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!
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...
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
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
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
What a surprise. Katz says nothing particularly original .
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
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.
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.
...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...
Greta van Sustren and Larry King are really just providing a televised version of the National Enquirerer.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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."
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.
Astounding that posting about a group concerned with civil liberties is now possibly "radical".
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.
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!
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.
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"?
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.
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...
Taking the only example I can recall offhand, NPR (commonly referred to the reactionaries as National Pinko Radio) regularly cites the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, as well as interviewing the thinkers who fill their tanks. Last time I checked, the points of view expressed by these two orgs (Cato in particular) is much more liberTARIAN than liberal, and as such are closer to Republican/conservative points of view. On the other side, NPR is not typically citing Pacifica-style truly liberal anti-corporate points of view. They may be left of Newt Gingrich, but given the entire spectrum of politics, they are much more centrist than liberal in their bias.
The same goes for most other media outlets. If they were truly pursuing a leftist liberal agenda, they'd be biting the hands that feed them, and they know better.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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.
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
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
"The potential problem here is that whoever is involved in the kidnapping cannot possibly get a fair trial."
Hmmm Interesting point. The problem with what you're saying is that people are justifiably concerned. He was acquitted, not found innocent. IIRC, they couldn't prove or disprove he did it. In which case, the public has a right to know what the details are.
What if he remarries? At least now, the new wife would know about the accusations made about him. If it had gone quietly like you suggest, he could hide it from her. That'd be bad news if she ended up dead.
"Derp de derp."
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
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)
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
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 . . .
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.
It's because the familys surrounding the kidnapping are always "whities" :)
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
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!"
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!
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.
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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
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.
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?
In this country, you ARE innocent until proven guilty. Once acquitted, as far as the public and government are concerned, you're innocent.
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
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.
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.
Actually it was the Rachael Alert. It is the Utah version of the Amber alert and was named after Rachael Runyan. As for hiring the PR firm, they could have saved their money, local coverage of their "Press Conferences" shows that they suck hard. I know, I work for one of the TV stations and get to see the live feeds that don't make it to air. What really made the difference is their connections to the U.S. Congress. Something conveniently forgotten by the national newsies.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
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
Clearly you haven't read any of Chomsky's work, as your comments are the complete reverse of reality. Chomsky has never advocated government control of the media; in fact, he argues that that is effectively what we have and would love to see it ended. He's never spoken in favor of censorship; rather, he is often the target of it.
He writes that news propaganda is for democracy what torture and death squads are for fascism. When you govern with the consent of the people, it becomes too difficult to oppress them physically without risking a change in government. Thus propaganda is used -- not through mind control but through manufacturing consent -- to feed the populace the opinions you want them to have. The U.S. learned it chiefly from the Nazis, and much of the research made its way into advertising.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
...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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And why do they do it? Katz said why himself. "media are market-driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven" The fact of the matter is that Katz generates a lot of responses (flames, whatever you want to call it), and responses generate ad impressions, and ad impressions pay for the site.
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
really
so show me an article where z Mag has reported a fact falsely?
If you say the truth you are bound to have many people pissed at you.
... 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.
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.
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.
"In this country, you ARE innocent until proven guilty. Once acquitted, as far as the public and government are concerned, you're innocent."
That's what the AC that started this thread was saying. The media punished OJ and we all have scary images of him in our minds now. I kind of wish I hadn't responded because now that I think about it, he's right.
"Derp de derp."
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?
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).
...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
Mod the parent up.
Custom, yes.
*BUT* there is a general state of war and civil unrest in the country. As a direct consequence of that, it becomes unreasonable to engage in certain customary actions.
Case in point, fireworks in Arizona on the 4th of July. It's traditional, but expect to be arrested for burning them... Or lynched if certain very angry people get to you before the law enforcement folks do.
Just because it's traditional to shoot guns in the air does not make it right. And an accident like the wedding party attack is exactly what happens when you ignore common sense and discretion given extenuating circumstances!
If you knew a room was filled with gas, would you turn on the light switch to check?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Speaking of trolls, his post EXPLICITLY MENTIONED that the children weren't responsible and how that's the only reason he held back and said it was *almost* just desserts.
There's one way he's right - firing guns directly up into the air is incredibly stupid. Those bullets eventually fall down at deadly velocity. The terminal velocity of bullets is rather high, since they are explicitly designed to reduce air drag. And, it will come back down carried by the wind to somewhere you can't predict. It's irresponsible to shoot live ammo straight up and assume the bullets will just vanish in a magic puff of smoke and never come back down.
Not that this excuses the mistake made by the air crew, but the adults at the party are not entirely blameless either. The pilots saw someone firing guns up at them and assumed from that they had found a remaining cell of fighters.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Walter Cronkite, who stood up to the prevailing idea that the Vietnam war was just and right, and who opposes the administration and the slant of the media today; the White Papers; and most of the 60 minutes pieces; those are the best that journalist could do in the Post-Hearst era, when corporate network bosses kept their hands off of the editors and the writers of the news departments. New operations were run at a loss to the networks.
