child a little while ago (ask gorbie, he's seen the pics). The Smart story is the kind of thing that creates a primal fear in every parent. The home is supposed to be the one place that's secure. When it's not, that, sadly, makes it more newsworthy. I don't relate to what happened to Alexis Patterson the way I relate to Elizabeth Smart. It's not because Alexis is black, or because she's from an inner city. It's because I have a home, and I have a child. And one of the biggest fears I can imagine is waking up in the middle of the night to find your child missing and a window open.
To get much scarier than that, you'd need to be living a Steven King novel.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
my friend just did an internship at the boston metro, and gave me a rundown of how each paper is made.
/. croud, they may be a bit radical, but i like the stuff they do: their internation web site is www.internationalanswer.org and you can get to your local chapter, wherever that may be...ann arbor or boston.
the first thing they do for each paper, is can you believe it...sell advertising space...well, come on, what were you expecting.
anyways, i have found a pacifist group website/mailing list to be very helpful in getting news about civil liberties (unfortunately not electronic, gotta go eff for that). anyways, for alot of the
skeeter
np: "ashes in the fall" rage against the machine
~skeeter
The reason the US media puts more attention to kidnappings/murders is simple. Generally the people are rich-white people's kids (look at that ramsey kid). Every ignorant white-trash trailer-park american will sympathize with them and devote their meaningless existences to something they have no control over. It plays on the hearts of them and therefore they'll want to know what's happening.
Do you really think jon q. trailer-trash cares about Microsoft stealing private information about how many bottles of gin he drinks a week? The only enjoyment those people get is from watching their relatives on Cops.
It's sic, especially when theirs much bigger issues in the world (i.e. how the US plans to rebuild afghanistan, africa's problems with aids and disease) but thats life.
remember -why- these certain stories get higher priority..
the media is in business to get ratings, which mean money.
well, where do you think those ratings come from? its the mass audience that decides what they want to see.
don't complain about the evils of capitalism when its the fault of millions of desensitized bloodthirsty viewers.
It's no coincidence that the kidnappings of kids who aren't rich, suburban, and white don't get press. The bias involved in media coverage is visible even in the coverage of crimes committed against adults. Which is more likely to get on the news - the death of a poor black guy or a rather wealthier white person? Hunger for profits can only explain part of this bias. After all, most Americans watch TV, regardless of race. And, logically, all crimes like murders or kidnappings ought to be viewed as tragic.
Unfortunately, bias in the media has no one, simple cause. The desire for a profit, simple inertia, overt or even unconscious racism - all of these causes, and more, could be cited, and all have some truth to them.
damnit. that Katz proximity alarm I ordered is going off again.
where's the mute...
a cute girl on the cover or ads sells more magazines or newspapers, or tv shows.
sex and celebrity are what tabloids thrive on, and the rest of journalism is fighting a losing battle to hold it's head up about the muck.
Sad to say it, but I think that Jon's article leads to the conclusion that in a free market economy, where the news media exist solely to make a profit, news coverage will follow the form most demanded by the consumers, and modern consumers have indicated, over and over again, that they would rather be titilated than informed.
Mass media caters to the *masses*, who demand very little in the way of information, and read at the 8th grade level.
More specialized media can tailor their message to specific groups, who demand more than the superficial feeling of enlightenment in their entertaining "news". It does no good to complain about the quality or the bias in popular media. If a larger proportion of Americans (for example) cared enough about abandoning sensationalism and liberal bias in their daily paper, subscriptions to the WSJ would skyrocket, and local papers would change format to compete.
But this will never happen. Deep down, the masses don't want to know what's really going on. They want to be entertained.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Astounding that posting about a group concerned with civil liberties is now possibly "radical".
And people looked at me like I was crazy. Look at Columbine and the other school shootings. For years minorities have been getting shot blocks from school or in the parking lot. Now it's white, middle class, suburbia that's shooting each other. Now you have million mom marches. Now you need to pass new laws. Now it's a f!cking problem. Bullshit. Liberal media my ass. Conservative corporate interests control the media.
I know that you are trying to offer a bit of insight, but please create original work or give writing creit where due. A simple search returns an interesting link. I believe this was originally done by John Stossel and his orignal title can be found here.
From the site""Pandering to Fear: The Media's Crisis Mentality" Every day newspapers and television warns us of new, unsuspected dangers in our complex modern world--from Alar and asbestos to cyclamates to the Audi 5000 and the Suzuki Samurai. With the world apparently getting more dangerous all the time, we have to wonder how life expectancy keeps on growing. ABC's John Stossel will discuss what the real risks in modern life are, why the media seem to hype unrealistic fears, and why readers and viewers fall for it. "
Thank you for your time. I appreciate the effort, but I appreciate and value the efforts of the original authors even more. Lest we forget Doris Kearns Goodwin and her misdeeds.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
A couple of points from a Salt Laker:
No need to look as far as Milwaukee for another missing child for comparison. There have been at least two ohers in the last month (in SLC) with the same apparent imbalance. IMHO, the difference is the organization and savvy of the poeple involved. The Smarts got everybody and their dog (literally) into the act early. Other victim's families cannot/don't do this effectively.
Anyone following the Smart story is waiting for the other show to drop. So far, the story doesn't add up. A guy breaks into the bedroom of two little girls and they don't scream their head off? Nobody has been ruled out as a supect, except the guy with the green saturn, doing wierd things in the area and a long criminal record?
That being said, I wish it wasn't always the white people who got the media coverage.
The media has always been market driven. Take a look at the late 19th century, when sensationalist stories (often outright lies) were used to sell papers to the public. It was called "Yellow Journalism" since it began to happen at the same time the first comic strip "The Yellow Kid" came out in the papers. It's often been said that the "Yellow Journalism" stories probably started the Spanish-American war of 1898, or at least they were a factor leading up to it. Competition in the media was strong then, and the media went to any length it could to get it's "Exclusive side of the story" to sell more papers and run the other paper out of business.
I don't think anything has really changed. I suppose if we could dig into it, we'd probably find the media has always chosen to report what sells more papers or what titilates/scandalizes the public. Occasionally you find the truth in the papers, but often a great deal of important information is left out because the subject matter is so dry that even lies won't improve the story. So I'm not surprised that this is still going on, and I suspect it will continue to do so. The nice thing about today is that there are now so many alternate news sources so that one has the freedom to gather all the information and make their own educated guess on what is really important and what is just superficial fluff designed to sell papers.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
But the reasoning should be pushed further. Are you sure that it was REALLY different thirty years ago? Alexis Patterson would probably not have made the news, at all. And you wouldn't even know about it, if it wasn't for the web!
What I'm saying is that the media itself cannot be trusted to propagate any information OTHER than the one that gets him numbers.
Just do not trust any single source!
Changing the subject slightly, what about slashdot? It's definately a one-sided opinion (against MS) that we see here. Nothing wrong with it, but you got to see other sources as well.
Personnaly, I don't think anyone, including the media can be objective AT ALL. Even without the money incentive, everything you read is biased. The only way out is to read both opinions before you make up your own.
The media, right now, is a good source of one-sided information. Take it as it is, and think by yourself... nobody should EVER think for you.
If you honestly think that what you see on mass media is targetted at rich people, then you obviously know different wealthy people than I do. Mass media is targetted at people who wish they were wealthy. Time isn't printing articles about buffing up your summer cottage because millions of readers have summer cottages - they do it because millions of readers want summer cottages.
Alas, it is because they pass the pretty test.
What are you saying?
Kevin Mitnick got as much media coverage as Al Capone?
If you are going to use examples like that, please make sure they are at least somewhat believable.
Ask the average joe on the street who Kevin Mitnick is. I bet the vast majority will have no idea who you are talking about. On slashdot, yes, *everyone* knows who Kevin Mitnick is. But we are "nerds" - it isn't Slashdot, news for "everybody". Most people don't know how a computer works - they know computer security is important, but figures such as Kevin Mitnick are quickly forgotten if they get media attention at all.
Al Capone, on the other hand was a legendary figure. Movies where made about him. There were 3-hour long television specials excavating his basement. Fifty years after his death, people still talk about him.
Five years from now even slashdot will have forgotten about Kevin Mitnick.
It insane to compare the two.
Really, people. Save the mod points for people who contribute something interesting.
Yup, because she's a cute little blonde-haired white girl whose parents have footage of her up on stage doing something cute a la Jon Benet Ramsay (q.v.)
If, on the other hand, Smart were a homely little black girl with crooked teeth and a left eye that just kinda pointed out into space, a band of wandering perverts could abduct, violate and dismember her, and get only a small fine for littering when they disposed of the corpse.
Kids go missing every day. The cute ones get press.
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
Like Slashdot, you mean?
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
Like I said, I'm sorry the daughter is missing, but spamming certainly isn't going to help find her. Especially, as pointed out here, the astounding amount of press coverage it's getting. It's this years' OJ or Tonya Harding.
Go ask 1000 people who Al Capone is, then ask the same group who Kevin Mitnick is. For that matter, go ask 1000 people who Elizabeth Smart is, then Kevin Mitnick. The results won't even be close.
The point that some "stories" get more coverage than they deserve is well taken, but shamelessly trying to tie in a tech angle to this is just stupid.
It hurts when I pee.
Of course, it is present only in the obvious left-wing media sources, like CBS, ABC, NBC, Time Magazine, CNN, etc.
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!
We always enter into a quagmire when we compare present times to former ones in such an overly simplified way. Usually this is how mythology starts (The good ole days). Humans have a tendancy to put the past in a good light when comparing it to a modern incarnation they don't like. You can apply the same points about the press making money back to the days of the debate over slavery (were the articles thoughtful and well researched or did they just stir up contraversy to sell papers). Go back even further and look at the newspaper articles on the debate concerning the forming of our nation you will find many newspapers stiring controversey as a selling aid. There are many assumptions made in this article that aren't even based on apperant evidence. Who says most people digest what the broadcast and paper media says without scrutiny and sceptisism behind why they are running the story. Maybe nobody gives a crap about the media that doesn't even make the top ten of we give a rats ass.
Profoundly pragmatic and opportunistic, they'd be happy to exploit blacks as well as whites, if the demographics worked. They don't cover Alexis Patterson's abduction because poor viewers in Milwaukee or elsewhere have nothing to do with ratings, ad revenue or profit margins. Blonde kids from wealthy families in Salt Lake City do.
A quick search shows populations of these areas:
Milwaukee, WI (city)
Population (1990): 628088
Per Capita Income (1995): $25,906
Salt Lake City, UT (city)
Population (1990): 159936
Per Capita Income (1996): $19,995
So what exactly is the point of comparing crimes in these cities? Milwaukee is poorer than Salt Lake City? Hmm. Demographics? Money? Race? What exactly is Jon saying here? Sadly, nobody (including him) knows. I found the above information in about 10 minutes on the net, I am sure a "professional" journalist could come up with some better facts to back up his opinion. What was that opinion again?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
And that's what it's all about...
I heard the same story on NPR...
Elizabeth Smart's disappearance is national news because of the way it happened--in her house at gunpoint. Alexis Patterson disappeared on the way to school. Equally tragic, but less shocking. Neither child's disappearance has gotten more coverage than Chandra Levy did pre 9-11.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Two of those sources are not very moral at all. Tom Tomorrow and Z Magazine represent and extreme fringe view. Tom's a cartoon, so it can get away with it, but Z magazine is just about 100% diatribes based on stone-dead-false ideologies that have little to do with actual facts, motivations, or real events.
news hour PBS, BBC, NPR all things considered. It's the only way to find out what the hell is going on anymore.
LOL... Geez, now how do I moderate insightful, funny, and sick all at once?
"I don't think I ain't" -Thompson's Corollary to Descartes
#1 story on slashdot:
"Pandering media hype isn't new to people who've been on the Net or the Web. Just consider the hacking and porno scares and insane coverage of offspring companies like Microsoft and Amazon."
#2 story on slashdot: MS.
#8 story on slashdot: MS.
#10 story on slashdot: MS.
"Bullshit. Liberal media my ass. Conservative corporate interests control the media."
If this is true, then how come so many including CNN are left-wing? Perhaps they are controlled by leftist corporate interests.
Details actually matter in describing people's perception in this case. Patterson disappeared on her way to school. Smart was apparently taken out of her home in the middle of the night at gun point. While a fair number of kids are taken (usually by someone they know) during the year, kids taken out of their homes is very rare (a fraction of a percent).
People understand that something bad can happen to their kids when they are not at home, and not under parental supervision. When something bad involves a child taken from their home during the night while they are asleep, they are more interested because they are more worried that it might happen to them despite everything they do to protect themselves. In that case, a scary fairy tale has become reality.
Jon has his head completely up his keester if he thinks Mencken was somehow a non-biased, non-sensationalistic journalist. Quite the opposite; it was his stances and deft, witty articulation of them based on fact as well as innuendo that made him a great journalist. Hell, it was the age of yellow journalism. Mencken, Winchell et al were always looking for any story that could make the most people plunk down a nickel and pick up a paper.
Take the Scopes trial alone. Mencken, goes down to the south and turns a stupid little rigged case into a media feeding frenzy, makes it a battle between the theory of evolution and the forces of ignorance, when it was really nothing much to get jazzed about. Like the Smart kidnapping business the story was in the telling, not the facts themselves.
Thus it has always been, thus it always shall be, and thank God for it. The news needs readers to survive and to get readers, like it or not, you have to entertain them in one way or another.
It's an old saw, but if you don't like what's out there, don't watch. Turn off CNN & pick up the papers of your choice, which have overall had relatively little Smart coverage. If CNN lost even just 10% of its audience during times it was covering this thing it'd drop it like a bad habit -- it's the fact that the opposite occurs that keeps it on the air and that's our fault, not CNN's. It's your eyes that create the market, and advertisers are paying because YOU are watching & reading. That, Jon, is a good thing, not a bad thing, because it makes the responsibility for what's on the air ours, not AOL/Time Warner's. Stop paying attention to the crap and it'll die.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
--------------RAEL--------------
I live in Canada, eh? And I have never heard of this Katz fellow before in the media either...
er, wait...
dmarien
Just to make it on-topic: there was a flurry of media attention paid to these two girls back in May, but it seems to have died out in the wake of the Smart case. Perhaps no new clues means no new press attention.
Finding God in a Dog
FAIR is a left-wing advocacy group pushing for making the media go more to the left. Their "center" is the far left; much of the left-wing is too the right of them, and they probably call a lot of left-wing media "right wing".
"On the other side, NPR is not typically citing Pacifica-style truly liberal anti-corporate points of view."
Just because NPR is not extreme leftist does not mean they aren't still leftist.
"If they were truly pursuing a leftist liberal agenda, they'd be biting the hands that feed them, and they know better."
Biting the hands the feed them? No. it is in their interest.
"They [NPR] may be left of Newt Gingrich, but given the entire spectrum of politics, they are much more centrist than liberal in their bias."
They may be closer to the center than the neosoviets of Z magazine, but they are still left of it.
*sigh*
The Maine? a warship that was blown up to
start the spanish/american war. Its widely
thought that Hearst (a newspaper publisher)
exaggerated the story to sell papers and possibly start a war.
Try to understand (what I believe) he is trying to say. The news media is NOT about news any more, it's entertainment. Have you seen the movie Network? THIS is where the news media is going. Though it's not as extreme as that movie (yet?) it is driven by revenue and revenue is driven by entertainment value. Even CNN has had a facelift in the past few weeks...just look at the "New" Connie Chung show!
Personally, I see it this way...if a company wants to provide entertainment, that's fine....just don't (attempt to) pass it off as hard news. I believe that the big news orginizations do just that....pass off fluff as news, then whine when someone calls them on it. After all, they have "tradition"...RIGHT?
I used to work for a TV station and something that a friend who worked in an ENG (mobile news) van said is most approriate here: "You're only as good as your last live shot". In other words:
SCREW TRADITION....you should be judged on what you're putting out now..as opposed to the good stuff you did then....
Also...consider this: If the public didn't tune in to this crap, they wouldn't be broadcasting it.
Well our soothing reprieve is over. Katz was silent from Jun 04, '02 12:15 PM to Jul 02, '02 01:15 PM. Nearly a month. Anyone care to hypothesize what he may have been doing during that time?
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
I respect the old guard at CBS news. They still hold the line on credibility.
Are you kidding? Dan Rather is the biggest publicity whore.
The revolution will be televised. Blackout restrictions apply.
He didn't cap salaries per se, he just capped the amount of money corporations could deduct. The way it used to be, when you'd pay your CEO 10 million dollars, you could deduct that 10 million from your profits to lower your tax liability. This was done because paying a CEO is a legitimate business expense, he's essentially an outside party (NOT an Employee) that is providing leadership for the corporation. It would be the same as if you paid a consultant to be your CIO, you'd pay him X dollars and deduct that because it would be a business expense.
