In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Why an independent media matters
or
How fatty foods may have saved our democracy
Americans recognize that their media are experiencing digital Wal-Martization. Like the chain that earns billions but cannot be bothered to pay employee health benefits, major media concerns in the United States brag about their profits to Wall Street but still cry poor when it comes to covering the news that matters to Main Street. A 2002 study by the Project on the State of the American Newspaper found that the number of reporters covering state capitols across the country full-time had fallen to just over 500, a figure the American Journalism Review described as "the lowest number we have seen, and probably the lowest in at least the last quarter century." Is this the market at work? Have citizens demanded, in the midst of a period of devolution that has made state governments more powerful than ever, that they get less state capitol coverage? Not at all. "It comes almost entirely as a consequence of newsroom budget cuts by companies seeking to bolster their shrinking profit margins during an economic downturn," says AJR. Those cuts parallel a decline in political coverage on television news programs, which fell in 2002 to the lowest level in decades. And what if one corporation owned the newspaper as well as TV and radio stations in the same market? "It's a given that you'll see more cuts in staffing, fewer reporters covering city halls, state capitals, Washington and the world," says Newspaper Guild president Linda Foley. "And people know that. They know that if one company owns most of the media outlets--in their town, in their state or in the country as a whole--they are going to get a one-size-fits-all news that is a lot more likely to serve the people in power than it is the public interest and democracy."
To many Americans, it seems clear that the one-size-fits-all moment has already arrived. After years of decreasing international coverage--all the major television networks have shuttered foreign bureaus over the past decade in a wave of cutbacks that Pew International Journalism Program director John Schidlovsky refers to as "perhaps the single most negative development in journalism in my lifetime"--the United States found itself in March on the verge of launching a major invasion of a Middle Eastern country that most Americans could not locate on a map.
Indeed, it was the war on Iraq that triggered some of the most intense opposition to Powell's rules changes. At Bush's last prewar press conference, the White House press corps looked more like stenographers than journalists. Even some reporters were appalled; ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran said the reporters looked "like zombies," while Copley News Service Washington correspondent George Condon Jr. told AJR that it "just became an article of faith among a lot of people: 'Look at this White House press corps; it's just abdicated all responsibility.'" Millions of Americans agreed. "I talked to people everywhere I went who said that if the media, especially the television media, had done its job, there wouldn't have been a war," says Representative Jim McDermott
From: Up in Flames
Do we really have a media that is more likely to serve the people in power than it is the public interest and democracy? Well, we recently had a war for fictitious reasons, and many Americans are just now starting to realize it. Is this because the media kept them ill-informed? Let's see:
From: Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War (requires Adobe Acrobat), for more information read The media and public misconceptions
If a President saves your company tens of millions in taxes with his ill conceived tax cut and by allowing you to continue to use off shore tax shelters, then why not reward him by reporting only his lies.
This is where McDonald's comes in. No really.
You'll notice NPR readers had the best understanding of what was happening in Iraq. It wasn't perfect. If you listen to NPR they too have been surprisingly gentle to the constant Bush administration mendacity. Perhaps this fear to truly report on the corruption of the present GOP is due to much of their funding coming from the government. What if they didn't need this money any more?
NPR Given Record Donation
National Public Radio will announce today the largest donation in its history, a cash bequest from the will of the late philanthropist Joan Kroc of about $200 million.
The bequest from the widow of the founder of the McDonald's fast-food chain both shocked and delighted people at NPR's headquarters in Washington yesterday. It amounts to almost twice NPR's annual operating budget. "No one saw this coming," said one person.
This is an opportunity that can not be lost, NPR needs to separate itself for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and become a completely independent nonprofit organization. This sum could become a good basis for a trust from which the new independent media chain could operate, the rest could be generated via fund raising (heck, I'd be willing to hand over all the money TCS raised... okay that's only $30, but its only been six months, give us time, we'll raise lots).
I don't want it to be liberal, I cetainly don't want it to be conservative. I'd want the reporting to be decidedly anti-government, anti-corporate, and pretty much anti-everything. i.e. I'd just want it to report with out trying to defend anyone or spin for anyone.
Tell NPR's Ombudsman what you think they could do with the money: ombudsman@npr.org
- rob 2:03 PM - [PermaLink] -
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