Now the news departments are considered entertainment, and are expected to show a profit. Foreign bureaus have been shuttered, and even CNN has become New and Improved with more Opinions Worth Knowing from young anchors.
News is supposed to enlighten, not entertain.
Remember, TV news, run as a loss-leader for networks for decades, was the result of a bargain the networks made for the use of the public airwaves. Make a mint, but keep hands off the news departments.
Now, everything, according to neocon rote, exists to make a profit. The problem is, the bargain has been jettisoned. Public service in exchange for professional and universal news coverage is now a laughable relic of the past.
If it wasn't for the web, I wouldn't know where the hell to get information anymore!
As for Dan Rather, ad hominem. Who cares about him: he is not CBS. A for publicity, Peter Jennings, Sam Donaldson, and others made the rounds of talk shows years before Rather did.
Rather annoyed me on Letterman after 9/11 with his "if the President says jump, I jump" comment. That was unworthy of a newsman. But then again, he merely said out loud what the corp bosses and other managers at news networks are implicitly doing every day -- avoiding criticism of U.S. policy and Bush in particular. It's pathetic.
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.
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.
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.
actually chmsky just cited "doctors without borders" - a very well known international relief organization. Truth of the mater is nobody knows how many people starved to death that winter, because as Chomsky correctly predicted nobody cared to check.
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
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.
For example, "two plus two makes four" is simply information whereas "Palestinian violence is terrorism; Israeli violence is retaliation and self-defense." is propoganda. Why? The latter statement seeks to alter your perception of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Stated in that way, it condones Israel's use of terrorism without directly negating the definition of terrorism (violence used against a civilian population for the purpose of affecting political change). Of course, in the media it is never stated like that outright; all Israeli violence is simply accepted as self-defense without discussion.
Another example is advertising. Do you think that Pepsi is telling us out of the goodness of their corporate heart that their soft drink is "for those who think young"? Or, perhaps, might the corporation be trying to convince us to buy their soft drink by playing on the cultural obsession with looking and feeling young?
Like most people, I read his stuff and reject it because it makes little sense.
Finally, here's yet one more good example of propaganda. Unless you can cite a scientific study demonstrating that "most people . . . reject it," I'm going to assume you made this up. 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.
The guy is not censored. Rather, hardly anyone cares what he has to say because what he says is irrelevant.
This relates to the recent hoopla that the media are biased for stories that will generate more viewers. Hardly anyone cares about what he says because they've been conditioned not to care. And since they don't care, he's kept off television interviews. However, attend any of his lectures and you'll see that there are thousands of critical thinkers that do care about his views.
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.
Please cite a source for this, as this is contrary to every article and book of his that I have read. I have never seen him recommend control of the media in any way. In fact, he often complains that the media practice self-control in order to promote a specific doctrine.
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. I'm not saying yours should be the same, just that our impressions of his work are diametrically opposed, and that seems odd given how clearly he writes and states his views.
His basic tenant (sorry, my friend is borrowing the book that has the comment) 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. From the five books and numerous articles I have read, I agree that he is doing exactly that.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Terrorism is the use of violence against civilians in an attempt to affect political change. Let's look at the Israel-Palestine situation.
Israel has been occupying Palestine for decades. Some Palestinians have resorted to violence, including suicide bombing, against Israeli civilians to force Israel to end the occupation. That's terrorism.
Many Israelis have resorted to violence (vigilantiism, firing on peaceful demonstrations, expulsion, land confiscation, torture, arrest without charge, etc.) against Palestinian civilians to convince the terrorist groups to stop. That's also terrorism.
The reporting of it becomes propaganda when it is justified because Israel is retaliating for previous terrorism. What's ignored is that they are retaliating against the population as a whole -- not against the terrorist groups. As well, terrorism in retaliation of terrorism is still terrorism, and no terrorism can be justified.
There is plenty of media steeped in anti-semitic bias leveling ludicrous and inconsistnt claims against Israel.
More propaganda. My statements are not critical of the Jewish people, whether you consider them a race or simply people holding the same religious views. Instead, I am criticizing the illegal actions of Israel, the state. Yet I would be considered anti-Semitic for my views. This is nonsense, but it's a very common tactic. Facts are ignored in favor of doctrine.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
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!
I don't see how you can consider having a writer elaborate (voluntarily) on a quotation to be censorship. Censoring is suppressing things you disagree with or find objectionable. Making someone elaborate is anti-censorship if anything.
Again, the idea of the rules would be to eliminate quotes and sound bites in favor of independent and objective research. When a quote is necessary to a report, it should be complete and of sufficent length to give the viewer/reader a significant sense of context.
Otherwise, I could quote you as saying:
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.Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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
As for the intentional garbling of audio in a sound bite: that would be handled as a violation of the standards in the contract, and a mis-use of the trademark. The offender would be dealt with under the terms of the contract.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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!