So once the salary deductions for CEOs were capped at 1 million dollars, corporations would lose exorbitant amounts of money if they paid the CEO over that amount. They'd be taxed on money they had already spent (kinda like taxing someone on the money they spend on their mortgage, or taxing a farmer on money he spends on fertilizer). So instead, they began giving CEOs stock options. Those could still be deducted. The problem is, the only way the stock has monetary value is if the CEO sells it, and he/she only makes money if it sells at a high price. So they begin fiddling with the books to drive stock prices up so they can actually make some money (nevermind the fact that capital gains taxes would still rip them a new one, but I digress). If CEOs were still paid in cash, there would be less incentive for them to 'cook the books'. And if they hadn't seen the President of the United States get convicted of a felony, disbarred, and then come out of it making millions off of speech deals, with a 12 million dollar book advance, and a 200 million dollar slush fund for his library... Well maybe they wouldn't think they could get away with it to.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
yellow journalism
"The news media is NOT about news any more, it's entertainment"
It's all just information, and there is always an overlap. What is the big deal?
"Even CNN has had a facelift in the past few weeks...just look at the "New" Connie Chung show!"
Is that CNN that had the facelift, Chung, or both? Remember Greta Van Sustern had new eyes installed for her Fox career.
This phrase was immortalized on The Simpson's, among other places (Grandpa saying, "I am the Lindbergh baby" to distract the Feds.) Why is this phrase famous? Because the media of the time was saturated with the Lindbergh kidnapping.
So.... when was H. L. Menkin writing agian?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Of course the news is market driven. All businesses are market driven- That's what capitalism is. Bill Gates is a greedy capitalist? Would you rather he be an all-giving socialist? Capitalism is what made America great. If the news covers less important issues nowadays, its because less people demand it. It has always been this way in the US. i hope it never changes
Just remember, it's a business. Take it for what it's worth. It's ALL a business. EVERYTHING.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Dude, it was on the front page of the cnn website. What more do you want? Billboards?
I agree that the media has problems, but keep your arguments sane.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
It is obvious that the media is biased towards whatever will make them more money. The question remains, however, of what to do about it? Information drives our culture, business and nation. Yet we know that the information we receive from the media is biased and inaccurate- and we still use it! Maybe we should accept that all information is going to be biased by the dessiminators perspective, and use our own critical thinking skills in utilizing the information. As such we could place more emphasis on critical thinking in our education system, and get people to start being proactive in their lifes, instead of bleating what the news says like sheep.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"Pandering media hype isn't new to people who've been on the Net or the Web."
If media hype isn't new to any of us on the 'net', and slashdot users are, by definition on the 'net', then how does this constitute news in any way to any of the slashdot audience? You have, less than elegantly, restated the obvious for us. This piece would be at least somewhat interesting if it were run on a regular news broadcast; however, anyone familiar with slashdot is already familiar with the injustices committed in America in the name of the all-mighty dollar.
So, I'll ask again, why have you wasted space with something that is useless to this audience?
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
" Of course the news is market driven. All businesses are market driven"
What it boils down to is that the media serves the public: the free market is the most direct method for anything to serve the public. This is in contrast to socialism, where the media (and everything else) serves the few in power.
The US has the most open/fair/free media because the ruling class interferes the least in it. Dominance by "official government stations" is for barbaric backwards countries like Zimbabwe, Iraq, and the United Kingdom.
So many people are just ripping into him because he's Jon Katz, that they are missing the point. You are here, reading slashdot because of the media issues he points out. By reading slashdot you are already agreeing with him. Why arent you reading CNN.com right now? Because if it's not on slashdot, then we don't need to know. If Jon Katz can be accused of anything, it's that he's preaching to the choir. It's a nice article nonetheless. He raises some great points that have been bothering me lately. Poor little rich girl . . .
I dunno who this Katz guy is, or what he did, but he must be 2nd cousin to Satan judging by the response here.
All news media are slaves to their budgets, and always have been. They cannot report the news without advertising, and they cannot sell advertising without readership (or viewers or whatever), and they don't get market share unless they publish what people want. That's nothing new.
/. readers :) buy into this by demanding scandals. We want entertainment, not news.
But it worked fairly well in the beginning. Sure, editors have to be selective (that's their job), but they managed to report reasonably well while still making enough to keep things alive. The revenue went into the business. It wasn't about making money (although raises are nice).
Sadly, as the various media went from locally-owned, smaller markets to conglomerates, the revenue went into salaries instead. Rather than being merely necessary for continued publication, it was demanded by executives who, frankly, do not generate income (at least through reporting). And we (collectively as a society, not specifically as highly intelligent
I worked in radio for a number of years. It never failed that as a station got larger, it also got top-heavy, and more money went into keeping the suits happy rather than keeping the station operational.
Given this is how Enron and Worldcom seemed to be run, I haven't much faith in the media anymore. Hell, even the local stations are getting into the game now.....
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
evil man: "...and I'll be covering the whold story from a Carver news helcopter circling the scene" Bond "Don't you know the first rule of media yet?" then...as he's pushing evil man into a large diamond drill that turns his head into sausage stuffing: "Give the people what they WANT!" Point made......
I've been subjected to Elizateth Smart for so long when looking for news that I genuinely hope the rich little bitch is dead and her rich blonde mormon parents rot in hell along with all their $30,000 SUV's.
Doesn anybody else have this reaction to this sort of media bombardment, or should I see a psychiatrist?
Good God people, have we forgotten about poor poor Elian Gonzalez? Instead of blaming it on who's rich, who's poor, who's middle-class, who's white, who's black, who's hispanic, who's cute, who's ugly, who's stupid, who's smart, try thinking about it for a minute and making your own damn opinions.
I mean sure, Katz is just reacting to a show he heard on NPR and doesn't research any of his facts. Don't let his status cloud your judgement. Hype is Hype is Hype. You should be able to identify it, now that you're old enough to read. The media makes the news, it's nothing new.
It's time to stop being a sheep. Think for yourself and stand up for what you think is right.
Do nothing, at least in the U.S. We have something called the 1st Amendment. If you do not like what someone says, ignore it.
Just one will do. Any one. Thanks.
when i was a child watching cbs or abc news, i can remember how full of shit they were! that's why i watch public television and listen to public radio, and i'm not talking about so-called cable public stations! There are realiable source out there, if you're complaining about the those corporate sources not being news worthy, then stop turning to them for news already dummy!
...There's nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure...
For once I would like to see a discussion about JK's features that didn't degrade into personal attacks against him. Lately most of the insults include well thought out counter-arguments, but those arguments would be just as valid without the insults.
The BBC seems a better idea than most US media - Everyone in the UK has to pay for a TV licence (approx 100 pounds sterling a year) and that money is filtered directly to the BBC.
:)
The end result is a world renowned news service, with *no* advertisments (the BBC is banned from advertising) and a far less biased news coverage.
Hence, the BBC does not have to pander to richer segments of the viewers - they have already been paid after all, via the licence fees.
The BBC does not have to worry about richer (or poorer) viewers, and can just give the news as they see it - they do not have to worry about special interests from advertising, since they are not allowed to advertise.
All in all, it is an allaround better service than CNN can ever hope to give, since the BBC has to grovel to no-one
_____
Jaylen
Katz wrote something that wasn't complete crap!
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
This should help drive the point home, 10 children in the last month are missing or have been abducted in the last month per The National Center for Missing or Exploited Children. http://www.ncmec.org/ 44 total are missing, including the runaways. I've only heard of the kid from Milwaukee and Salt Lake City, and nothing about the 5+ in my state that are listed.
DUH! Ya think?
What tipped Katz off to the fact that the media is market driven instead of news driven?
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
FoxNews fair and balanced? It doesn't bother to explain what's being said most of the time. How is that fair and balanced? For example, they had a feminist on there saying that women shouldn't be objectified. That draws into question what an object is. Does FoxNews ask her to explain what she thinks an object is and why she thinks human beings aren't objects? No, they don't. Anyone out there care to offer their position?
The Afghanistan wedding party story has been VERY big in "western media"
"The reason being, Clinton and his Govt mandating that a CEOs base salary should never be over 1 million"
Second false premise: Clinton never did this, nor did he try. Never happened.
It's because the familys surrounding the kidnapping are always "whities" :)
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Alexis Patterson was abducted?! By what, a U.F.Orb?
Yuk yuk yuk...
Please keep 'em coming, Jon.
I totaly agree with you. In college I would have CNN Headline News on for hours while I worked on homework. Now after 5 minutes of watching, I want to kill myself. What a waste...
I'm the guy who is sitting on 20,000 shares of WCOM (now WCOME) and LNUX that I spent around $2M for about two years ago.
I was just talking to my broker. He laughed at me and told me to "use my stock certificates as toilet paper". But, I don't trust him.
So, Stock Quote Troll, what is your outlook on WCOM (ahem, WCOME) and LNUX? Should I hold? I've been hearing a lot about this "Enron" company and I've been thinking about selling my WCOM (ahem, WCOME) and LNUX and buying into the "Enron".
What do you think?
Thanks!
There's no excuse for being bamboozled by the mainstream media in 2002. Who cares if CNN focuses on sensationalistic stories? There are a million other choices to get your news from. If you don't like media companies with corporate sponsors, read independent news websites instead. If you like boring news that doesn't cater to the clamjamfry, listen to NPR.
t ml
Reason Magazine has a good editorial on media mergers:
http://reason.com/0004/ed.ng.mergers.sh
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
The "Fair and balanced" is just hype. However, it is more to the center than the strongly left-leaning MSNBC and CNN.
" The BBC seems a better idea than most US media - Everyone in the UK has to pay for a TV licence (approx 100 pounds sterling a year) and that money is filtered directly to the BBC."
:)"
So the BBC becomes a government media monopoly: official government news.
"Hence, the BBC does not have to pander to richer segments of the viewers"
No. It just has to pander to the government that controls it.
"The BBC does not have to worry about richer (or poorer) viewers, and can just give the news as they see it"
Or as the government sees it, since they are the official government media.
"they do not have to worry about special interests from advertising, since they are not allowed to advertise."
More censorship, obviously.
"All in all, it is an allaround better service than CNN can ever hope to give, since the BBC has to grovel to no-one
It is not hard to be a better service than CNN, but if you really want something better, go to Murdoch.
He gives billions to leftist & anti-capitalist causes. He was a member in good standing of the Democrat party until they turned on him.
" Do you Americans have any idea how ridiculous you look when you call organizations like CNN "obviously left-wing?"
Not ridiculous at all. CNN's left-wing bias is pretty clear; the guy who runs it is a proud left-wing activist. It may not be extreme Soviet left, but it tilts left nonetheless.
Sorry, it doesn't have to be on the communist fringe to be left wing.
Fortunately, I get all of my news from the Onion, and therefore through reasonable deduction, assume that all other news media are equally laden with fallacies such as those found in the Onion.
you want to hear what someone like, say, Gerry Adams has to say. And then the Govt. censorship kicks in just nicely. Thanks, but I'll take Fox News over the BBC any day!
Diane Rheim, for one, whose show spews left-wing racist and sexist bias. Can't forget Nina Totenberg, either, who spearheaded the "high-tech lynching" of Clarence Thomas because his record angered left-wing special interest groups.
I had not heard of the girl being abducted from Milwaukee, and had my wife and I not travelled to Portland Oregon several weeks ago, we probably would not have heard of the TWO neighbor girls that had been abducted there a couple of weeks prior.
The fact is that we have lots of children go missing in this country without the media attention that Elizabeth Smart is getting. However, those children are typically born into families with nowhere near the resources that the Smart family has.
There are a number of reasons why Elizabeth Smart is capturing the media attention, not the least of which are the family connections. The Smart family has married into other quite wealthy families here, including families with prominent state and national politicians. Additionally, there is quite a bit of money associated with the family and they also have media connections as well with one of the uncles working for an NBC affiliate here. Additionally, they belong to a powerful and quite wealthy religion and to many, this family is the prototypical successful Mormon family which generates more emotional support. And finally, Elizabeth herself appears from the media coverage to be a talented, young girl with more than the average potential.
Other than the early apparent screw ups in the investigation of the Elizabeth Smart case (with neighbors tramping through the house immediately after the kidnapping), I have been shocked at the resources that have been called into this case. The family has retained the services of a media consultant, gathered huge local support with thousands of people canvasing the Salt Lake valley, the FBI was involved VERY quickly, and the media has apparently been quite effectively used.
All of that said, were it my child that was missing, I would be doing everything within my power to find them including implementing what the Smart family has done had I all of the resources available to me. I pray that this is resolved quickly and comes to a happy ending, but I also wish that these sorts of resources were available to the thousands of other children who are abducted in this country which might bring more criminals who perpetrate these crimes to justice.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Hey Jon, how's your border collie doing?
Dogs are good friends, for sure
I can't speak for CNN or Time or The New York Times, but I can say -- as a person who works at a daily newspaper and studies media -- that this is mostly crap.
What gets the most coverage is the unexpected.
That's it. There's no more of a formula than that. No conspiricy, no marketing people telling us what to cover*, no lawyers telling us what to do**.
Everyone expected Mother Teresa to die. No one expected Princess Di to die. It happened the same week and there is only one front page. Sorry, MT, you're going below the fold.
People are drawn to tragedy. Tragedy is not tragic without the unexpected. It is when the rich kid in the gated neighborhood goes missing that we aren't expecting it.
If you want to alter that coverage, you'll need to trump it. You want more science coverage? Teleport a laser beam into the White House, not a university lab.***
--Mike
*Marketing people will tell us what has worked in the past and encourge us to do it again. And, if we could, let them know ahead of time so they can advertise it, too. But they will conceede that the best thing for newspaper sales is breaking news and rainy days (where people sit inside and curl up with the paper and a cup of coffee). I assure you that any marketing advice affects feature stories, not breaking news.
**We ask lawyers to take a look at the stories we've written and see if we will get our assess sued. If they think we might, we re-work it so that we won't. This almost never kills a story, and usually makes them much stronger.
***Do not tell them it was my idea.
media are market-driven, not substance-or-content driven
This is very evident in the evolution of news media over the years. TV news brodcasts, such as local news and now even CNN Headline News, are little more than a glorified cross between Cops and Entertainment Tonight. Local newspapers often run poor national news and sorely biased local news dotting the pages amid huge advertisements and coupon sections. Now, I watch almost nothing on TV, I've stopped reading the newspaper, and I'm finding that public TV, public radio, and the WWW are the last refuges of worthwhile content.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Can't you see what's going on here? Did you see the commericals for Applied Digital Solutions' VeriChips, the implantable chip (which could eventually be used for tracking kidnap victims) immediately following the news story on CNN about Elizabeth Smart?*
Obviously, the kidnapping is a conspiracy orchastrated by the news agencies themselves to boost public approval and acceptance of implants. Which will only lead to a global police state run by Satan himself.*
*not really
There are a few problems here. Partly its the fact that Americans are confusing big media's purpose with the First Amendement, and also confusing big media with a somewhat idealized form of the news.
First of all, big media does think that it's job is, among other things, to influence politics. This is why you have Sunday morning political shows and political cable news channels. However, while it is also true that big media uses the rest of the news to influence politics, big media sees the main purpose of the rest of its news as a) Attracting your attention and b) Influencing you, the general public. Chances are that it has successfully done so, to some degree or another. I am absolutely certain that there are issues at the periphery of my interest that I am dead wrong of because of distorted media coverage. I do my best to get information from many sources to avoid this, but I suspect that at some point there is a left/right/classical liberal consensus that shuts out the opposing viewpoint. I'll call it a media blindspot.
In an idealized version of the news, reporters would simply report the news, and editorialists (like Katz) would try to use the news to change the world for the better. There would be a clear differentiation. The First Amendment would protect people's right to publish news, editorials, political pamphlets without being suppressed.
The First Amendment mostly does protect people's right to publish political viewpoints (it must be constantly and fiercely defended, unfortunately, so it sometimes fails). However, it is up to the individual citizen to become informed, it is not up to big media, or independant media to spoon feed the citizen the correct point of view. Or rather, any citizen who allows himself or herself to be spoon fed like this is failing in his or her own civic responsibilities.
So, anyone who is upset at the bias in the media ought to be criticizing people's unwillingness to become informed, their willingness to be led and guided by the media.
