You guys MUST understand something about the media.

[janx]

The media exist to earn a lot of money. They exist for nothing else, save NPR and a few other media.

At this point, there is very little to be believed in U.S. media. They do not exist for ideology; they do not exist for real and honest proliferation of fact.

They exist for sensationalism and money. That is all they exist for. That is what Rush Limbaugh has existed for, that is what Faux has existed for, and that is what all the others have existed for.

When we latch onto any source regarding politics, we have to remember that any source is suspect--not because of ideology, but because of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[newsguyatl]

1. coming from someone who works in the corporate media

i can tell you you're exactly right.

ratings are the bottom line. period.

[janx]

2. ....

:hug:

[grasswire]

18. except when it comes to...

...Phil Donahue in the runup to war. Although that cancellation was probably profit driven too, as ratings soared during the attack on Baghdad.

[Lostnote03]

31. Thanks Grassy!!!....My first thoughts as well...

[American Tragedy]

36. I find it hard to believe it was profit driven. His show was highly rated.

[w4rma]

26. I doubt you are among the decision makers, then.

You try pushing a show that will get big ratings but whose ideology is opposed to the decision makers' beliefs/agenda and you'll see that ratings are not the bottom line at all.

[KittyWampus]

3. Absolutely Everything They Say Is Suspect. It's My Pet Peeve.

[janx]

5. Yes. Consider this:

when msnbc (or whatever the hell the recent merger is) reports the same thing as DRudge and CNN in terms of political gossip--

what the hell is to be believed?

And most of the time it is not real reporting at all. It's speculation about what someone else "inside the beltway" said or some damned thing.

[Hardrada]

4. Religious Media also

It would seem that channels on cable could maybe manage to be ideological as wretched as that is but, no, they are busy pushing stuff for money too on the religious (Xian) channels.

[janx]

6. The back-and-forth there

makes some money too.

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. Of course their in it for the money.

If that is where the battle must be fought, so be it! The Buy Blue campaign is a start. I strongly advocate a major effort by Democrats and the left to continually send a message to it base to get organized and get active in letting advertisers know that it IS NOT OK to subsidize hate radio and propaganda machines like the Fox network. If we must fight these bastards, we need to use weapons that work and money is only weapon left to us. Fairness in Broadcasting will only be found at a cash register or by using a remote control to change the channel.

[mattclearing]

8. But then why are so few people catching on to Moorism?

You know, Michael Moore's theory that it is possible to make a lot of money criticizing corporations and powerful politicians, and that is the rope they give you to hang themselves?

I mean, so far we've got The Corporation (never widely released), a few Moore movies, and Super Size Me.

We have a handful of papers, but most dare not criticize too harshly or question the official story lest they lose legitimacy. Hell, even Salon has started reporting uninteresting garbage lately.

There's clearly money to be made pushing a sensible progressive agenda, as Howard Dean and Michael Moore, AAR, and a few others have shown.

Why aren't more people jumping on the bandwagon?

Or is the tipping point around the corner?

[janx]

9. You are far too into the media.

Get out of movies and television and read some books. The media exists to promote more media.

The publishing industry is into this to a large extent too; remove yourself from the bulk of it if you can.

Read books--not political books, but classic and current novels. It will blow you away.

[NYCGirl]

11. Perhaps that bandwagon is just around the corner:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050112/NEWS/501120363/1003

Limbaugh dumped for liberal show

January 12, 2005

By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — A southern Vermont-based radio station will trade in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts for the liberal commentary of Air America next week.

WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.

[janx]

10. I'm looking at things like "hardball" and "cnn politics" and

all of our favorite "stars"

and it makes me SICK.

[AllyCat]

14. Hey, at least idiotic Crossfire is gone. n/t

[janx]

15. Yeah, just wait for the next marketing decision....

I hope it will be better.

[AllyCat]

17. On second thought, don't wait.

It might be bad.

[EVDebs]

37. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the "Naked News" myself !!!

I actually saw this reported on somewhere and almost fell off my chair.

[moggie12]

12. That's a VERY important point

Ratings drive the news. Since Americans have the attention span of fleas these days, they give us what we want: short, easy-to-digest sound-bite-driven stories with lots of pictures. The media isn't doing research and in-depth reporting anymore (as a kid I remember watching one-hour long news specials -- those were the days...)

The Dems still haven't realized this. They still haven't figured out that we live in a 24/7 fragmented media universe. One example is that Kerry campaign's belief that the MSM would shoot down the Swift Boat guys and expose their lies. HA! What decade were they living in?? By the time the last few decent newspapers got to the bottom of the story, it was too late. It had been floating around on the cable news unchallenged for too long (and by too long, I mean 12 hours, because by then most people are onto the next senational story...)

[Hello_Kitty]

13. I hate local news the most.

All the stations in my city have the same basic format: A few sensationalist pieces about the latest accident/disaster/murder/celebrity wedding with the obligatory self-promo ("You heard it here on Channel 3 first!). The rest is essentially advertisement disguised as news ("We're on location at the new dermabrasion clinic on Oak Street to discuss the latest in skincare! You heard it here on Channel 3 first!)

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[janx]

16. They are just parroting national and cable news. n/t

[seabeyond]

19. they use to be on air for news. no news to be found anymore

internet is the news

[kodi]

20. gee, imagine that. the media is involved in "business." those scoundrels

as if.

