twostrokenut
Well-Known Member
Good.
Do you trust mainstream media?
- Thread starter Padawanbater2
- Start date
He's a snitch, looking for snitchy stuff.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Clear Channel owns a lot of radio stations, often including several in a single market.
twostrokenut
Well-Known Member
He's got everyone's personal info.
doublejj
Well-Known Member
yep still digging........dig in while u can.
Los Reefersaurus
Well-Known Member
Everyone is nearly always pushing their own agenda , and if they aren't then they are making up for something else. This sounds like a dark bleak statement but it really isn't. We are all here to 1st survive then 2nd procreate 3rd make life better for ours selves and though extension those we love.
SouthCross
Well-Known Member
Fantastically Incorrect.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
TV history is good to know for where we've come from, it does not predict where we're going.
You'll notice that most of the major news outlet have large and thriving websites, making your question less relevant. You can get CBS News on the TV or on the Internet, but you can get it- if you choose it.
The notion that 'bubba' or 'flyover' states still get their news printed on dead trees is wildly incorrect. Newspapers nationwide have been dropping like mayflies for 20 years now.
Most people across the country, coasties and heartlanders alike, get their news from television and internet sources. Sadly, this isn't progress; the shift has eliminated hundreds of thousands of journalism jobs, to the point where marketers now outnumber journalists.
This trend has led to 'profitable news', which seems only to entertain rather than truly inform and has little patience and less room in the budget for expensive need gathering apparatus like overseas bureaus.
As you might guess, 'modern' news has become much less heterogeneous, less diverse, less informative and much more easily manipulated.
This explains the rise in influence of fringe reporting like Breitbart and Infowars, and the incredible influence of opinion dissemination like Rush Limbaugh or Democracy Now.
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
Television and Internet are similar in that they are advertising delivery vehicles. When television became more popular around 1955-1956, people believed it would become a crucial educational tool--for both traditional education and adult education. But what became more popular were game shows and The Honeymooners. REad the link. Edward R. Murrow's hard hitting news show had to be tempered with soft stories, feel good stories. And eventually it was cancelled because of ratings.
The internet operates on clicks. Shit online is considered no good if it doesn't get enough clicks. And when the Internets was relatively new in the 1990s, people considered it a huge tool for education, educators, students, and adult education. It was even called "the information superhighway." This was before there was ad one on the internet (although many corporations that created early websites in the 1990s considered the whole site to be an ad).
Today, television and the internet are both just ad delivery vehicles--and guess what? Newspapers likewise have always been advertising delivery vehicles.
What you say is true about national newspapers like the NYT and LAT. However, weeklies across the country have held their subscription rates with mid-1990s numbers. The average weekly newspaper reader is over 55 years of age, and they live in a "bubba" state. These papers are still very influential. And folks over 55 in "bubba" states are ardent voters.
http://gatewayjr.org/2015/07/24/community-newspapers-surviving-and-thriving/
Your analysis furthermore doesn't consider how television is losing to streaming, and there'll be fewer cable subscribers next year than currently.
As for "profitable news" why doesn't your analysis consider the same facet to American news media that was ongoing in the early 1990s before high speed internet service was available in most of the nation? In the 1990s, high level commentators like Robert Reich, Michael Moore, Ted Koppel, and many others bemoaned "infotainment" editorial produced by most television news outlets. How is that any different from today?
As for the homogeneity of the news, that's a problem that the consumer can easily solve. Just consume more information. Consider BBC, C-SPAN, government websites where information can mostly be found in the raw. NPR, Canadian news, and the St. Petersburg Times are still viable news sources (until Trump gets rid of public broadcasting). There's also the Christian Science Monitor and other publications such as the National Review, the Republic, and Atlantic Monthly that have an entirely different news model than the one you suggest is monolithically applied to all news media. And like I suggested in a previous post, broaden your analysis to consider blog sites and the young people's news like Vice and Gawker and related sites.
in short, news is never perfect, and has always operated on a for profit model in the United States. Their goals for the most part are to make money, and not to keep folks informed.
doublejj
Well-Known Member
If readers don't feel they are receiving good information they will quit reading or turn the channel. so they provide content that gives viewers reason to read/watch their channel. If people aren't tuning in, sponsors will leave.....so people create their own "fake news" reality by what they watch, ie Fox & Friends & O'Riely factor
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
You're part right.
When I was a kid, there were 3 networks plus PBS. Nobody tried to turn a profit, the news was a public service to the viewers.
It was 'off limits' to report certain things like marital infidelities and affairs.
A big turning point was Watergate. After that, and the incredible ratings and interest it generated, things changed fast.
Viet Nam was another turning point, albeit much slower. Showing flag drapped coffins turned people against a war half way around the globe where we were neither attacked nor directly threatened.