Of course, my point of view won't fit in with socialists or conservatives who believe that people ought to be led by some elite and that will be better than independant thinking and judgement. It does fit in well with libertarian/classical liberal philosophy though. To my mind, a fiercely independant populace that doesn't look to some centralized source for the "correct" views would be best. Unfortunately, though, in this case it is the citizenry that allows itself to be led where the failure lies, not big media.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
"No. Actually I'm hard-pressed to find a liberal (in the Michael Dukakis, Hubert Humphrey sense).
Almost all self-proclaimed "liberals" are really neo-fascists."
Dukakis campaigned for president on increasing the size and power of government and limiting rights. Neo-fascist by definition? Perhaps.
You have a point, though: modern American liberalism is all about increasing the power of the powerful.
Its called a tribal society. That is what anarchy produces, the factions gather into liveable, sustainable communities. Unless of course you are talking about taking some of the throw-backs from our society, then you'd be playing a whole different ball game.
Isn't he some sort of bigot? Depends on how you look at it. He is sort of an imperialist who wants to forcibly expand the borders of the nation of Ireland to include part of another country against the will of the people of that country (and the region to be annexed).
At best, he is like an apartheid advocate for that region. He advocates minority rights (the ethnic Irish) in northern Ireland to be supreme over the rights of the non-Irish-ethnic native majority.
Interesting observation, but I believe that kuro5hin mentioned it best when Rusty posted his public plea and gave the general rundown of the media industry and what it would take for one to survive (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/17/23933/583 1). The basic rundown is that it costs money to publish, whether that be online, or in print. Now if you are wealthy to begin with, then you can say what you want all day long, but if you are live everyone else, you have to raise funds somehow to keep the word going: ads, commercials, sponsorships, etc. whom are the real editors. Since they are the ones who control the money, you don't want to upset them, and as a result, you cater the news to their tastes, or their demographic so they can sell more ads. The end result is stories that target a specific demographic so the advertisers have somplace to target their warez.
My second point, which is based on the first, is the realization that there are no more 'real' investigative journalists who go out into the field to find the story. News today is nothing more that regurgatations of press releases made by various agencies, and an interview with the involved, and both are treated as gold, with no commentary from the other side. An example story, which the BBC covered as a documentry about this time last year, on possible campaign fraud in Florida during the last presidential election. CBS was given a tip of the possible fraud and decided to follow up on it by calling Gov. Bush's PR representative to confirm, and when they denied it, they dropped the story. Gone are the days of Watergate where reporters would take chances to get at the story because nobody wants to risk a lawsuit or any other sanctions. All of what's left are a bunch of talking heads going into commentary about something that is safe and known to the point where nothing new is generated.
"Cuba and Afghanistan for filtering news and distributing the propaganda they want their citizens to hear."
Ok, so we have:
Cuba - Government filters out news that offends government/ideology. People are left with pablum.
USA - Companies filter out or ignore news they consider unprofitable or offensive to LCD (lowest common denominator). People are left with pablum.
Two paths leading to the same place.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I have to admit that I haven't followed either case closely at all, but my impression was that the main factor driving all of the publicity around the Elizabeth Smart case was the way in which she was taken.
People expect kidnappings to happen in the "bad" part of town; people expect them to happen when kids are out in public, walking down the street, at the house of a "friend" not known by the parents, etc.; people expect them to happen when no one else is around to see. People *don't* expect children to be taken at gunpoint from an upscale suburban home when parents and siblings are home and a sister is present.
My impression was that the Smart kidnapping hit home because all of the things people normally do to keep their kids safe ("don't talk to strangers", "don't be alone", "stay away from that part of town", "stay away from deserted streets", etc.) can't do anything about this kind of kidnapping.
People who thought they were relatively safe from this sort of tragedy suddenly found out that they aren't, that it can happen to them. Of course, there is a huge portion of the population who live in circumstances in which they and everyone else knows it can and is likely to happen to them. That is very sad but it isn't *news*. The news is that it has happened in an unexpected place and manner.
IMO, the heavy coverage was sparked by the unusual circumstances, not the race or social status of the victim (a few years ago a white, affluent girl was kidnapped in my town while walking home from school; it received only local attention). The heavy coverage in turn caused the national outpouring of sympathy and grief.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't make a good Katz story.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Pure Free market capitalism isn't necessarily the solution to everything.
Just look at what happened to CNN once they got some serious competition. The taxpayer supported BBC is vastly superior to anything America has to offer.
Free market capitalism also doesn't work well for public education, health care, or the prison system.
The best story from which is a short dialogue between William Randolph Hearst and his hired illustrator/Cuban correspondent, Frederick Remington. Upon his arrival in Cuba in January of 1897, Remington noticed that none of massive reported battles were actually happening. He cabled to Hearst: "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war. I wish to return." Supposedly, although he denied it afterwards, he quickly wired back: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
How is this different from the media of today?
What? Clinton increased just about everything. The claims about reduction were just smoke and mirrors of moving staff between departments.
Every president grows government. Some grow it slower than others. Want to get rid of that defecit? Give George W the line item veto.
In terms of taxes alone, the clinton government was bigger than his predecessors (remember his unnecessary and damaging tax hike)
So you are claiming that no media outlets are left-wing? My claim is that some major ones are, and it is based on evidence (not circular logic, or (c/k)linton.
"and still bitching about klinton."
Why not? He's still loose, not in jail for his many crimes.
And the likelihood of such a trade organization sprouting up in an industry dominated by the very companies that profit from the type of "journalism" in question is slim at best.
Not really pro or con, I just don't believe it would ever happen.
Turned on him? He broke the law! Blatantly and repeatedly! He laughed about it after the first trial and said that the consent decree wouldn't change anything! Give me a fucking break! I was a good law abiding citizen, until the police turned on me! They should have just let those murders slide! Fucking moron.
A tradition almost as old as newspapers putting content they think their readers will like 'below the fold' on the front page is the one where people complain that THEIR stories aren't getting coverage and someone else's stories are.
:)
Now, I'm not going to argue that the coverage of Rich White Girl getting kidnapped over a bunch of other non-RWGs is a shame. But writing articles about million-dollar homes or the new Clie isn't bad journalism, or bad coverage, or whatever else you want to call it. It's called 'paying the bills' and 'not writing articles that only nerds want to read.' The paper I work for puts its fair share of Geek News on the front page of its Business section, and while I'd love to see more articles about things in my field, I realize that my interests are very specialized. That's why I read Fark and Slashdot and Kuro5hin and Ars and C|Net, etc etc.
Notably, IANAWriter
== It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. -Aristotle
"The [government-controlled] BBC is vastly superior to anything America has to offer."
Not really. I've seen it. In comparison, Fox rules.
"Free market capitalism also doesn't work well for public education, health care, or the prison system"
It works for all three, very well.
help I am stuck in college! everything looks like babble! all I hear is babble!
A great, time-honored ploy that companies that buy advertisements can use (especially in impoverished areas) is buying ludicrously expensive advertisements for months and months before setting up any operations in the area. Then when it's time to move in and despoil the land or the workers or whatever and a staff writer wants to protest that, the editor says 'you can't write that article, they're our biggest customer!' Oh well.
Interestingly enough, people in general seem to enjoy news from independent sources -- in London, for example, a newspaper with no advertisements had about three times the readership of its sponsored competitors, despite its much higher price. Unfortunately, even with that readership it had too much overhead and simply couldn't compete and eventually folded.
Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee. -Bender
You are insane. This is their country. They should be able to shoot off a whole frigg'n clip in the air for all I care without expecting some idiot 10,000ft up to call in a massive air strike (a B52 against a two-bit town for Christ's sake). If a million $+ trained pilot can't tell the difference between a few AK-47s and anti-aircraft artillery then he should be grounded before he starts bombing Canadian troops (oh yah, they have).
This was a wedding party. If we have so many super-duper cameras in the air and guys on the ground how come they weren't able to figure that out?
Last time I checked the area was supposed to be policed, not a battlefield. If they are going to kill civilians indiscriminately then they should change it to "Operation Ethnic Cleansing".
Sorry buddy but you come off as the ugly American, barging into a country screaming "They wouldn't be able to get away with this in Bunghole Texas!". I guess it is wrong to blow up people in skyscrapers in New York but if you are having a festival in a tiny town in Afganistan then it is just "Oops! Sorry!".
As for your lovely remark about "A mortal [sic] shell is a fitting end for a lunatic who thinks it's okay to shoot off his gun indiscriminately into the air." I guess all the children who were murdered in that attack had it coming to them, right? Funny how you fret about the Utah girl but can't summon an ounce of sympathy for anyone else but then again you are busy "kicking ass".
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Reagan did nothing criminal, no reason to jail him.
Sorry, signing a Democrat Party budget that increased the national debt greatly was pretty stupid of Reagan, but not criminal.
Nixon and Clinton on the other hand.....
This isn't news. We've known this. We've known this for quite awhile. It's not new.
News is a business. Your choice is pretty much either try for "objectivity" via government control or leave it to something vaguely resembling free enterprise.
And we get all the attendant advantages and problems. And we've known this for quite awhile. I became graphically aware of it during the OJ mess.
Of course, it's good to talk about it. It's become a problem. It's gotten worse.
However, after you talk you SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Don't whine, don't be a victim, don't expect someone else to solve it for you, DO something.
We can do something. We can use alternate outlets. We can make people aware. We can protest. We can write in (if you write something controversial it MAY get published since these guys do like sensationalism).
Yes, life can suck. Now stop being a victim and do something about it.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
1. most people want not to think
2. television provides an emotion oriented environment, where u can't think, you feel
3. corporations control television
4. more american households have a television than have running water
5. the majority conforms to whatever is on television
6. everyone dies......the end
Of course, my point of view won't fit in with socialists or conservatives who believe that people ought to be led by some elite and that will be better than independant thinking and judgement"
So there is no room for the likes of Ralph Nader 'n' Pat Buchanan?
The press in the United States I am afraid think that they are our protector. Since they are protected under the constituion they feel that they are above the law and above us. We weak minded people must be feed dumb downed facts that we can understand. Only the all mighty press can protect us. I had really hoped the internet would change that. When I read about a new drug on line I want to link to all the reports that are available. Have you noticed that the big new sites like CNN if they have a story on a company they often do not link to that companies site? When they have a story on some body giving a speach somewhere they almost never have the full transcript of the speech?
As Joe Friday would say. Just the facts.
-
Just to speak about Open Source, it has gained media coverage in France in two of the main newspapers (Libération and Le Monde - the latter raising the subject again today).
Europe is also lucky enough that the vast majority of press agencies/newspapers/etc are not owned by big greedy conglomerates and are therefore marketing independent. Economy biased media exist, but they are the minority here. The Diana hype has occured here too (hey, it happened in Paris, how could this be ignored), but the death of Mother Theresa, OTOH, hasn't gone unnoticed.
Marketing disease in the media is of particular worry because medias are a political force today. See the pedophilia "trend" (again in Europe), for example, which all started with the case of Marc Dutrou, in Belgium, several years ago. Raising this case led to 1. politicians looking at the problem and 2. people, aware or victims, starting to speak on public whereas they would remain silent prior to that. The media can influence people in the good way, like in this case, but the other way around is also true.
I just hope that this disease doesn't infect us, honestly. I just don't want to see presidential campaigns turning into commercials just like they are in the US.
<rant>
Speaking of news, I hope you US citizens know that Mr Bush refuses to adhere to the Global Court because he doesn't want his soldiers to be subject to its juridiction. Crimes are crimes, period. FYI the two other countries refusing to adhere are Russia and China. Nice refereces. This is a blatant insult to the rest of the world, as was his rebuttal of the Kyoto Treaty (need I say which country emits the more pollution in the world?). If not, then the rot in your media is not only about marketing.
</rant>
Chomsky is one of those who looks at everything through the lens of fringe crackpot social theories, rather than any sort of objectivity.
Particularly condescending of Chomsky are his theories of "Thought control", which are all based on the idea that people are not able to make up their minds on their own.
The arguments are all a means to Chomsky's goal: the total control of the media by a certral government authority. If the government is "Democratic" (his idea has little to do with real democracy) then it is OK for the government to censor speech since it in the people's own good.
He is very opposed to any ideas of media voices saying that they want without government approval. In short, his utopia is any fascist's wet dream: absolute power by authorities who say they are doing everything "for our own good".
Chomsky is an "alternative" to media critique the way Velikovsky is an alternative to astronomy.
But it's not their fault.
It's our fault. They're in the business to make money. They do that by selling advertising. And the prices they get for selling advertising are determined by how many people are watching.
If we didn't watch, they wouldn't feed us this garbage. All they're doing is feeding us what we want. They're giving us loads and loads of the stuff we wanna see. We apparently LIKE to watch about sex scandals, missing wealthy attractive children, and celebrity deaths. Because they boost the ratings. And ratings mean money for the news sources.
If we want to change the media, it has to start with US. Don't like it? Don't WATCH it. Turn it off. If enough people do it, the ratings will suffer. The media will adapt, and feed us what we DO watch. Only when we reward responsible journalism, by watching it, will we get more of it.
Now if Elizabeth Smart had been found after a single day of media-blitz coverage, you might have a case. But I'm afraid the facts once again disprove your argument.
I did not gather that his point was that the media was the ultimate detective and would solve missing children cases. I would say that once again, you argue just to hear your head roar.
"I hope you US citizens know that Mr Bush refuses to adhere to the Global Court because he doesn't want his soldiers to be subject to its juridiction [reuters.com]."
Yes. Because Bush is wise enough to know that this body, without reforms, will be based too much on politics, not crime.
"Crimes are crimes, period"
This court comes from the same sort of crackpots involved with the "World Court" that ruled in favor of Sandinista terrorists, and the African meeting of racists who want to extort money from just some of the countries involved with slavery.
"This is a blatant insult to the rest of the world"
If the rest of the world is stupid enough to fall for this new "court", it deserves the insult. Not the first time the US knew what was going on when the rest of the world did not. Will not be the last time.
"as was his rebuttal of the Kyoto Treaty [planetark.org]"
Bush is the smarter one on this as well. There is no scientific basis for Kyoto.
"If not, then the rot in your media is not only about marketing. "
We know all about these: the US left-wing media attack Bush for it all the time.
...right? And that he thinks the smoking hole at the WTC is just what America deserved, right?
And that outside his early linguistic work 99% of his published speech is complete nonsense, right?
He makes shit up as he goes along. He's a lying POS. Get over it.
... H.L. Mencken... A.J. Liebling... kidnapping ... media... media criticism... insane hype... tragedies... death... Princess Di... TWA Flight 800... Pandering media hype... the Net... the Web... hacking... porno scares... insane coverage... offspring... Microsoft... Amazon... kidnapping... Elizabeth Smart... horrific... obvious... depressing.
*Urp* *grabs nearest Zip-Lok baggie*
The U.S. Senator was reported to say: " The wedding party participants were shooting guns. To me, the plain stupidity of that almost justifies the end. "
"Europe is also lucky enough that the vast majority of press agencies/newspapers/etc are not owned by big greedy conglomerates and are therefore marketing independent. Economy biased media exist, but they are the minority here."
Instead, European media is controlled by big greedy governments and are therefore independent of accountability. What can you expect from a place mostly ruled by the USSR and Nazi Germany at different points in the 20th Century.
The prevalent government control and censorship of media is more in line with places like North Korea and Iran than it is of a country that actaully trusts its people.
Marketing is not a "disease". It makes media more accountable. Sorry, I don't want government censorship and control of media just to get rid of the damn Diana stories!!!!!
1. most people want not to think
Speak for yourself
2. television provides an emotion oriented environment, where u can't think, you feel
No more or no less than radio, books, plays, TV, or conversations at the bar.
3. corporations control television
No. You do. with the channel changer and the power knob. Trumps anything corporations try to do with it.
5. the majority conforms to whatever is on television
Only if they choose to. However, even super-popular shows like "Friends" are only watched by a minority of Americans.
"USA - Companies filter out or ignore news they consider unprofitable or offensive to LCD (lowest common denominator)."
Fine...except that never happens here. If one organization "filters" it, it will leak through at other organizations. Happens all the time, now more than ever probably. Won't happen in Cuba, as the government bans alternatives.
Never happens. You are confused, thinking of "public media" as official government-controlled media. The Republicans do tend to oppose this type of media, since it is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and it is not necessary in a free country for the government to control what should be a free marketplace of ideas in this way.
Public media (viewable by public, controlled by the accountability of the free market)? Yes. Government media? No.
Capone was arrested in 1929, and died in 1947. Hardly "our time". Or did you mean that the media coverage for Capone was less than that of Mitnick? That would be an even bigger stretch. Ask 10 people on the street who Al Capone is, and then ask them who Kevin Mitnick is. We all know how that would turn out. I am guessing you might get one person who has heard of Mitnick.