[janx]

21. Yes---Imagine

It's sick

[ailsagirl]

22. Why were the media all over Clinton yet treat * with impunity??

There's definitely a little... shall we say... bias? in today's media.

Otherwise, they'd have a FIELD DAY with * who screws up so consistently and who makes egregious decisions (that are, ultimately, detrimental to all of us) every day.

[Jai4WKC08]

24. One reason...

I think at the higher levels, there is rather obvious bias. Most corporate big-wheels are very wealthy, and like most wealthy people, they tend to be Republicans. The heads of corporate media are no different from say, General Electric. Of course, as GE happens to own NBC, so they're often one and the same.

But even among those who aren't Repubs... The White House and GOP play hardball with the media. If they like what they hear, those reporting it are rewarded; if they don't, they are punished. That recent case with the guy who was paid $240K to hawk "No Child Left Behind" is just the most blatant KNOWN example. More usually, it's a matter of granting or denying access to people and information. Without access, a journalist can't do his job, so most just play the game.

There's always been a certain element of quid pro quo between the media and the government, but the current administration has it down to an art-form. And since they control so much of the government, they can blacklist a journalist completely. Or worse.

[bobbieinok]

33. there were complaints about quid pro quo threats from JFK white house

stories about how all the DC news people wanted to be invited to the 'in' parties.....and JFK read the papers; he knew who was reporting what

[American Tragedy]

38. Not to excuse it, but that was common to both parties, I think.

As one example, around 1950 Joe McCarthy got drunk and strangled Drew Pearson in a bar. Richard Nixon raced over and had to wrestle McCarthy off of Pearson. There was apparently little to no media acknowledgement of the brawl even though the club was filled with members of the press.

I tend to think that if a parallel incident occurred today, it would be scandalous. Imagine if Rick Santorum walked over to Dan Rather in a bar and started throttling him, and Dick Cheney had to pull Santorum away.

Incidentally, it is just criminal that nobody snapped a photograph of that event; it would have been priceless.

[madfloridian]

23. Janx, check your inbox.

:hi:

[w4rma]

25. You just need to realize that the media doesn't have to make a profit

when the outlet is owned by a bigger conglomerate that uses that outlet to push for policies that make that make it's other subsidies more profits.

So the media acts as propaganda for the corporation's other subsidies to profit from the laws created by that propaganda.

[dogman]

27. Exactly what's happening.

Between lobbying the public and selling ad space to likeminded corporations they can make money without concern for truth. If they were independently owned with only the goal of making money they would be far more balanced as you can see with AAR and other left oriented media. the ratings are there with either format but that does not serve their purpose.

[janx]

29. Absolutely!

As an entity, the media feeds itself constantly in that way. The various media (plural) promote other media constantly. And if they have to resort to sensationalism and rumor mongering to do so, all the better--after all, it's all about ratings.

[Eric J in MN]

28. MSNBC is part of GE, a military contrractor.

GE making money isn't just a matter of ratings at MSNBC.

It's a matter of selling war with the show "Countdown: Iraq" so that GE gets military contracts.

[stillcool]

30. That is how I see it.....

The corporations that own the media are entrenched in the militaristic empire that feeds their global power addiction. As the ** admin. says 'we make the news', and unless your up for some circle-jerk entertainment....its useless.

[corksean]

32. You guys should check out www.guardian.co.uk if you don't already

This is the website for a British daily national newspaper that is not only very liberal and very successful but is owned and run by a non-profit making trust which was set up to maintain the absolute impartiality of it's reporting. I've started to post a bit in LBN and I get 90% of my sources from them, including most US related threads. It's the ONLY newspaper or media source that I would trust explicitly (present company excepted).
One of their founding principles is:

"Comment is free, but facts are sacred... The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard."

Main Site: http://www.guardian.co.uk

Brif History: http://www.guardian.co.uk/newsroom/story/0,11718,728443,00.html

[Eloriel]

34. No, that's secondary

Important, but still secondary.

The mainstream media's first and foremost job, tho even most of them may not fully understand it this way, is to protect and promote the Official Story(ies), the official Mythology(ies). They are powerful arbiters of what is acceptable to discuss. If something doesn't pass muster in the realm of possibility, or rocks the boat too much, it's either not reported at all or it's ridiculed.

We recently had a VERY powerful demonstration ot the phenomenon, right here at DU. Because for the NYT the very idea that mankind's activities could affect tectonic plates in such a way that earthquakes could (eventually) result is outlandish, despite credible scientific sources to the contrary (which of course they didn't bother to google), the NYT ridiculed DemocraticUnderground ince there were discussions here about that possibility. The NYT thus served as an extremely powerful arbiter of what is acceptable and unacceptable dialog within the official worldview or paradigm. And because DU Admin agreed that the NYT should be the official arbiter of this matter, and in fact of Reality itself, all further discussions of this subject are forbidden at DU -- even to include deleting threads. None of this had anything to do with profits, but rather what is the Official and Acceptable Version of Reality.

As others have already pointed out, if ratings and profit were THE overriding and/or ONLY consideration for the MSM, Phil Donahue would still be on the teevee, Mike Malloy never would've lost his WLS (was it?) radio gig, and so forth and so on.

[truth2power]

39. Thank you, thank you, Eloriel

for your comments about tectonic plates etc. I am still angry about that.

[itzamirakul]

35. You couldn't have...

said it better!