And when news icons like Walter Cronkite made commentaries about an 'unwinnable war', the tide was changing.
My point is, today, the mainstream chases ratings. They often mimic tabloids like the Enquirerer, and report totally useless shit.
Fox leans somewhat to the right, but you have to know the difference between straight news and an opinion show. Their straight news reporting isn't that bad, but their opinion shows suck.
CNN is neutral as you say, WTF is wrong with that? Some of their shows display some opinion, their straight news doesn't.
It's not the responsibility of the media to 'judge' the days events, just report them.
It's not the responsibility of the media to 'hold anyone accountable'. That's up to you and me.
If Trump lies about something, and the media plays before and after sound bites of a flip flop, it's up to us to decide whether it has merit.
Just because they chase ratings doesn't prove they lie. It means you get exposed to more scandalous stuff because when they put that shit on, people suck it up. Why do people buy tabloids? Why do people believe BS conspiracy theories? Why do people believe lying politicians are going to 'bring jobs back' when they know that is impossible?
People's hopes and fears, and lust for scandals frequently guide network news programing. It doesn't make them liars, it does make them drop real news in favor of more ratings producing BS.
And the government isn't going to tell you everything for national security reasons. The networks report on what their sources tell them. Some people here think the general public should have the nuclear codes.
Most people here couldn't handle the whole national security knowledge. You wouldn't be able to sleep at night and there'd be 1000 different opinions on what we should do, 997 of them pure bull shit.
I believe the MSM to inform on the day's events. I'll decide on my own who is responsible for what.
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
American news has always been about profits. This is why they have sponsors (you know, those commercials that pay for the news program). Read the David Halberstam article from 1976 that I posted earlier. He breaks it down how the evening news in the 1950s -- 15 minutes long -- went to a half hour by the 1970s. The execs at the networks had to be convinced that it would generate profits.
The news is a commodity to be bought and sold just like anything else in America. I mean, the reason Edward R. Murrow got shit canned is because his show didn't generate profits from ad dollars.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
Wrong. Period.
They didn't even have commercials back when it was 15 minutes. I remember.
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
But they had title sponsors. Read the link, the Power and the Profits. Geritol, for example, was the title sponsor for a lot of network news in the 1950s and early 1960s.
The first newspapers that were created in England in the 1600s were all about generating a profit, too.
It's wishful thinking if you believe news isn't about profits. And you'll likely condemn NPR and PBS as MSM, but they are the last non-profit news channels (along with C-SPAN) that exist in this country.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
Were you even alive in 1955 or 1960?
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
No, but there are nifty things called historical primary source documents. At any large sized university library, you can watch old news reels, and see old newspapers on microfilm. They're working on digitizing this stuff.
Again, read the 1976 David Halberstam article. It's a secondary source, but he cites primary sources.
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
I don't understand why anyone would think American news organizations weren't always about profits. Why did the New York Times and New York Herald have ads for tailors, maids, laundresses, and all kinds of other services in their papers in the 1860s?
Why did the Hearst and Pulitzer papers battle one another so vigorously in the 1880s and 1890s that they started a war over their competition? The Spanish-American War was built on "yellow journalism," or extreme competition for ad dollars and readers (which buttress the ad dollars)?
American news has alwasy been about generating profits. Then comes PBS and NPR by the 1970s, and Americans hate them because they're too balanced. And not for profit, I might add.
Despite their non profit status, shrinking funds over the years has turned them into organizations that seek huge donations from the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic groups. They aren't going after ad dollars like NBC and Fox are, but they are a shell of their former non-profit selves.
Why did the Hearst and Pulitzer papers battle one another so vigorously in the 1880s and 1890s that they started a war over their competition? The Spanish-American War was built on "yellow journalism," or extreme competition for ad dollars and readers (which buttress the ad dollars)?
American news has alwasy been about generating profits. Then comes PBS and NPR by the 1970s, and Americans hate them because they're too balanced. And not for profit, I might add.
Despite their non profit status, shrinking funds over the years has turned them into organizations that seek huge donations from the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic groups. They aren't going after ad dollars like NBC and Fox are, but they are a shell of their former non-profit selves.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
There was zero direct revenue. Zero.
Many TV shows had Geritol and other logos in the background.
No direct revenue, no direct revenue influence.
That's why it was news.
DiogenesTheWiser
Well-Known Member
OMG, Hearst and Pulitzer made up fake news stories to push for their agendas--more than 100 years ago!! GASP!! That cannot be so, right? Fake news is only part of current American culture. Yeah, right.
http://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2009/09/16/46/
http://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2009/09/16/46/
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
What shape is the earth?