I could go on and on pointing out how stupid of a comparison this is, but there is no point in it - anyone with half a brain doesn't take anything Katz says seriously anyway.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Just one of the Problems
One of the current problems with the media that it's turned into one big oligopoly and it's sleeping with the FCC so it can retain its status.
All media companies need a conduit to deliver thier content to viewers/users, whether it's the airwaves (TV/Radio), Cable, and now Internet (via Telephone for most users).
The FCC controls ALL of these conduits (With the exception of some private networks).
One Solution
1. Regulate/deregulate the FCC's control so that the costs of running a TV channel, radio station is virtually nothing, thus introducing competition.
2. Regulate/deregulate the Baby Bell's exclusive control over the telephone infrastructure to facilitate the deployment of broadband technologies. Maybe seperate service from infrastructure.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
"Yet, one or the other of Reagan or North lied about Iran-Contra, and this doesn't bother conservatives."
So North lied to Congress. The criminal justice system has already handled North. But what of Ted Kennedy, who lies to Congress almost every day?
"I also find it amazing that people are so heated up about Clinton's last minute pardons (even though I think most were bad news)"
It is a President's right. George W Bush is not at all heated up about this. I respect his wisdom.
I'd just like to point out that "greedy capitalist" Bill Gates runs a company which so far has not been found to have tiddled its books, unlike so many other corporations.
Having money and running a large company does not automatically make one a greedy, immoral, evil human being.
However it does seem to automatically make it ok for juvenile Leftists like Mr. Katz to say such things.
Listen up Katz, you doofus. Capitalism is not an evil plot, it is the normal, natural way that human beings interact. Go back in history past the modern all-pervasive state and what you find everywhere in the world is the free market. Participation in the free market is normal and natural, and that one person has more money than another is also normal and natural.
So it is possible that Mr. Gates may be greedy, and it is possible that he may be a bad person. But that he is a Capitalist is not the reason for such character flaws.
Who's a worse person, somebody who provides a product like Gates, or somebody who makes a living calling other people names?
" As opposed to all those "real lynchings" done by those on the right...."
You're kind of mixed-up. You must be thinking of that liberal icon in Congress: Senator Byrd, member of the KKK. Still in the Democratic Party, not likely to leave it.
It is also interesting that Jon says that Alexis isn't front-page news because "poor viewers in Milwaukee or elsewhere have nothing to do with ratings." Does he honestly believe that Salt Lake City has anything to do with national ratings? It is a small, small market when compared to L.A., New York, Austin, Seattle, or a few dozen other cities in the U.S.
I agree that ratings have a definite effect on TV programming and news broadcasts. It is also true that there are some unscrupulous news directors out there that only care about dollar signs. But it is a gross generality to apply that label to the news media in general.
...who the fuck is Elizabeth Smart? I read multiple news sources every day and I've never heard of this. Oh wait, I'm not American. Guess I don't exist huh.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
I am from Salt Lake City and I have discovered the true reason why the Elizabeth Smart case is so huge. It isn't money or race. It isn't media hype or time. It is the fact that Utah has a LAW instigating what is known as the "Racheal System". Every station that wants to broadcast ANYTHING in Utah has to follow the law. It says that ANYONE who gets kidnapped in Utah HAS to get a certain amount of air time. Once that happened here in Utah the case was so big it got national coverage from CNN. It has failed to die since. The Elizabeth Smart case is PROOF of the success stemming from the Racheal system and others like it.
I measure from the American center; not my own point of view. Some outlets are to the right of it.
Some owners are right-wing (Murdoch, as you said). Some are left-wing (Ted Turner).
Fox network and family values? Who ever said anything about "family values"? More of a straw-man put up by the left wing.
These issues are not only well covered territory in such books as Bias, but are also well covered by OReilly, Limbaugh, and William F. Buckley, Jr. What it boils down to is, the more white and attractive the victim, the more its news.
Fortunately here in the UK we have state owned "independant" media, on political stuff it is sometimes biased to ignore some stories but otherwise is fairly good on getting news out. With the Afghan story, it didnt break for several days, and anyway can you imagine 40 afghans at a wedding? i cant, i dont know what that looks like, unfortunely i do know what a young blonde american looks like, because we can visualise with the crime it becomes more important subconciously to us. News people have to report the stories we are more interested in simply because otherwise they fail to be going concerns. Another problem is the fact that capitalism is often knocked in media - Bill has often been hit in the press, the problem is that they dont knock each others owners, they of course are good public spirited rich ppl. (What is wrong with ppl firing weapons into the air at weddings, it is a tradition there, how would you like it if someone bombed your party if you let of fireworks, just cause they do stuff differently doesnt mean the pilots were right, same with the Canadians who got killed.)
Media criticism turned into celebrity journalism, with a growing focus on media moguls and TV superstars.
This part is pretty funny coming from a guy who used to work at Wired magazine. I don't recall any other magazine that tried to make, for example, the founders of Viacom seem hip.
SLASHDOT TV!!! A daily TV show where the best stories from slashdot are broadcast to the entire world. It could revolutionize media, they'll see what kind of ratings "stuff that matters" gets and it'll be the next big thing.
Microsoft gave 72.3Million to charity in 1995.
The anti-trust trial started in 1998. Inquiries started in early 1997.
(not a fan of msoft; but even less of a fan of missinformation)
--- I do not moderate.
What Jon fails to recognize in his ramblines is that Utah has passed a law that explicitly targets the media in missing persons cases involving children. Wisconsin does not have the turn around that Utah has implemented in getting pictures of missing children out as fast as possible to enhance the possibility of finding these children. When this tactic proves to be a successful approach to finding these missing children, you are going to see more and more states taking this strategy. It wasn't CNN's choice not to air news about the Pattersons, its the people co-ordinating the search effort not including the media so intricately in their recovery strategy as closely as the Smarts.
Lots of people complain about NPR being too PC and liberal biased, but PBS TV has some of the best news shows out there. It seems like they're the only news that doesn't insult your intelligence. Compare Newshour with Jim Lehrer to the evening news or Nightline; Newshour doesn't cover fluff stories and they might even show a whole minute of a speech, compared to 4 seconds on the networks. Frontline vs. 60 Minutes or NBC Dateline is the same thing.
"If you disagree with me, don't read. I don't mind!"
If VA Software wants to run rants about editorial integrity, they should get some themselves.
As much as I hate to agree with Katz, he may have a point here. The national coverage of the Elizabeth Smart case has been staggering and may have indeed helped to bring the kidnapper into custody. I haven't heard a word about the Milwaukee case. There is little if any national coverage. Crimes that happen to people in poverty are somehow less important than when they happen to wealthy people.
Well, at least we know you were listening to National Public Radio last week, when this story played there...
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
The media hype isn't about finding kids, it's about selling advertising. Period. Go re-read the article as many times as it takes for you to comprehend what was written, then try to ask an intelligent question.
Seems that the sole voice of "page hits by controversey" on slashdot was traditionally Katz. Now he suddenly notices that this is what drives what passes for journalism these days?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Caution, you're about to enter a heavy spin zone... For such a long article, it sure didn't have much to say. Lots of opinions, little substance and nothing anybody with half a brain in their head didn't already know. The Media sucks. Yeah, and....? The media is biased. Sooo...? It's a fickle establishment. Ya think? I'm sorry, but I would think anyone who frequents /. is intelligent enough to already know the injustices of the media. You can have your whine and cheese all day long, but are you going to do something about it??? Because that's all I saw there was a whole lotta bitching and moaning over something he's never going to do anything about but bitch and moan. I would suggest the inclusion of a special "rant" icon beside future articles of this sort. Like the one that should have been displayed next to the U-571 review a month back.
:D
Karma? I use that stuff for bait.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"Greedy" is not necessarily synonymous with "evil."
Calling someone "greedy" and a "capitalist" does not imply that "all capitalists are greedy," by any stretch of logic. Nor does it imply that "all greedy people are capitalists."
Think of it as a Venn Diagram with three intersecting circles. The evil, the greedy, and the capitalists. The aforementioned statement claims that Bill Gates lies in the intersection between the greedy circle and the capitalist circle.
This statement (taken alone) also makes no implications about the relative sizes of any of these regions.
Are all capitalists greedy? I don't think so, but, as a philosophy, it does tend to promote greediness. So perhaps a relatively large percentage of capitalists are also greedy. He didn't say that, I'm just speculating based on what I know about greed and capitalism.
Are all greedy people evil? Again, I don't think so. Greed is generally considered a bad thing, but it doesn't, by itself and in total, make people evil (by my definition of evil). I'm a little greedy, as are most people, but I care more about how my actions affect others than about feeding my gluttonous desires. At the very least I care about the latter enough to not do evil sorts of things (like pressing the button to kill someone and give me a million dollars). So I'm both greedy and not evil (by my definitions).
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
(way offtopic, I know, but I cannot let ignorance go through - ignorance is NOT bliss when it comes to such serious matters)
> Because Bush is wise enough to know that this body, without reforms, will be based too much on politics, not crime.
Uhm, so you haven't even read their Web site, where it says:
(which country wanted UN? Eh?)
And:
So long for the political bias you are claiming this court has.
There is NO REASON for the US to reject this Court. Except if they have something to get reproached for. Oh, a certain marriage... Well even not, because this court only judges matters happening after its initial opening (which is July 1st, 2002). Don't speak of what you don't know, please.
As to "the US knows what's going on, not the others", that's once again a wrong headed claim. The difference is that until recently, the US were trusted to do the good thing and they had the means to act. But after this overly stupid decision (which is going to break the UN ultimately if Mr Bush continues to act childish), they won't be trusted anymore.
I'll let you ponder on the fact that the "no scientific basis for Kyoto" argument was emitted by Washington officials. They have no... scientific basis (note, I said "basis", not "bias") to back this claim.
Read the press. Learn what happens. Shape up or ship out.
That story has been ALL OVER the news for the last couple days. It's currently the main featured story on cnn.com, and, as of this writing, it's one of the main headlines on every single major news site I can think of. Why do you feel the need to alter reality to fit your own preconceived notions? Isn't the truth sufficient?
I may be very wrong about this, but I believe I read or heard that firing off a volley like that is an Afghan wedding custom. Can anyone confirm/refute this? If it's true, then egg on our face (although maybe the Afghans should have known better, too).
... but also with any other corporatized industry. Radio stations was a very good example. Here in Brooklyn I could decide I wanted to listen to classical, jazz, hiphop, r&b or whatever. Now all the stations sound exactly the same; exactly. Same music, same shit. Hiphop once was a voice for poor blacks (public enemey, tribe called quest, pharcyde, the roots) now it's nothing but beat samples and someone talking about their 22's and watches and shit. There is a new radio station that tries to address the hiphop nonsense in nyc; 105.1 but we'll see how long that'll last. Jazz used to be about Birdland and John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Kenny G shit like that. Now it's about bland elevator music; etc etc etc.
The problem isn't with the corporations doing this the problem is that people here just don't give a shit about their rights or anything else except having that new house and new car.. The American dream. A friend of mine is so apprehensive about everything, oh I shouldn't do that it might affect a,b,c. "Oh you shouldn't tell that person to fuck off their the manager or ceo or whatever of blah blah blah and if you don't conform to mental death you'll be ostracized from society." It's so obvious people don't give a shit when they let corporations have more rights than them. Infact as we've seen lately corporations can rob the public blind and no one does any time at all, no punishments not even punitive damages that mean anything; who loses? the public, Who gains? The Corporation of course and when will it stop? Never, because the people that steal the money get hired at Corporation B and they steal money from the public there as well. Business as usual.
You have people on Slashdot talking out of two sides of their faces.. Ohh I hate Blizzard, Vivendi but I can't wait for WarCraft.. I'm gonna go out and get that game. Hell they didn't trample on my rights just some other guy who has nothing to do with bnetd except for hosting it. Infact the bnetd developers didn't even have anything to do with it but hell whatever.I hate the MPAA but I'm gonna buy some dvd's because I need them. Fuck the RIAA but I have to have that new Britney Spears, NSYNC pop jawlock shit they put out.
Anyway I'm fucking rambling but it's time people stand for something. If you don't like it actively protest it, don't buy it, don't listen to it, don't deal with it. Stand for something or fall for anything.. as for news if you want some good investigative journalism on stuff thats news worthy check out Dateline NBC. Thats the only show I can really think of that tells the current system that people are still watching. If anyone else has anything they think is news worthy feel free to add on.
Why must we as a nation attempt to find racism
.
and greed in every possible place?
A few weeks ago, People magazine ran a story
on two girls in the Pacific NW who vanished
from the same town without a trace. What did
they have in common with the Smart case? They
were young (12 & 13), cute and *white* .
What did they have in common with the Patterson
case? *No clues* . Just gone without a trace.
So, why is the Smart case *really* getting more
attention?
- There is a witness
- It's an abuduction from a home
- There are clues and leads
Most importantly, unlike most missing child
cases, *there's hope she could be found*
Ironically, despite the fact that there are
clear non-race and non-greed-related reasons
this story is getting so much coverage, it's
now time for the guilt-mongers to remind
everyone how much our society sucks. Why?
Perhaps I could say things like
- To feed their own superiority complex
- Because their cynicism is so ingrained
they believe everybody basically sucks
- To get attention
But then I'd be acting just like them, right?
Then again, perhaps the guilt mongers need a
taste of their own medicine every now and then.
-- jfh@cise.ufl.edu
I'm constantly amazed when I travel to foreign countries and find that real news and real journalism can be genuinely profitable. Why do we settle as a nation for magazines like "Time" when Mother Jones sits quietly on the shelf? Why do serious newsmagazines need to shlock around the latest Julia Roberts rumors to sell copies?
This is as much about culture as it is about media. I have nothing against infotainment... I read Slashdot, after all. But that isn't the same thing as information. Yet any of the myriad of people who pick up, say, the Boston Herald every day think that they are getting their daily dose of vitamin I... They don't make the conscious realization that it is just a copy of People on cheap paper. If Americans had any cultural context and the desire to understand rather than be told they would have snapped up copies of any paper covering the assassination lists Presidente Fox is holding and the overhaul of the Russian criminal justice system set to take effect this week. But we don't, so we don't.
There is nothing wrong with the periodicals mentioned in this piece... they just need to be seen in their proper light. Yelling at the previously core newssources just because they chose to sell avon instead of news won't solve the problem. Moving enmasse to reliable news sources will.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
> Marketing is not a "disease". It makes media more accountable
Thanks for filling my argumentation. Read again what you said.
Media doesn't need marketing to be accountable. Media is supposed to inform people. A good newspaper needs no marketing to sell. A good information Web site (slashdot, for example...) needs no marketing to score hits. Let the marketing side to the ad makers. Keep it out of the media content.
I am trying to understand the complaint here. We have a business. This businesses job is to report news. The way this business decide what news to report, is the news that receives the highest ratings. Where is the issue? If the people want to watch this mindless drivel, why on earth would they argue differently? If the average American who watches CNN has no care of nanotechnology, or whatever trendy topic you might wish to learn about, why on earth would a business try and shove it down the peoples' throats?
I think the problem you are having is that you think the big evil business are in control. On the contrary, the people are in control. They are voting in a very democratic way. If you like it, you watch. If you don't like it, you don't watch. Instead of using a ballot, they are using their recreation time to vote. The business, which is deciding what to show in the most democratic way possible, can't help it if people are voting dumb. Whatever the people vote using their time is whatever the people want, and what will bring in the most revenue for the company. It seems to me like both parties leave the table happy. The people get what they voted of, and business walks away with the advertising revenue.
As for us in the minority, I don't see it as a huge problem. We live in the internet age. When we don't like what the majority are voting onto the TV, we just go somewhere else to get our news fix. Slashdot is a fine example of this. I want to hear tech news. Most people don't care; much less understand the articles here. If they saw the same stuff we see on Slashdot, on TV, they would just change the channel. So us, in the minority break off from the group, build our own news system, and pick and choose what we want reported.
I don't hold it against Slashdot that they post up very little gaming news, in the same way I don't hold it against the media that they offer up little technology news. I just get a gaming news site. If you want to make a complaint about the news the majority watches, don't complain about the company behind it. They are just doing what the people are asking of them. Complain about the people who watch the mindless drivel and vote with their time for more. If they collectively one day decided that DMCA (or whatever Slashdot issue you prefer) was more important then this kidnapping of one little girl, you would be able to hear panel after panel, and news story after news story arguing about the DMCA.
While the news media corporations might be behemoths, they are still in insignificant in the herd of the majority. They will always blindly follow wherever the rest of the herd is going.
Yeah, what he said.
