'Corporate Media and the Pillage of Public Ed' : media distortions to fit the corporate narrative

[Hannah Bell]

Chicago's Labor Beat on August 3, 2010, announced that it has just released its latest study, 'Corporate Media and the Pillage of Public Education.'

The video, which is 27 minutes long, features Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, CORE teacher Carol Caref, and Substance editors and reporters George Schmidt and John Kugler in an analysis of how Chicago's corporate media work to spin "news" reports according to corporate agendas.

Video here: http://blip.tv/file/3958149

The video shows in stark terms how reporters for Chicago's corporate media, including the Chicago Sun-Times and "public television" WTTW, simply followed the lead of Chicago Public Schools officials on the question of whether by June 2010 CPS still had a massive 'deficit' and the teachers therefore faced a choice between higher class sizes and foregoing their contractually guaranteed raises.

The main focus of the video, though, is on how reporters for Chicago's corporate media frame their questions, ignore many facts, and follow what amounts to a script that has more to do with an editorial bias than with getting the facts...

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1578§ion=Article

[Reader Rabbit]

1. We need to start getting this stuff out there.

Can we create some kind of Wiki so that teachers have a central location for all this information?

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. A "media matters" for education reportage? nt

[Reader Rabbit]

5. Not just reporting, but all the deals and details that are never mentioned.

• Many news organizations have for-profit education divisions.
  
• Many promoting education "reform" stand to profit financially.
  
• Merit pay has been proven unsuccessful in motivating employees.
  
• Charter and private schools with comparable student populations rarely outperform public schools.
  
• Test scores directly correlate with SES of family and community.
  

This list could go on and on, and I'm sure my fellow educators could add many items that I have omitted. That's why a fight-back-resource Wiki would be a boon. A wide variety of people can contribute to it, it could be search-able, and we can pool our resources on the information (dirt!) we find on this topic.

[snot]

3. madfloridian & Hannah Bell have both posted a lot

on the ongoing destruction of public edu. madfloridian has a good journal here, too.

[Ricochet21]

6. I agree

I agree

[txlibdem]

4. Trust

Education is being attacked by the corporate media in order to serve a well-defined goal of privatizing schools across the nation.

Since evidence shows that privatized schools do no better at educating our students than do public schools, why the singular focus of both the corporate-owned media and the government on privatization?

The corporate media can be trusted to do one thing: destroy the America we have all fought and worked so hard to build. Every facet of society is under attack. It does not stop with education.