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State Media Rushing Into Coverage Void Left By Dying Newspapers
derekmead writes "As newspaper budgets shrink, state-sponsored media outlets like RT, China Daily, and Al Jazeera have grown, hired more writers and offered more (free) coverage. Mark Mackinnon, writing for The Globe and Mail, explains the issue well: 'Throughout the recent crisis in Syria, and before that in Libya and Egypt, Xinhua and RT News have thrown unprecedented money and resources at reporting from the scene, even as Western media scale back on their own efforts. It's not too far-fetched to imagine a near future where it's Xinhua or RT, rather than the Associated Press or BBC, that have the only correspondents on the scene of an international crisis, meaning the world will only get Beijing or Moscow's version of what's happening.' But quality coverage still requires money, which means finding funding from somewhere. You see the effects of this every day: If your revenue is based mostly off of pay-per-click banner ads, a lowest-common denominator post, like a cheap roundup of cat pictures, is quite possibly going to pull in way more views for less money than a nuanced, deeply reported, and expensive dispatch from Syria. And, yeah, ads can be a bummer, especially when they're executed poorly, and paywalls aren't great. But when the alternatives are either fluffy, thin reporting; or worse, blatantly biased coverage sponsored by governments, we have to find a palatable way to fund good reporting."
I am sorry, but I don't need instantaneous, round the globe coverage with whatever the hell happens in some God-forsaken corner of the world. it's a perk I'm passively receiving and if I get such news, then that's fine. If not, I'm not gonna curl in a corner, frightened of the unknown.
There were times when people found that their king died weeks after the dude passed away, and their life was not impacted. Granted, we can do better nowadays but still, I couldn't care less about some fanatic blowing himself up in some Syria busy market. Local news - that's what I'm interested in, followed by news from my country. Everything else (save from something HUGE like the Japan Earthquake) is optional.
Yes I know, the Syria whatever-the-fuck-happens-there could theoretically very slightly affect me through the butterfly effect but really... not worth my immediate interest. Give me the high level overview: Syria dudes are still beating each other; China launched some satellite; USA still has crushing debt and Greece goes down the drain. Have a nice day!
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Umm, yeah, it is.
It's really very funny to watch the huge amounts of spin they put on everything. I was watching the RT coverage of OWS last year, in which they hyped it up as the beginning of the new American Spring, which would sweep the country and take down the institutions of oppressive American government inside a few weeks.
US biased news at the time was doing its best to ignore it or hype up any hints of violence they could find, while playing down any message that protestors might have.
The BBC were reporting that some amount of people were protesting about financial stuff and that the movement seemed very decentralised and pretty peaceful.
Guess which source I trust a little more than the others?
Most "news" is total crap.
In these days of ours, if something is actually newsworthy, then it ends up being documented and discussed in Internet fora, often in excruciating detail under all kinds of useful insights (diversity of bias is a great thing).
Newspapers and conventional media are dying because NOBODY NEEDS THEM ANYMORE; this is the nature of the Free Market—society evolves through variation and selection, but of course, people are trying to inhibit this most fundamental process by turning to the steel boot of would-be central planners, in order to pretend otherwise at everyone else's expense; when in doubt, bring out the violent coercion.
Now, don't be confused. There is no doubt still value in expert analysis—value worth paying for (in the traditional sense). However, most of what we call "news" is not in that category. The death of newspapers is a good thing; oh, certainly, there will be some unpleasantness during the evolutionary transition (especially when central planners prolong the agony), but the result will be a society having adapted a more efficient form.
The TV license is a tax and the broadcast finances and license fee rises are negotiated with the UK Government every ten years. Think the Government and the British state don't have a large measure of control? Think again
The notion that the TV license isn't a tax and the BBC isn't state-controlled is a delusion.
5) Other: BBC -like,
that is a public news service, funded by the taxation or a license. Yes, it is not fully free from the government control, but it is still better than commercial services which seem to be levitating to more entertainment (cats) and to less expensive reporting (Syria).
On few other websites than Al Jazeera's will one find opinion pieces on the Middle East by an American Jew, a Palestinean expatriate and a former CIA director side by side.
That's how I used to think too. Then I realized that hearing lies on all sides didn't make me any more informed, it just made me think I was.
Today I'm relatively picky with my news and sources of news. I look for sources I can trust, and if they betray that trust, I'm hard on them.