It would have been unlikely, even when he was still being held and the furor was at its height, to meet a "man on the street" who knew who Kevin Mitnick was. On the other hand, during Prohibition it would have been hard to find someone who *didn't* know about Al Capone.
It may just be possible that more total words were written about Mitnick; if so, it's only because there are more words written about absolutely everything, these days, and that's a lousy way to compare the two. If you look at the proportional amount of coverage each was given in the contemporary media, Capone wins by a landslide.
in all your points, but shouldn't you be allowed to make up your own mind, instead of having the government "protect" you by censoring what you hear? The BBC has "quality" reporting, sure, but to suggest it has freedom in reporting is ignoring some fundamental issues.
Get the facts straight, please:
"A mortar shell meant to be fired in celebration of a wedding in a Pakistani tribal area exploded prematurely Saturday, killing at least 25 people, including the bridegroom and many of his relatives, officials said."
Read the story.
The POTUS doesn't make any laws. Congress does.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Anyone interested in this topic should read Manufacturing Consent by Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky. If books aren't your thing, a
: www2.prestel.co.uk/littleton/jp_noamc.htm+Chomsky+ Manufacturing+consent+borrowed+phrase&hl=en&ie=UTF -8
documentary
on Chomsky and the Media is available.
The term "Manufacturing Consent" was borrowed from the dean of American Journalism and leading intellectual of the 1920's, Walter Lippmann. Lippmann was writing about how Democracy should work, and his idea, essentially, was that the powerful few should control society for the ignorant masses, meddlesome outsiders, who were incapable of running things. There are plenty of websites on Chomsky, who has written lucidly and astutely on many topics, including international terrorism, propaganda in the modern world, the dominance of corporations, and the silenced plight of the weak and the poor.
Here's a random starting point:
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:hJcVINDjbPcC
Like the story here, does it make him news worthy?
Even so-called serious media like the New York Times and Washington Post are market-driven, focused increasingly on high-end consumer products spawned by digital technology, and on entertainment and controversy. The Times runs several weekly sections brazenly aimed at affluent second home buyers, wine connoisseurs and other high-end consumers. Stories about redecorating million-dollar cottages don't appear because they're newsworthy, but because they draw readers with money, thus advertisers with revenue.
This is close to correct, but not quite. Such special sections appear because they appeal to existing readers. Advertisers don't spend their money based on who the publishers hope will eventually become readers. And a very large segment of the population likes to read about indulgence. Which explains the popularity of "Cribs" now, and "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" back in the day. God knows it's not the rich that keep shows like this on the air.
As far as choosing which child is prime for media saturation, it is the extreme cases that catch our attention. Thus they are the ones that receive media focus. Amadou Diallo, unarmed, shot 41 times in his doorway is explosive: Johnny Gammage beaten and smothered to death in a traffic stop is much less mediagenic. Similarly, a child snatched from the apparent safety of her bed is a summer blockbuster movie: a child snatched from the sidewalk is tragically commonplace enough to be an after-school special.
Are you suggesting that in order for the media to be moral (absurd expectation) they need to report on every abducted child? What's important to you may not matter to me; that's why, at its core, news is just gossip.
You havent been reading any news lately.. havent you dickhead ????
Get off your fucking arse and do something.. Asswipe!
"And both parties are far, far to the right of the average American as a consequence."
How do you justify this ridiculous statement? Clearly the *average* American would fall *between* the two parties' ideologies.
Is there some vast conspiracy steering the elections, or, more probably, do Americans get the government they want (and deserve)?
Sports news in its overbloated, expansive form has just ruined all of professional sports and a healthy portion of amateur athletics. More than any other facet of life, sports receive far more coverage than is necessary. Don't get me wrong, the brand of tearjerker FUD journalism conceived by Barbara Walters and 20/20 and now championed by NBC's Dateline are the most unnecessary sixty minutes of life on any night they air.
Yet night in and night out, a sports fan who wants to get his scores and find out who won and lost has to endure reports on the health of Shaquille O'Neal's left ring finger, how a star running back two time zones away is holding out until his team's general manager "comes correct with the money," and listen to no less than a half dozen talking heads launch in on the virtues of being able to work an at bat to a 3-2 count.
The personalities at ESPN, for example, are fun and often insightful, but when I tune into SportsCenter any more, I usually ask myself at some point in the broadcast what good any of this information is. And the answer is always "nothing."
All this coverage does is inflate our perceptions about these athletes. So much so we often mistake them or heroes and icons. Unfortunately, we as fans are to blame as much as news junkies are to blame for the saturation of cable news channels on the cable dial. Somewhere along the way, we exchanged the boxscores for anecdotes.
I postulate that the less we know about an athlete, but better our appreciation of his skills and achievements will be. The Olympics and NBC's coverage of them are of course the best example of this. Nobody knew anything about the 1980 U.S. hockey team that upset the Soviet Union and won gold. And what a moment and memory that turned out to be. Now, we have to endure a punishing barrage of backstories about how an (American) had to overcome some sort of adversity to get where he is. As if without propping up our athletes on some anecdotal cruch, we won't appreciate their accomplishments. Sad...
Any Slashdot sports fans out there feel the same?
Posts are up!
What's that sound coming from the server rooms?
Why, it's Taco, humming "We're in the money!"
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
a quick perusal of this thread reveals twenty incarnations of liebling, mencken and stone...
...all bashing katz.
you of all people should know that!
It's true that the News is also becoming comercialized. I've often heard the argument that if people want the news, they will watch from a channel that presents it for its newsworthiness, or that they will simply hop on the net. The problem is that you need money to be able to report the news in all its glory (or all its gorry as it has become recently). The stations that don't pander to advertisers or to the big Corporations (who want things about them kept quiet) will go under. The same thing goes for websites. Sure all the information is somewhere on the net, but how do you find it. Right now you can use Google News but will it always be as effective/free as it still a company trying to profit?? All the good sites eventually get a big enough following that they require money (e.g. /.) and they might either go down or become corrupted in some way (/. hasn't yet in my opinion but what would happen if all its advertisers demanded change?).
One program that I am going to miss is Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect. PI was cancelled because it offended advertisers, not because its ratings were down. Now, even if the technologically savy can find the news on the internet, the masses will not, and it is the masses that decide what goes on in the country come election time. They will be influenced by these big corporations controlling the mass media and in turn will screw the rest of us. It's hard to make an informed opinion if you can't find an informative cable tv/network station anymore.
Ok, maybe this is also sensationalizing, and if it doesn't get this bad I will be happy, but I could really see it happening. It's not going to be done on purpose by anyone, it will just migrate in that direction because of the economical forces (in a sort of evolutionary way).
I agree the media is bias. But before pointing fingers, know that the media chooses stories that grab viewers, and that's us. Ask yourself how much of a responsible viewer are you?
As for me, I have a attention span maxed at 10 minutes each day to watch news. Not to mention I often times flip through channels. What type of media does this behavior produce? Hype, key-words that catch attentions, scandals, celebrities, and sugar-coated stories and pictures. The news, just like any other TV shows, feeds on ratings. And they have to grab my attention in almost an instant to prevent me from flipping to the next channel.
I think my behavior as a TV viewer somewhat represents general public. When I am interested in a specific story, I want to know details and facts. But I certainly don't have that time and interest to listen to the whole truth of every story out there. And news carries the responsibility to "entertain" me on stories that I don't care whether is it true or complete.
So as we critize the news media for being greedy, what about us being ignorant to truth and attracted to lies?
...under the sun.
Case in point: CNN running bits on the wedding bombing doesn't provide the justification to ignore 12 year old Bosnian girls being raped by Americans and other international UN representatives, for which there is very little broad coverage.
I tend to think, however, that the reason for spotty news coverage stems from a somewhat more devious source than simple greed, as Katz appears to believe.
In a related thought. . . Based on the conspiracy theorist's assumption that Nothing Major Happens In The News Without A Reason, my guess is that we're going to be seeing a movement towards a softening of perspective regarding Islamic Fundamentalists; That is, the public will be herded into a state where, while by no means forgiving or loving people from the Middle East, thinking of them as pathetic & savage dupes manipulated into performing for greater corrupt forces.
(i.e., "Somebody should step in and control those poor, stupid savages!")
I also tend to think that the current trend towards increasing world-wide anti-Semitism isn't going to let up until it reaches the point where when the next Holocaust begins, the world community will be willing to look the other way. "Serves them right!", or some such.
This, I must think, would require that at some point, the U.S. find itself 'forced', (through public pressure?), to pull its 3 billion per annum funding out of Israel. It'll be interesting to see how this feat is pulled off! Probably it'll be much more convoluted and infinitely more convincing a production.
Stay tuned!
-Fantastic Lad
True, the president can't pass laws. He however can write bills and have congress pass them. Which if I remember correctly, both the House and the Senate were in Democrat hands when he passed his tax increase ('93 I think?), so that's what happened. And as someone else pointed out, there ARE executive orders :)
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Idiot moderators.
There's plenty of stories of Vietnam pilots being injured by small arms fire at low altitudes. And an F-16 is decidedly vulnerable to small arms fire. Compared to a plane designed solely for ground attack (ie: A-10), it has a very thin skin with very little in the way of pilot protection. Not to mention a rifle bullet could probably puncture a fuel tank very easily. But in this case I didn't hear what type of plane was involved in the incident.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Mod the parent up.
Holy crap, everybody!
TV news is bound by the same rules as all other TV!!
Stop the presses!!
Of COURSE cable news is going to be sensational drama with a healthy dose of celebrity thrown in. Of COURSE legitimate stories will be sanitized and sensitized and ratings-ified. MSNBC doesn't compete with Salon or Slashdot. MSNBC competes with Friends. People seem surprised, stupefied even that television is not a public service but a business, and even more stupefied to learn that a business exists to make money.
The solution is not to make laws about what is and is not news, nor is it to use perfectly useful news outlets to cry about how TV news pretends to be legitimate when it is, in fact, poisoning the minds and hearts of people everywhere.
The solution is quite simple. TURN OFF YOUR TV. Instead of using that coax jack in your wall for the polished product of five companies and their subsidiaries, use it for broadband and get your news from the Internet. Or, heaven forbid, go to a library.
I fear this article is merely preaching to the choir (as am I); most people here are smart enough to learn about the world around them from an amalgamation of sources, not simply the editor's desk at a TV station co-owned by Microsoft (or Ted Turner).
And that's too bad.
I resented paying the licence fee for crap BBC programs so much that I got rid of my TV, so that I didn't have to pay it any more.
The BBC news reports wind me up. They put the same spin on stories as every-one else. They put positive spin on rising house prices.(The cost of housing is a cost, rising house prices are bad news) They commit dreadful economic howlers, saying that shortages occur inspite of governments capping prices, rather than because governments cap prices, and hoping that trade-protection will save jobs (<sarcasm>much like it did in the 1930's</sarcasm>)
The documentaries have been dumbed down. Now they are so spun out that they are unwatchably tedious. I can remember the James Burke programs from twenty years ago that were a stunning torrent of information and insight.
I think there are two key problems with the BBC.
1)Its the same people. You work for the Guardian for a bit, move to the BBC, move to ITV. Its the same employees who don't know any better.
2)They feel they have to justify the licence fee by keeping the viewing figures up. So if the fashion is for celebrity gossip in the news slot, the BBC competes with ITV for who can get most viewers for their celebrity gossip. They lack the faith in the concept of public service to stick to serious news and argue for the licence fee on the grounds that it is worthwhile to provide serious news even when it is out of fashionable.
I'm T-total, so it annoys me when public policy is discussed as though alcohol were not a drug, and drinking is not recreational drug use. The BBC spins alcohol as not-a-drug, just like the other broadcasters, even though the BBC doesn't carry adverts for alcohol, (or anything).
I never felt that the BBC took advantage of its independence of business to tell me secrets. It is really strange in the UK at the moment, because our two big parties, Conservative, and New Labour, are corporatist/big business soft right parties. 'Old' Labour was left wing, but even back in the eighties, when we had left versus right politics, the licence fee didn't do very much for editorial independence. The BBC depended on the politicians for the licence fee. The Conservative politicians listened to businessmen, the same businessmen who ran the companies that placed the adverts in other media. The Labour politicians listened to the workers who worked in the big unionised companies that placed the adverts in other media. If ITV took an anti-car stance, the advertisers of cars on ITV would bring it back on message. If the BBC took an anti-car stance, either the car workers union leader would talk to the Labour prime minister, or the managing director of Britsh Motor Corporation would talk to the Conservative prime minister. The BBC never developed a distinctive voice.
And then I grew up. Face it, the universe is not fair. There are have and have-nots. Sometimes the "have's" have earned their success, sometimes not. Sometimes the have-not's have earned their state, sometimes not. The universe doesn't owe us anything. It was here first.
While I generally agree with this, I think it depends on the medium. I don't see why the local paper would need to focus on high dollar customers; they should be trying to reach the broadest market. It seems to me that this would mean factual reporting on stories of general interest. I say this, but still I see a lot of sensationalistic crap in our papers, so I don't subscribe. Same for CNN or similar TV media, I don't watch them much either, what's the point? I think there is something more at work here than simplistic greed. Why don't we see sensationalistic reporting on interesting or uplifting stories rather than depressing angles on uninteresting stories? Our media is more effective at spreading terror than Al Qaeda. My own opinion is it has more to do with bad management influenced by warped values.
Cable channels, newspapers and newsmagazines cater to wealthy people -- no matter what color -- because those are the consumers advertisers want to reach.
While this does make sense, I'd be interested to see figures on revenue generated from readership/viewers as compared to sponsors/advertisers though. As a rule of thumb: more facts, less commentary. Thus I suppose I could rate your commentary as trolling; you make your own point. Seriously, I suspect you wouldn't get heckled so much if you supported your opinions with facts.
Even so-called serious media like the New York Times and Washington Post are market-driven, focused increasingly on high-end consumer products spawned by digital technology...
I couldn't believe the amount of coverage that that "tilt and run vehicle" got in the media. It might have been amusing to watch Paula Zahn scoot around the sidewalk on one of these things, but my gosh, several days in a row? From how many different sources? From this, Slashdot was not immune. Not only was this thing probably uninteresting to most people, it's not even mass marketable. There are more interesting and important thing to report on like: Methinks there is more to it then greed...
The only mystery is how long it will take the media -- and more importantly, the public -- to understand and acknowledge the reality of their own new, intensely corporate, value system.
Well it's not my value system, and it never was. It's a shame really that mass media is in such sad shape -- it could be a force for far greater good.
Compare the two kidnappings:
Alexis - Dad walked her to the bus stop and she hasn't been seen yet.
Elizabeth - Kidnapped out of her own room, while her sister watched.
If you can't see why the Smart kidnapping would take bigger headlines than the Patterson kidnapping, you are an idiot. This isn't rocket science here folks. Kidnappings like Alexis' happen a hell of a lot more often than people breaking in and specifically kidnapping one child while another watches.
Katz has it right, though it get's a little lost in there. The media gives what people want. We all can find the sad stories of kidnappings and run-aways on the Community Watch board at Wal-Mart. But there's a bit more sinister aspect to someone breaking into a house to kidnap one girl while her sister watches. And that's why it makes the news.
Man. NPR? PBS? They're both about as informative as an Elmo cartoon and as biased as Ted Kennedy.
Try the BBC, bubs.
I always get peeved when minorities complain about "Whitey" holding them down. I explain to them that "Whitey" holds white people down too. It's not about black or white, because Whitey only sees one color: GREEN. And the bottom line is, if you ain't got it, you ain't gettin' it.
KILL WHITEY!!!
signed,
a white guy
"The Members of the Court do not represent their governments but are independent magistrates"
They represent their governments. That is how it works with court appointments the world over: even if they are supposed to be independent, they end up representing the ones who appoint them.
"There is NO REASON for the US to reject this Court. Except if they have something to get reproached for"
There is every reason: the US could get reproached for something that is not wrong at all. Not to mention other countries: there is a current anti-semitic tone running in Europe; not hard to imagine them indicting Israeli officials for daring to fight back against the aggressors that attack their country.
"As to "the US knows what's going on, not the others", that's once again a wrong headed claim. The difference is that until recently, the US were trusted to do the good thing and they had the means to act"
Now more than ever the US can be trusted to do the good thing. Kangaroo court is not 'the good thing'.
"I'll let you ponder on the fact that the "no scientific basis for Kyoto" argument was emitted by Washington officials"
Who cares what the officials say. Regardless, Kyoto is founded on assumptions that have no proof or evidence (the whole manmade global warming thing). It is also mostly political: major pollutors like China are let off the hook.
"The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations"
That doesn't help your case, you know. This is the same UN that presided over the Serbian rape of Bosnia (remember Srbenica). This is the same UN that actually appointed a real card-carrying Nazi to run it and issue anti-semitic proclamations (Kurt Waldheim). This is the same UN where a way too huge percentage of votes are given to despots and dictators.
You are right, there is no reason for ignorance about the court. Shape up or ship out: go to Mars. You are not being a good global citizen.
"Media is supposed to inform people"
It isn't supposed to do anything. At least in the U.S. we have the first amendment to protect ALL speech, whether or not it meets yours or others defined "missions". That is how it should be.
" Let the marketing side to the ad makers. Keep it out of the media content."
If the people involved want it there, let it be there. Do not censor it.
The United States knowingly supported a course of action that put civilian lives at risk. This despite the fact that the US achieved none of its major objectives. The aid that the United States was supplying was done so through the military, for a while using food droplets that looked similar to unexploded ordinance, causing children to die who went looking for it.
The war itself made it close to impossible for relief workers to make progress bringing food to refugees, who were fleeing the war brought on by the Americans. Extrapolating the numbers from some of the relief camps brings the total dead into the thousands by starvation, exposure and disease alone.
More innocent civilians in Afghanistan were killed by Americans, and are being killed by Americans, than were in the WTC and Pentagon. The government of the United States needed war as a means to pump up its popularity, which is why, given the anticlimactic ending of the conflict in Afghanistan, every major Republican is championing the cause against Iraq, which had nothing to do with the Sept 11th attacks.
It may not be "terrorism" in the strictest sense of the word, but it's a lousy crime against humanity nonetheless.
Nothing in the wording contained the implication that capitalism is always greedy. He described Gates and a greedy capitalist, which says nothing about whether he calls all capitalists greedy. (In fact, it's just the opposite. It hints that he thinks there do exist non-greedy capitalists, since he wouldn't need to use the modifier if he thought capitalism always included greediness. If he thought capitalism always meant greediness then saying "greedy capitalist" would be redundant, like saying, "two-wheeled bicycle". The fact that he felt a need to add the word indicates just the opposite of what you read into it.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The conclusion that the media covers news stories differently based on sensationalism is of course true, but Katz's slant on this one is waaay off. The Milwaukee case is not getting as much attention as the Salt Lake case NOT because of racial reasons or richness of the audience. It's because the Milwaukee case is much less unusual, and therefore less interesting of a story. In Milwaukee, the girl went missing while outside of the house. In Salt Lake, the girl went missing right from within the confines of the house, indicating that someone probably got inside and took her. That's a much more rare and "interesting" story than someone going missing from somewhere out on the streets, because it puts more fear in people's minds to have it happen right under their own roof.
Consider another older incident from Milwaukee, that of Jeffrey Dahmer. All his victims were poor. Most were not white. Most (but not all) were gay or bi. That puts them right into the kind of demographic Katz believes the media loves to ignore. But it got a *hell of a lot* of media coverage when he got found out. Why? Because it was a sensational story - one that makes a good "yarn" - and *that* is the primary determinant for the news outlets. They want the ratings, just like every other entertainment show, and that means they want to cover the more interesting plots.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Alexis Patterson has black hair. Elizabeth Smart has blonde hair... A pattern?
Oh, Rilya Wilson who disappeared in Miami also had black hair.
Draw your own conclusions. Look at pictures of the two girls and tell me why the press is focusing on the Smart abduction.
Jack
This a testable statement. Look at the history of per theater revenue vs gross revenue if you want to get a feel for how there might be more than market-driven consideration in distribution of memes.
A few years back I ran some numbers. Here are the 24 Week Average Hollywood Propaganda Ratings* as of Saturday October 02, 1999
Films Probably OVER Exposed by the Movie Industry
Market Distortion Movie Title
1586760 shakespeare in love (miramax)
1352850 election (par)
1327109 an ideal husband (miramax)
1259503 entrapment (20th)
1161624 analyze this (wb)
1021663 the love letter (dreamworks)
1003912 a midsummer night's dream (fox searchlight)
841683 never been kissed (20th)
830672 the out-of-towners (par)
Films Probably UNDER Exposed by the Movie Industry
Market Distortion Movie Title
-181497 the blair witch project (artisan)
-191001 mysteries of egypt (destination)
-234300 the thirteenth floor (sony)
-268947 encounter in the third dimension (nwave)
-300778 extreme (bldjf)
-304998 baadshah (eros)
-1006999 taal (eros)
-1089004 lost & found (wb)
-2126981 everest (macgillivray freeman)
-2272350 island of the sharks (imax)
-2376508 t-rex: back to the cretaceous (imax)
-3894387 the sixth sense (bv)
-4254919 star wars: episode i - the phantom menace (20th)
(*) Hollywood Propaganda Ratings are a way of ranking movies according to how willing the industry is to sacrifice money in order to expose those movies to the public.
The sacrifice for propaganda is estimated to be the number of showings of the movie times the estimated sacrifice per showing. The sacrifice per showing of the movie is estimated to be the average revenue per showing of a movie minus the expected revenue per showing of the movie (based on the movie's prior week's revenue figures). The showings are estimated by compiling movie schedules from around the country (about 10,000 showings) and giving non-prime time showings only 1/4 of a prime time showing's exposure (and therefore potential sacrifice if no one attends that showing).
These figures deliberately exclude the opening week's revenues for each movie.
A problem exists due to the fact that small sacrifices per showing can be 'in the noise' which means it is unclear whether there is any sacrifice per showing or not. Yet with large amounts of exposure, the total estimated sacrifice can be large. This can wash out the ratings of movies with more certainty of being over/under exposed -- especially if the movies 'in the noise' are recent releases with huge exposures, which is frequently the case. To remedy the situation, the total sacrifice is multiplied times the sacrifice per showing to stress only those movies whose total sacrifice is certain of being due to market distortion rather than a huge exposure of a possibly misestimated small sacrifice per showing. The results are then sorted accordingly and the stress which is called "Market Distortion" above.
Additionally, only the few most distorted movies are displayed in each category (OVER and UNDER exposed).
Seastead this.
This is a quite well written piece, but like many articles on slashdot, it is very US centric. There is nothing wrong with having articles about the United States, but they should be accompanied with the necessary background for other readers, otherwise the author comes across as being ignorant of the world around them.
There is a very simple solution. Don't watch it. Alternatively, actively boycot all products advertised on these shows that you disaprove of.
We need to understand that you do not pay for television. It is entirely paid for by advertising. This means that you have little voting control over what you see on TV. TV is not a passive process. It is a well monitored science. The advertising corportations know very well how many people are watching (channel surfing) at any time and they know (or at least try) the best ways to get you to stop surfing and watch their show.
The problem is that TV is broadcast (ie. broadband). That means that many millions of viewers are watching a limited set of news channels. They are all competing to capture as many viewers as possible, so they will target for the average viewer. This means that the average viewer wants to see hyped news or doesn't care to make the choice of shuting off the TV. In this respect TV is simply a reflection of what the average viewer wants to see.
This could change if TV moved to a pay-per view structure as it would allow us to send money directly to the content we desire (allowing us to directly vote/reward good programming). This would be bad news for producers as it would allow you to pay to be informed rather than being paid to be a consumer.
This is more than a problem with news coverage. It is a problem with TV, magazines, radio (actually it is a problem with the corporate model as a whole). It is profit based. Corporations have no built in morality. They answer only to stock holders who generally put their money on the most profitable business without much concern about the integrity of the content.
Your best solution for promoting change is to shut off your TV. Cancel your cable. Seek your news on the Internet where you select the content. Avoid news sites that engage in junk news.
After all, the cable companies now have a nearly 100% market saturation in urban areas. If everyone decided to cut cable unless they provide quality content, then that is what would happen.
So, cut the cable and then go see a movie. But walk out and demand a refund when they show advertising. After all, your paying for it.
(OT again)
(why are you posting as anonymous coward BTW? Don't you have the courage of your opinions?)
> They represent their governments. That is how it works with court appointments the world over: even if they are supposed to be independent, they end up representing the ones who appoint them.
s,the world over,in the US, please (and I DO hope it's not true in the US - someone prove me wrong, please, with evidences). Sorry, but this is not the case in Europe at all. For one, the Mani Pulite operation in Italy could never have happened if your claim held true (No URL - I'll let you find by yourself what this was all about). Neither would have the lawsuits concerning many politicians in France or other EU countries. Real lawmen are impartial. They judge on facts. Which invalidates your other "argument":
> There is every reason: the US could get reproached for something that is not wrong at all
So, in your opinion, who is able to judge what is wrong or right? The US alone? Is *this* your conception of international justice? Does the *word* "international" mean something to you, apart from "American"?
Hint: accused != guilty. Prove yourself right and you're out of trouble. Simple.
Wrap-up 1: world != US, justice != "Bush says it's OK". Reconsider either point and you're doomed as a "global citizen", to quote your words. Now, as to the Kyoto treaty, you say:
> Who cares what the officials say
Well, you, apparently, because you blindly rephrased your country's officials arguments as to the validity of the Kyoto treaty. Oh, and you say that:
> Regardless, Kyoto is founded on assumptions that have no proof or evidence (the whole manmade global warming thing)
There is evidence that human activities are involved in global warming, so again you don't know what you're talking about. And given that the US is responsible for 25% of WORLDWIDE greenhouse gas emissions, it's just woefully stupid from the part of Mr Bush to refuse the Kyoto treaty, all that because it would hurt the *US* economy by raising gas cost by 35-80%? Hah! May I remember you how much we pay for gas here in Europe?
You also claim that:
> It is also mostly political: major pollutors like China are let off the hook
*BEEP* Wrong answer: FYI, China has accepted and conforms to the Kyoto treaty. And even though I'm not really fond of China's way of governing the fifth of total Earth population, I have to agree with their officials who qualify Mr Bush's decision as irresponsible.
Game not quite over. I've quite another rant against you when you say this:
> there is a current anti-semitic tone running in Europe; not hard to imagine them indicting Israeli officials for daring to fight back against the aggressors that attack their country
First point, the same way there is an anti-semitic trend in Europe (and I don't deny it, event though things have curiously calmed down since Le Pen was defeated at the 2nd turn of French presidential elections), I can say that there's an anti-arabic trend in the US. And unfortunately the average US citizen (which a /. reader is not, fortunately) assumes Arabic == muslim. This is totally wrong headed. You have catholic people in Afghanistan, please you or not.
As to "the aggressors that attack their country", you prove yourself to be TOTALLY UNAWARE OF MIDDLE EAST RECENT HISTORY. I shall remind you that all the current trouble between Israel and the Palestine began when Yitzhak Rabin got murdered. This guy, and his successor, Shimon Perez, did great to bring peace in the region. Some sucker with a gun led to the situation we know today. The problem nowadays in Middle East are not the Palestinians. The problem in Middle East today lies in two words: Ariel Sharon. Anyone who has even loosely observed the situation in these last 7 years (Rabin was assassinated in 1995) knows that this is true.
Wrap-up 2: really, you need to shape up. And please next time don't post anonymously.
The irony, IMO, is thick. Katz is the first one (well, on Slashdot anyway) to perpetuate the media crap. If it's not Columbine, it's Geeks, or September 11..
All tragedies, granted; but there's more to life than re-hashing the same old stuff to be sensational.
I've always wondered the same thing. Some posts are simply incredibly stupid. I think that "Just Plain Wrong" should be included in any list of logical fallacies, as well.
ACs, Trolls, Flamebaits, and Offtopics at +6 moderation.
Case in point: CNN running bits on the wedding bombing doesn't provide the justification to ignore 12 year old Bosnian girls being raped by Americans and other international UN representatives, for which there is very little broad coverage.
Gee, maybe it's ignored because... it's not true? Nah, that couldn't be. Heck, if the Jews can all call in sick on 9/11, then they certain can mastermind something like this.
We're not talking about .22's or 30-0-6's here, or even 12ga. shotguns. We're talking about infantry rifles with 7.62mm ammo.
Er, U.S. infantry in WWII used the M-1 Garand which fired 30.06. An AK-47 fires a 7.62x39mm bullet. The 30.06 is bigger at 7.62x54, and consequently more lethal, with a longer range.
Whoops, I guess this just goes to show that if you hear about a bomb killing many people at a wedding in Afganistan, don't assume that it's the only one.
Think twice before you RSVP that Afghan wedding invitation!
and took the time to respond here on /.
how about emailing (insert news organization of your choice here) and telling them that you don't agree with their coverage?
Point them in the direction of things you want them to cover more. Cover less.
I'm almost positive that they'll be receptive to a group of people that start to question their pratice(s). They need you. You don't need them. They know this. Drop them a note or two.
Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
Frightening. I go to the Beeb, the Guardian, and the Times daily to get real news!
If you hate the UK press, you should see what we get here.
Let's face it: I bet if you asked 100 people whether they would rather be entertained or educated, probably 90 percent or better would rather be entertained. Hence, you get entertaining stories on the "news". Education takes too much time and the short attention spans can't tolerate it. Too bad, really. Listen to NPR. By they way: "I demand scripted television, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
I think you make a good point about teaching critical reasoning and statistics in schools - the world might be a smarter place if more people could appreciate the implications of probability, or at least grasp that looking through data until you find a statistical anomaly doesn't make the anomaly significant in it's own right.
:)
Of course it would probably devastate the current sensationalism driven media machine, but it's a price I'm willing to accept.
Eh? Since when has it been Slashdot's job to ensure we get our minimum levels of non tech related news? Slashdot is for nerds. When I do visit this place, I expect nerdly stuff.
/. PTB to feed us social commentary seems like utterly useless justification.
But hey, maybe Slashdot readers don't know enough about cars. They should get a writer who can come in and write long screeds about how to change components in your engine, to address this ignorance.
And maybe every couple of weeks, an inhouse breeder of rare fish can come past to give us some tips on how to keep their scales shiny!
If you're sick of hearing about microchips, robots and copywrite cases, maybe you could try visiting another site in addition to Slashdot? A ham fisted attempt by the
> s,the world over,in the US, please (and I DO hope it's
/. reader is not,
> not true in the US - someone prove me wrong, please,
> with evidences). Sorry, but this is not the case in
> Europe at all. For one, the Mani Pulite operation in
> Italy could never have happened if your claim held true
> (No URL - I'll let you find by yourself what this was
> all about). Neither would have the lawsuits concerning
> many politicians in France or other EU countries. Real
> lawmen are impartial. They judge on facts. Which
> invalidates your other "argument"
While "good" "lawmen" may tend toward impartiality, it's kind of naive to assume that they're unencumbered by the same societal background and belief systems of those who appoint them, not to mention loyalties to persons and states.
> So, in your opinion, who is able to judge what is wrong
> or right? The US alone? Is *this* your conception of
> international justice? Does the *word* "international"
> mean something to you, apart from "American"?
When there's appropriate "international" participation in the fielding of peacekeeping forces, you might be right. Now, however, the U.S. carries the majority of that burden, and has carried that burden while Europe has tended to its own interests. The countries of Europe, like those of the Middle East, have relied on our military while disdaining us for our superpower status. So, while the general concept behind the idea of the court seems good, it doesn't seem like an unreasonable concern that it may be abused, and that the U.S. would be the most likely target of such abuse.
Personally, I'd be happy to let Europe field its own peacekeeping forces more often. Bosnia is a lot closer to you than to me. Why did my friends and neighbors have to go there, instead of yours?
> Hint: accused != guilty. Prove yourself right and you're
> out of trouble. Simple.
Again, this strikes me as naive. No innocents have been found guilty by any court?
> There is evidence that human activities are involved in
> global warming [studyworksonline.com], so again you don't
> know what you're talking about.
Evidence isn't proof. You'd not make a good "lawman" with that attitude. While I personally find it likely that global warming is caused partially by human activity, there isn't consensus within the scientific community that this is in fact the case. From the link you posted, you can find this on the NOAA site listed at the bottom:
"There is considerable debate centered on the cause of 20th century climate change."
Now, you can counterbalance that with the fact that changing our current behavior will cause economic hardship without guarantee that it'll make a positive difference. Maybe it's the right thing to do (my own opinion), but there's plenty of room for legitimate disagreement.
> First point, the same way there is an anti-semitic trend
> in Europe (and I don't deny it, event though things have
> curiously calmed down since Le Pen was defeated at the
> 2nd turn of French presidential elections), I can say that
> there's an anti-arabic trend in the US. And unfortunately
> the average US citizen (which a
> fortunately) assumes Arabic == muslim. This is totally
> wrong headed. You have catholic people in Afghanistan,
> please you or not.
A couple of points worth mentioning:
1. There's no active "nativist" movement in the U.S. The current "anti-arabic trend" is purely reactive in nature to recent events, and will be over while rightist European politicians still lament their "immigrant problems".