Who to trust? Not many sources. Some organizations, such as the Guardian Newspaper, have a history of strong independent reporting that means I'm more likely to get the truth from them. Others, such as those parts of the financial press that concentrate on core news, not opinion, are good too. Both the FT and the news part of Bloomberg are pretty good. The comment on the latter is fairly awful and can be safely consigned to a trashcan.
And the BBC? Well, that's more complex than most people give credit for. The BBC is mostly independent, and to be honest, the government connections have never been an issue with the Beeb. The issue is some guy called John Birt, who, before becoming DG of the BBC ran its news department, and changed its culture, from what I can figure out, pretty much permanently. That is, I take a peek from time to time, decades later, and still see the same hacks and analysis style.
Basically, Birt implemented something called the "Mission to Explain", which meant news was mixed with analysis.
How would this work? Well, imagine if the news department had to cover sports (thankfully, this hasn't happened... yet.) At the beginning of the program, the news would report that Team A has lost its match against Team B. The anchor would defer to their Team A vs B playing game C correspondent, who would introduce three experts, who would explain how Team A did so badly, what Team A needs to do from here, and what Team B did right.
Seem reasonable? Well, the report would go out Friday. The game would be played on Saturday. Saturday in three months from now...
That's why I don't care much for BBC News. Especially as we weren't even talking about real experts, just the "armchair general" types.
BBC's independence? First class. The BBC was never fearful of government, it would bully politicians on air. Politicians in government actually hate it. Actual quality of reporting though? With some exceptions, dreadful.
To get back to the point though: the truth can rarely be found by looking at a group of biased media coverage, even if you're lucky enough to find contradictory outlets. You have to try to find the good journalists. Unfortunately, there aren't that many out there.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In addition to state funded we should include other agenda-funded media like the Murdoch empire.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
But where is the money going to come from to hire these “qualified agents”? That’s the issue for me, and I think Derkmead has it right.
Newspapers where a bundled item. You got 1. “qualified agents” (a.k.a. reporters) and 2. A distribution channel.
The Internet does a wonderful job of distribution and aggregating information. Wiki, Google, and it’s ilk do a decent job of promoting and editing important stuff. What it does not do well is original, unbiased research.
But you still need a unbiased reporter on the ground in Syria taking pictures gathering data. This is something the Internet is good a providing. It’s got ADD and has a hard time concentrating on a single issue at depth.
I'm glad at least one person on Slashdot gets it. It's not "Fox News Lies!" or "MSNBC Lies!," "RT Lies!," "BBC Lies!," etc. They all have skin in the game and they have a particular mindset and worldview to which they want to cater. You're not going be able to go out there and verify everything they say, so all you can do is try to get as many angles on an issue as you can in order to grasp the reality of the situation.
If you want to know how old the earth is, you don't go out and ask a dozen people off the street to "get as many angles on an issue as you can", you try to find a reliable source. In this case, that means you find a scientist, and if you want a precise answer, you find a geologist. That's because reality isn't a compromise; it either happened or it didn't. You don't go, "some people say the earth is 3 billion years old, some people say it's 6,000 years old, let's meet somewhere in between and call it an even million."
Similarly, if you want to be informed about the world, you find a reliable source. Some of them are simply more reliable than others- NPR has very good news, the Wall Street Journal's reporting is very good (I'm less a fan of their op-ed pages), the Economist provides good news as well. This isn't a question of political slant; these news organizations cover the spectrum (NPR on the left, Economist center-right, Journal on the right). But in each case, the people working as reporters for these organizations are capable of putting their political agendas to the side and reporting on what really happened. The Journal, for instance, is owned by Rupert Murdoch and so they have an op-ed section which works as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party just like Fox News, but they've actually managed to keep their reporting separate from that. I'd argue that getting your news exclusively from any one of these sources would make you more informed than listening to both Fox News (a terrible right-wing channel) and CNN (a terrible left-wing channel) and then trying to triangulate the truth.
NPR is biased.
Now, mind you, I like and listen to NPR. I also think they are factual, and I think that is important. There are some “news” channels that live on manufactured hype and will not let facts get in the way of a good story.
However, NPR does cater to the people who pay the bills – Members like you – white, urban, college educated, professional, liberals. I remember hearing a story last year about a electric company trying to build more coal fired gas plants. NPR focused on the environmental impacts. The Wall Street Journal focused on the economic impacts. Both stories where true but both outlets had used their editorial control to focus on different aspects of the same story.
You can’t be unbiased. What you can do is state what your bias is and report the facts.