2. We haven't killed six million Muslims or persons of Arabic descent in the U.S., and it's highly unlikely that we will. So we have a far better track record on these issues than you'll have for several generations.
> As to "the aggressors that attack their country", you
> prove yourself to be TOTALLY UNAWARE OF MIDDLE EAST
> RECENT HISTORY. I shall remind you that all the current
> trouble between Israel and the Palestine began when
> Yitzhak Rabin [israeliscent.com] got murdered. This guy,
> and his successor, Shimon Perez, did great to bring
> peace in the region. Some sucker with a gun led to the
> situation we know today. The problem nowadays in Middle
> East are not the Palestinians. The problem in Middle East
> today lies in two words: Ariel Sharon. Anyone who has
> even loosely observed the situation in these last 7 years
> (Rabin was assassinated in 1995) knows that this is true
I'm not sure why everyone tends to oversimplify things like this. I'm AWARE OF MIDDLE EAST RECENT HISTORY, and NOT-SO-RECENT HISTORY for that matter (you might want to brush up a bit on your history, since you seem to have forgotten what happened in the middle of this century in Europe). The "current trouble" isn't anything new, and while I'm no fan of Sharon, it's hardly fair to lay the blame entirely at his feet. Why did the Israeli people elect him? Was it because of the collapse of the peace process. Why did the peace process collapse? Because Arafat thought he could get a better deal by spending the lives of some of his people, or because he couldn't control his people. Sharon is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is the unwillingness of the Palestinians to accept reality - they're never going to get all of Palestine back, and they're going to have to learn to live with Israel, or die with it.
> And please next time don't post anonymously.
I fail to see the relation between the source of a statement and the validity of that statement.
dtw
..and this is why I read Slashdot/Register/Onion/Brains-Trust rather then watch or read the mainstream news. For over a month now all the UK media has talked about is The World Cup (some blokes kicking a ball around a field) and Big Brother (a brainless, voyeuristic and sensationalist TV show).
What people forget is that although it's not coming from a central source (unless you believe the conspiricy theorists) all media is propaganda of one sort or another.
We are being taught to consume quietly and without protest, to care only for our individual comfort and let the rest of the world go to hell.
-= Never enter a battle of wits with an unarmed man =-
I live in the UK and haven't heard of either of these kids.
So the media is run by big business and sensationalises news stories. OK, we've got that point.
Actually, neither of these two kids, sad though it is I'm sure for their parents and family, are of great importance.
If you want "serious news" read the Wall Street Journal or something, and spare the rest of us your stale thoughts.
wrinkleshirt above is absolutely right. Moral media is there if you bother to look for it, rather than channel surf the garbage on tv. ZMag [zmag.org] is the best alternative news source there is. Spend and hour there and you will realize that all of the popular commercial media: tv, radio, magazines, & newspapers, are very conservative and rife with trivia, bias, and omission, omission being the key factor.
The "liberal media" is a fabrication of the conservative media talking about itself so it can become even more conservative. As Noam Chomsky states, the publications which tell the truth are the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London, written by and for the very rich. They don't even try to disquise what they are doing. Alternative Radio http://www.AlternativeRadio.org is a good source on politics, the only broadcast widely available in the USA. 60,000 people die every day from contaminated water. 32,000 people starve to death every day and it's never reported anywhere. 2.8 Billion people live on less than $2 per day.
2800 people die one day in NYC and it's time for WWIII and the republicans and democrats are proud to be fascists. The cause of the problem is the weenies and cowards at the FAA who never bothered to close the cockpit doors. We should bomb FAA headquarters. We have 60 channels on basic cable so that we never have time to actually read a book or article by Noam Chomsky ("arguably the most important intellectual alive" --New York Times Book Review).
Proportional Representation is the norm in western Europe and most Americans have never even heard of it. Geographic Representation (what we have) systematically excludes most policy alternatives from ever being discussed. Sure, you're free to write "your representative in congress", and you can write to the king of France, also (nevermind the nonexistence of which).
The point is that real policy options for 90% of the population are taboo. Violence is common on TV, nudity is taboo. If God wanted you to be naked, you would be fricking born that way (dumbass). The public relations industry in America is proportionally much greater (an order of magnitude) than in any other country.
One more thing, contrary to the constant themes foisted on us by tv, self-indulgence is not a virtue, it's not cool to be stupid, recycling is not a fad, and pollution is not a theory. Economic growth has little to do with progess, unless you are very rich. And BurgerWorld is lying: you DON'T deserve a break today, you deserve a spanking, for being lazy and greedy and not going to ZNet or reading Z Magazine or the Utne Reader, the eclectic opposite of the Readers Digest. And if you voted to re-elect anyone in the last 20 years in the USA, you are part of the problem. As JonKatz stated in the primary post "the media are market driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven" which means that huge corporations control every second of what is broadcast to most Americans, which is the only source of information most Americans bother to use. Don't think, drink; why ask why?; because I'm worth it; you the monster--yes you, the average dumbass jingoistic American--you are a monster.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -MIT Ling
"Well, you, apparently, because you blindly rephrased your country's officials arguments as to the validity of the Kyoto treaty. Oh, and you say that"
Actually, I've not heard before what the officials said. They looked at the evidence and arrived at the same conclusion.
"*BEEP* Wrong answer: FYI, China has accepted and conforms to the Kyoto treaty "
Of course. It lets them off the hook, and is design to damage the economies of China's rivals. Nothing to do with pollution, the Kyoto treaty.
"I shall remind you that all the current trouble between Israel and the Palestine began when Yitzhak Rabin [israeliscent.com] got murdered"
It goes way back before that. It goes back to the anti-semitism by Islam and Arabs for hundreds of years. The most recent escalation in trouble began because of the aggression of this recent "intifada", sparked by the outrage of a Jewish man (Sharon) daring to merely walk across the Jews' most holy geographic spot.
"I can say that there's an anti-arabic trend in the US"
You say so without being informed about it. I live close to one of the largest Arab enclaves in the U.S. What you claim is happening is not happening. Violence and discrimination against Arab-Americans has been more than offset by a groundswell of emphasis and realization that the Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans are part of America too.
"So, in your opinion, who is able to judge what is wrong or right? The US alone"
Well, the U.S. is certainly more capable than the United Nations.
"I'm not really fond of China's way of governing the fifth of total Earth population, I have to agree with their officials who qualify Mr Bush's decision as irresponsible"
They actually know that Bush's decision is pretty wise for the U.S., as Kyoto damages the US economy while letting China off the hook. If you know anything about "Red China", you know that environmental responsibility is dead-last for these guys.
"You have catholic people in Afghanistan, please you or not. "
That is something I did not know. Surprised if there are many of them: Afghanistan, like almost all Muslim countries, has a legal and government system designed to punish people for not being Muslims, and the numbers of non-Muslims are thus reduced by expulsions, genocide (as in the Sudan) or people who convert to Islam in order to get full rights. Should not be too surprising that there ARE some, considering that there are also tiny Jewish communities in Syria and Iran (whose governments are dedicated to extermination of middle eastern Jewry).
About judges representing those who appoint them: it is this way in the US. After the last election, the Supreme Court justices nominated by Democrats voted to ignore the election (and law and the constitution) and vote "for" the Democratic candidate. The ones who go against their appointers do exist, but they are the minority.
He is not an anarchist. He is a socialist, which is on the opposite end of things from anarchism.
I've been to zmag archives. It is a way to get educated about Chomsky, but not any way to get educated about the world.
"He describes in Manufacturing Consent exactly how and why the media manage public opinion"
That manifesto is nothing more than a fantastic conspiracy theory that rests on the dubious assumption that people don't make up their minds on their own. It is self-serving: Chomsky's views are rather unpopular, shared by something like 3% of the population. It is because they are nutty and unsupported. Chomsky fabricates the "media control" theories in which his unpopularity is due to some sort of conspiracy by those in power, not his own ideas.
"And the #1 scholar on the planet on this subject is MIT professor Noam Chomsky."
He is recognized as a great scholar in linguistics, perhaps #1. When it comes to social affairs, politics, and economics, he has no standing, except among a small fringe.
"He is permanently blacklisted from any commercial broadcast in the USA because he tells the truth."
What wacky conspiracy theories! If this were true, then how come I have seen Chomsky rant and rave at a podium on corporate television several times over the years?
"Clearly you haven't read any of Chomsky's work, as your comments are the complete reverse of reality"
I've read it, and found that Chomsky's views have nothing to do with reality. Like most people, I read his stuff and reject it because it makes little sense.
"He writes that news propaganda is for democracy"
A meaningless term, "propaganda" is. Information is information. That is all. When people like him use "propaganda", it is typically a meaningless insult to information that they want censored.
"He's never spoken in favor of censorship; rather, he is often the target of it."
The guy is not censored. Rather, hardly anyone cares what he has to say because what he says is irrelevant. He is "censored" the same way CBS TV "censored" the After MASH TV show: no one cared.
"Chomsky has never advocated government control of the media"
Yes he has. He has argued for "democratic" [i.e., govermment] control, and censorship of so-called "corporate" media for the crime of having views he does not agree with.
"You've obviously read most of his books and objectively critiqued his ideas. I stand corrected."
The vast majority of intellectual scholars who have read his political writings agree: Chomsky is a great linguist.
"More innocent civilians in Afghanistan were killed by Americans, and are being killed by Americans, than were in the WTC and Pentagon"
No, these civilians are being killed by the Taliban. The Taliban uses these people as human shields and hides among them, intending the deaths.
"every major Republican is championing the cause against Iraq, which had nothing to do with the Sept 11th attacks."
It had plenty: Saddam was part of the support network. Also, by being against Saddam, these Republicans are "for Iraq" not against it.
"It may not be "terrorism" in the strictest sense of the word"
It's anti-terrorism.
"The "liberal media" is a fabrication of the conservative media"
No, the liberal media (CNN etc) is created by those who run it. The conservative media cannot fabricate it: Fox News (conservative) does not control CNN (liberal)
"2800 people die one day in NYC and it's time for WWIII and the republicans and democrats are proud to be fascists"
"Proportional Representation is the norm in western Europe and most Americans have never even heard of it."
We know all about it. It is just a way to subvert democracy by getting extremists into government.
Or anti-fascists, as the case may be.
"Spend and hour there and you will realize that all of the popular commercial media: tv, radio, magazines, & newspapers, are very conservative and rife with trivia, bias, and omission, omission being the key factor"
Some is liberal, some is conservative (it is only "all conservative" if you are to the left of Stalin!). The liberal media outlets (CNN, CBS) are the most likely to be rife with omissions, since leftism itself only works if you forget and leave out a lot of facts.
No, unfortunately, this is real, and it is covered by the international press.
Here's a clip from an article I saved from last year. The actual web page is gone now, but you can certainly do some searching if you really want to know about this stuff.
-Fanstastic Lad
I seriously doubt that any child, given the free choice, would decide to sell their bodies for sex. Girls and women of these war-torn and disadvantaged countries are kidnapped and forced on threat of violence and death to perform. This is well documented. Do some reading. They are not paid. They are kept locked like animals in their rooms. In the words of one kidnapped prositute interviewed , "We are not even treated as well as dogs; you at least feed dogs. They starve us of water so that we will drink the beer customers buy for us." These people are thought of as commodity by the traders and bar-opperators who own them. It is one of the few situations in which I would be willing to murder in order to rectify.
Your mis-understanding of the situation is a direct result of the media filtering going on in the Western world.
Get informed!
-Fantastic Lad
The consolidation of news and publishing companies into conglomerates multiples cross promotion and media incest. Example: Would Time Magazine have featured the ladies from HBO's "Sex and the City" on it's front cover, if Time Warner did not own HBO?
The story was about urban singles. Would Time have even covered the subject based on legitimate news judgment? A problem in recognizing ersatz news is in realizing what legitimate news was not covered.
"Your mis-understanding of the situation is a direct result of the media filtering going on in the Western world."
There is no media filtering going on. If there was, we wouldn't see this story here (nor would I have seen it in major US media outlets several times already)
There are more and more news and media outlets all the time.
Screaming has little to do with it. Because Rush is well-researched, well-grounded, and very factual. THAT makes it true.
Explain the liberal bias? Pretty simple. Left-wing owners and reporters and producers want it to be that way, either to proselytize their views or because it sells.
The fact that you care about the "Race" of school victims just showns your own racism, it does not show anything about the media.
(However, if you want, I can look at things with a racist viewpoint, and dispense with your argument that way. Go ahead, name one massive "black" school massacre like Columbine.)
"Conservatives are always Fascists (which is completely backward, Fascism is on the Left end of things"
Sure, while most big-time fascists are on the left (Pol Pot, Castro, Mao, Lenin)... there are two gentlemen, both right-wing fascists, I suggest you look into. Watch the History channel for one of them (some say his name is the H in the history channel). For the other one, look at the man who made the term famous with his Fascist Party in Italy.
No, there is nothing left-wing about James Carville or the other "lefts" on Crossfire.
"Relatively-liberal" compared to the center.
"What passes for leftist thinking in the United States is still leaning to the right in any other part of the world."
Only in countries that are more left-wing socialist to begin with. (you know, countries like France and England where health care is controlled by the government instead of by the people, countries like Italy that occasionally elect Stalinists, countries like Germany where the people have an unfortunately tendency to goose-step whereever the rulers want them to).
"Unfortunately, this does not make sense given the way that the United States wages war. They employ a technique called Hyperwar in which there is sustained..."
Yes, it certainly does make sense, since the infrastructure you refer to is serves the military dictatorship.
"Well, surprise surprise, it also disrupts the average Afghanistan civilian."
Not surprising. This is the intent of the Taliban/etc.
"You've decided to grasp onto the simplified view of the world that Rumsfeld wants you to believe"
No, it is a very complex worldview: based on how things really are, rather than how I wish they were if things conformed to my ideology.
"I see. And when the U.S. engaged Iraq in war using the techniques above, and forced sanctions that have killed thousands of people, are we to believe that this is some sort of tough love?"
Do you know anything about this? Not at all. The sanctions are designed to ALLOW food and medicine. Saddam has refused the food and medicine. In northern Iraq, under some protection from Saddam, but also under the SAME sanctions, infant mortality has gone way down over the years. If you bother to learn about these things, you will see that there is nothing in the sanctions to cause the sort of problem you are referring to.
"Tell that to the 40 people at the wedding party the U.S. just bombed. Who were they terrorizing?"
The responsibility for this one lies with the twits firing guns FOR FUN in a war zone. What boobs; if there are ongoing hostilities and you fire in the general direction of someone, is it surprising that they fire back?
""anarcho-syndicalism".. It is definitely a type of social organization, but a much looser form of organization than statehood"
It is a much more stringent form of organization than statehood is. There is nothing anarchic about syndicalism: it involves enforcement of very stringent rules (for example, micro-management of economic affairs) that are often left up to the people involved where there is a "state".
It replaces the lesser tyranny of the average "state" with a totalitarian form of the "village".
" It's great for stories, but usually not for reports. Perhaps the rules would allow short quotes if the publishing agency..."
Why even bother to censor things just because of their brevity? The obsession with "sound bites" is odd indeed. Who cares how long it is?
History and culture are filled with them: "to be or not to be", "for god so loved the world", "it takes a village" (from Africa, not Hillary). What is wrong with them? Nothing.
"moral media died decades ago" - maybe even centureis ago...if it ever existed at all. Wasn't it William Randolph Hearst who said, "you supply the pictures, I'll supply the war."?
"Propaganda is not information; it is the use and presentation of information -- sometimes true, sometimes false -- for the purpose of affecting a person's opinions or actions."
Then just about all information is propaganda. Your definition covers just about any time anyone opens their mouth or puts something in print: they want someone to be affected by it. Try again.
""Palestinian violence is terrorism; Israeli violence is retaliation and self-defense." is propoganda"
It is pretty accurate. Not 100% accurate like 2+2, but pretty close.
"Stated in that way, it condones Israel's use of terrorism"
No, it doesn't since Israel does not use terrorism.
"Of course, in the media it is never stated like that outright; all Israeli violence is simply accepted as self-defense without discussion."
Only some of the media. There is plenty of media steeped in anti-semitic bias leveling ludicrous and inconsistnt claims against Israel.
"In fact, he often complains that the media practice self-control in order to promote a specific doctrine."
The whining if someone who wants to control the media. Someone excercising self-control over what they say is free speech.
"Another example is advertising.
Which is nothing but information. Whether or not we agree with it is up to us. It is no more "propaganda" then is your preaching the scriptures of Holy Noam.
"Hardly anyone cares about what he says because they've been conditioned not to care"
Just another wacky conspiracy: "conditioned not to care". The argument of the socialist: people are too stupid and must be controlled. I know better, the reason Chomsky is ignored is due to people being informed about things. He is not censored.
"I'm curious to know what articles and books of Chomsky's you have read given how different your view of him is from mine."
Name some major article on media by him and I'll show you how much error and appeal to fascism it has.
"is that he does not want to tell anyone what to think; instead he provides information from the public sphere and lets you form your own opinion"
Since his ilk have little power to force their views on us, that is what he is thankfully limited to.
"And since they don't care, he's kept off television interviews.
I have not seen him in interviews. I've seen him in an even better forum perhaps for his point of view: unedited entire speeches by him on a national corporate media network. No interviewer to get in his way.
However, attend any of his lectures and you'll see that there are thousands of critical thinkers that do care about his views.
If they were really critical thinkers, they would see through the hilarity of his claims of "anarchism" and "libertarianism" while in details he describes socialism (which maximizes the power of the *arch* in anarchism while negating liberties). If you want critical thinkers, check out the true libertarians in the Libertarian Party.
"From the five books and numerous articles I have read, I agree that he is doing exactly that [presenting information]
So much for crazy theories of media concentration, corporate power, and censorship. If such existed, I would never have seen him on TV, and would not be able to easily get his books and magazine at the big ol' corporate bookstore.
"Your doctrine is that Chomsky is a toad, and you attempt to convince others by stating that most people agree with you. That's propaganda."
My doctrine is that Chomsky's arguments are non-factual, and are driven by ideology instead any sort of critical inquest. The ideology itself is totalitarianism/extreme left-wing fascism. The only thing making him better than Lenin or Ho Chi Minh is that he won't shoot you on his way to creating hell on earth. Propaganda? No. Just information. No more propaganda than your pro-Chomsky rants.
Is he a toad? Perhaps. I've read anti-semitic writings by him. And his take on the 9/11 tragedy makes Usama's beard curl with happiness. He also got famous siding against the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War.
It had been a while since I had gone there. It is a victim of some of the worst web design I have seen. Almost no text on the page ("Chomsky" search fails), everything else is tiny muddy yellow letters that do not show against a white background.
If they want to convert people, they stop making their page totally unusable.
Went looking elsewhere. The first Chomsky quote I found: "All public resources go to the rich. The poor, if they can survive in the labor market, fine. Otherwise, they die. That's economics in a nutshell"
Wonder what country he is thinking of? In the free world; places like the U.S. and even the U.K., most public resources (parks, government health care system, police protection, what have you) go to the non-rich.
Perhaps in his twisted totalitarian mind he is thinking of "public resources" as resources that should be owned by the government, but are not. Even then he is wrong; even if "too much" land and minerals are owned by the rich, it is not anything like "all".
The "labor market" reference is perhaps based in Marxism, a toxic ideology that is thankfully fading from favor. What it boils down to, is if people don't work for a living, do something productive, they die. Chomsky thinks it is outrageous probably. Would not be surprised.
It is interesting that the line "All public resources go to the rich." if it is true anywhere in the world is only true in places like Vietnam. Chomsky came to national celebrity prominence for his resistance to helping Vietnam fight off the benighted regime that even today makes it so "all [of any kind] resources go to the rich".
There is no Palestinian army. Please stick to facts.
Peaceful demonstrations?
Yes, students gathering in a street carrying signs and chanting slogans are peaceful. That some demonstrations -- on both sides -- have turned violent doesn't negate the existence of peaceful ones.
Land confiscation? Most of the time, this is the land of terrorists.
No, that is incorrect. The land is chosen based on its location and perceived value, not on whether or not Hamas members live there. If that were the case, that would imply they knew where the terrorists lived and could easily arrest them. Illegal Israeli settlements (the Geneva Conventions make settlements in occupied land illegal) are created in such a way as to break up the West Bank into small cantons so Arab areas are discontinuous. Then bypass roads are built that only service the settlements, further breaking up Arab areas.
Arrest without charge? Not an outrage if the arrested are guilty.
Do you think that would fly here in the U.S.? Are you advocating that we ditch due process? You sound more and more like a fascist with each post.
It is never "propaganda". It is information.
You might want to look up propaganda in a dictionary because you keep claiming it has no meaning. It certainly does, and it's not just simple information. Telling you that "two plus two makes four" does not seek to change your opinion or promote my cause.
Yes certainly. Because you and similar anti-semites dwell on much lesser "crimes" of Israel while ignoring the much greater crimes of Israel's enemies.
The crimes I laid out above and attributed to each state to me make Israel the "more criminal," especially when it's an established state with U.S. funding that is committing the crimes whereas in Palestine's case it is mostly small organized resistence and not state-wide. Why don't you lay out the crimes as you see them for each state so we can compare.
Yet you are still missing the main point: I don't believe that Israel's crimes are terrorism based on a belief that Jews are inferior. Rather, I call it terrorism because it fits the definition. If Israel had nothing to do with Jews I would still condemn the state's actions as terrorism. Thus anti-Semitism has nothing to do with my views, just as my criticism of suicide bombing is not based on racial hatred of Arabs.
It is not unreasonable that anti-semitism is the reason.
It's not unreasonable that I hold the views I do simply because I hate anything having to do with the Asian continent, but that doesn't make it true or even likely. Reasonableness doesn't make it true. I would also argue that it is unreasonable because it's not based on any evidence but instead on your personal belief.
[Me:] " Facts are ignored in favor of doctrine."
That is your way, not mine.
You haven't provided any facts yet. All I've read is many variations of "No, you're wrong" without anything to back it up.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
"You might want to look up propaganda [dictionary.com] in a dictionary because you keep claiming it has no meaning. It certainly does, and it's not just simple information"
...which is state-wide (assuming for now that Palestine is a state) aggression funded by many other countries with deep pockets.
I did. Under the definitions, anything can be labelled "propaganda" if someone does not like it or its "cause". The term is much more pejorative than it is descriptive. As such, use of it never furthers anything, and use of it is often a precursor toward efforts to censor information thus labelled.
"Do you think that would fly here in the U.S.? Are you advocating that we ditch due process? You sound more and more like a fascist with each post."
How is it fascist to only want to arrest those who are guilty of crimes? It probably won't fly here, of course.
"The crimes I laid out above and attributed to each state to me make Israel the "more criminal"
Even though in overwhelming evidence, Israel does far less of the "Crimes" than its enemies.
"U.S. funding that is committing the crimes whereas in Palestine's case it is mostly small organized resistence and not state-wide"
"Yet you are still missing the main point: I don't believe that Israel's crimes are terrorism based on a belief that Jews are inferior."
What is it then, when the crimes of Israel's enemies are far worse? Even so called Palestinian moderates like Hanan Ashrawi still hold to that PLO proclamation denying the Israelis the right to exist. Israel entered honestly into the Oslo accords, but right after them Arafat went around saying that it was just a trick to get closer to his goal of genocide against the Israelis.
"You haven't provided any facts yet. All I've read is many variations of "No, you're wrong" without anything to back it up."
I've provided plenty of facts. That is where the term "propaganda" so conveniently comes in. You don't like something I say, you ignore it and call it "propaganda". Very convenient. The use of the term is a convenient way to avoid discussing real issues.
"just as my criticism of suicide bombing is not based on racial hatred of Arabs."
If I said or implied anything like that, I am sorry. Jews and Arabs are both Caucasians anyway (mostly, but you get exceptions like the Ethiopian Jews... incidentally forced to flee to Israel due to imposition of socialism in Ethiopia.)
"If Israel had nothing to do with Jews I would still condemn the state's actions as terrorism."
Seems doubtful. Israel's Jewishness is the most stark thing setting it aside from its far worse neighbors.
"It's not unreasonable that I hold the views I do simply because I hate anything having to do with the Asian continent"
Asia?
"I don't believe that Israel's crimes are terrorism based on a belief that Jews are inferior"
Inferiority? Often anti-semites claim that Jews are cunning devils who are too smart.
The conflict there right now has its roots in Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews that goes back to the time of Mohammed. Unfortunately, hatred of Jews by Christians and later socialists in Europe helped make it worse.
I'm not really concerned which country the rich international community representatives come from who do the exploiting. It doesn't matter, really. The point is that the events going on in the world and the material reported are rarely connected properly, if at all.
If you want to know and live with that which is real, (and if you don't mind my being frank, it doesn't sound like you do), but IF you are at some point interested, then you're not going to learn it from anything I post here in an attempt to 'Proove' what I see. When it comes to personal knowledge, you're going to have to get down and dirty and do your own searching and thinking. Contrary to popular mis-conception, because YOUR mind is your own, and what you believe is always YOUR choice, the burdon of proof always, always remains on you.
-Fantastic Lad
2 Editors Out After Political Disputes
In full:
JULY 02, 2002
2 Editors Out After Political Disputes
Publishers Allegedly Sought Coverage Changes
By Joe Strupp
NEW YORK -- The election season has barely begun and already allegations that publishers have succumbed to political candidates seeking favorable treatment have led at least two editors to abruptly leave their jobs.
The first departure occurred June 19 when the Brown Publishing Co., owner of the weekly Vandalia (Ohio) Drummer News, fired Editor Kevin O'Boyle. The termination came nearly two months after Brown Publishing CEO and President Roy Brown lost a Republican congressional primary to former Dayton Mayor Mike Turner.
During Brown's campaign, O'Boyle had spoken out against some of the campaign's tactics, which O'Boyle said included forcing the Brown papers to run campaign press releases and sending campaign flyers to editors for distribution. "It wasn't ethical," O'Boyle, who spent seven years at the paper, told E. "It bothered me as a Christian and a newsperson."
Brown Publishing executives have denied any illegal campaign practices.
The Turner campaign claimed the Brown coverage went beyond regular news reporting and should have been treated as a campaign contribution. Complaints by Turner to the Federal Election Commission sparked an ongoing FEC investigation.
Joel Dempsey, Brown Publishing's general counsel, would not discuss details of O'Boyle's firing, but said it had nothing to do with his criticism of the Brown campaign. "A personnel decision was made concerning the quality of the newspaper and his ability to work for his publisher," he said.
On June 21, Tom McDonald, editor of the 18,716-daily-circulation Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial, quit his job after two years to protest the paper's endorsement procedures in a local congressional race.
McDonald claimed the paper's parent company, Stephens Media Group of Las Vegas, improperly directed the paper to support former Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican, in his campaign against incumbent Democrat Mike Ross. And, he told E, "I was also told to keep my disagreements in-house."
McDonald claimed that Stephens Media executives and Commercial Publisher Charles A. Berry allowed Dickey to influence them with a list of demands for favorable coverage, which included requests for halting letters to the editor from a pro-Ross reader, less comment from Ross on Dickey press releases, and more coverage of Dickey's plans to help black voters.
The former editor also objected to the paper's plans to announce its endorsement this summer, instead of waiting until weeks before the election -- and accused Stephens Media of ordering it because Dickey is a friend of the Stephens family.
Sherman Frederick, Stephens Media CEO and president, denied that Dickey influenced the newspaper's coverage and said no endorsement had been made -- but admitted that Dickey has had a longtime relationship with the Stephens family. He also pointed out that newspaper owners have always directed endorsements, and added, referring to McDonald's objections: "He's living in a world that doesn't exist."
Source: Editor & Publisher Online
The newspaper is as it should be the forum of the owners. There is nothing unethical about a paper's owner wanting to publish things in it to reflect their views; and firing those who refuse to do what they are hired for and presume to think that they are the ones who control a paper they are merely a guest at.
Similarly, when CBS-News fires or silences conservative views because they don't meet with the liberal editorial policy, that is free speech as well.
Free speech means control of your own forum. It does not mean that someone can muscle in and take control of your forum and use it as their own.
'Hairsplitting, and you know it. There is a huge difference between minimal exposure alternative press and CNN"
The difference is in popularity. That is all.
"your thought that child-prostitutes enjoy their 'paid' work could not have existed"
I found that thought as outrageous as you did. You are confusing me with another. The "thought" you are referring to is just a variation of the old idea "women enjoy being raped". I don't think we have any argument over that one, do we?
"The general mass consumption media sources MUST filter their stories, otherwise that most effective form of mind-numbing and propaganda, the 'Sound Bite,' could not possibly exist.
Not propaganda, merely information. As stated before, the length of something does not matter. History is littered with profound sayings and quotes that can be classified as "sound bites" due to their length. Nothing bad or good about them. The question might instead be, about longer or short quotes, are they accurate?
"I don't see how you can consider having a writer elaborate (voluntarily) on a quotation to be censorship."
...censor things just because... Who cares...
Voluntarily, it is not censorship of course. As long as it stays that way. However, there will be few takers, it is pretty nutty to agree to limit use of valid quotes based on brevity. Might be fun to sign on to the voluntary limits on sound bytes, and just pad thos valid short quotes with umms and errs and transcriptions of static in the microphone (Pop!) to make the saying meet the length requirements. Just shows how silly length requirements are.
"Again, the idea of the rules would be to eliminate quotes and sound bites in favor of independent and objective research."
That would be a pretty crippled news environment. Not very conducive to historic research either. (Study Marx? Nope! We can't consider quotes from his Manifesto. Damosthenes the old Greek? He was an orator. Everything he did was quotes and sound bytes. Forget about him!).
It is pretty pointless.
Otherwise, I could quote you as saying:
Which is inaccurate. Use instead the sound byte from my title which is an accurate quote: "not a good idea".
"Makes you sound like a pro-censorship zealot. And while a valid quote, it is not at all in the spirit of what you really said."
Not very valid at all.
It has hardly worth arguing about anyway. I don't think any decent researcher or reporter is going to bother to sign any sort of contract to voluntarily limit the size of perfectly good, valid quotes.
It accomplishes nothing, and just makes for a hassle. It is about as good as agreeing not to publish paragraphs with the words "because" and "why" in them.
"As for the intentional garbling of audio in a sound bite: that would be handled as a violation of the standards in the contract."
It wasn't intentional garbling I was advocating to make sound bites fly through the restrictions: it was just padding the the quotes with transcriptions of gasps, coughs, and static crackles.... whatever is necessary to move the length pass the threshold so it is not short enough to be banned.
On what continent do you believe Israel is located?
How is it fascist to only want to arrest those who are guilty of crimes?
That's not what you originally said. You said it was okay that they were arrested without being charged because they were probably guilty. In the U.S. when you are arrested you are charged and given a trial to determine your guilt or innocence. I'm not willing to throw out due process and just hope that the police only arrest guilty people.
Even though in overwhelming evidence, Israel does far less of the "Crimes" than its enemies.
Again, this is not true. The PLO does not expell Israelis, nor make mass arrests, nor perpetrate mass torture, nor bulldoze homes and build illegal settlements, nor does it occupy Israel. Both sides kill civilians with guns and bombs. They're both committing terrorism, yet Israel is doing far more of it than the Palestinians. I'd love it if they both stopped.
which is state-wide . . . aggression funded by many other countries with deep pockets.
The actions of a few hundred or thousand members of Fatah does not begin to compare to the levels of violence committed by the State of Israel, with its IDF, tanks, jets, artillery, and other high-tech arms supplied by the American taxpayer. Do you believe that the "other countries with deep pockets" even come close to the U.S. aid of over $3 billion annually?
PLO proclamation denying the Israelis the right to exist
The PLO voted to remove this from their articles many years ago. Since 1972 Arafat has officially accepted Israel's right to exist and worked toward a two-state settlement.
Israel entered honestly into the Oslo accords
No, Israel's first proposal included a map showing that Palestine -- which would not be an actual state -- would consist of roughly 27% of the existing West Bank area and none of the Gaza Strip. It's hardly honest to begin your comprimise by laying claim to yet more territory.
[Me:] "If Israel had nothing to do with Jews I would still condemn the state's actions as terrorism."
Seems doubtful. Israel's Jewishness is the most stark thing setting it aside.
Doubtful or not, it's the truth. No, it is not Israel's Jewishness that I condemn; it's their use of terrorism. I condemn the Palestinian's use of terrorism. I condemn America's use of terrorism. I condemn terrorism, whether it's committed by Jews, Arabs, or Martians.
Often anti-semites claim that Jews are cunning devils who are too smart.
If they're so damn smart, you'd think they'd realize that their very own policy of violence and occupation is responsible for the Arab violence. Fortunately, many Israelis understand this and are working toward a peaceful solution.
By the way, you keep implying that socialism is a bad or evil thing. You might want to avoid generalizations as that is what leads to racism and other stereotyping. For example, Israel is a democratic socialist republic, and I don't think you believe them to be evil because they practice socialism.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!