Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/why-does-the-american-media-get-big-stories-wrong/276454/


It is also partly explained by the fact that journalistic decision-makers often live and socialize in the same ruling-class circles as the people they cover,

The article this article references isn't bad either.

Jenni wrote:

The article this article references isn't bad either.

I find the Atlantic Wire article rather weak. The underlying one in The American Conservative is much stronger.

If you haven't read Manufacturing Consent, you really should. Herman and Chomsky provided a large piece of the answer the above article wants, some 25 years ago (and it's a lot more readable than works by Chomsky alone). The Atlantic Wire writer needs to read it too.

Oh Jesus, my spider sense BS detector immediately went on high alert when the article's author was described as being a columnist for The American Conservative. We all know conservatives have an echo-chamber rosary that the "lame stream media isn't covering the news" when what that means is that Fox News bulletins are neither verifiable nor predictive.

In the first paragraph of Ron Unz's piece he trots out his true colors.

Quote :

White was also a Communist agent.

I did a quick Google search of one so-called "fact" which seemed like it might be verifiable.

Quote :

In 1982 liberal icon Susan Sontag ruefully acknowledged that for decades the subscribers to the lowbrow Readers Digest had received a more realistic view of the world than those who drew their knowledge from the elite liberal publications favored by her fellow intellectuals.

What did Google think? This sentence was quoted verbatim approximately 1,900 times in the "conservative blogosphere." Good luck tracking down a reference that isn't cut-and-pasted from the original, unsourced, contention.

Ah, here we go:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/specials/sontag-communism.html

NoCoPilot wrote:

We all know conservatives have an echo-chamber rosary that the "lame stream media isn't covering the news" when what that means is that Fox News bulletins are neither verifiable nor predictive.

If you really think that summarises the article, your reading comprehension skills are close to zero.

For an example of the media acting as a government propaganda vehicle, you can't do better than the wikileaks/Bradley Manning trial.

Lost in the Bradley Manning Narrative: What He Actually Leaked

Quote :

Do you know that Egyptian torturers received FBI training in Virginia? Were you aware of the fact that American officials were instructed to hide evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan? Do you know the State Department fought against Haiti raising its minimum wage?

Quote :

The aforementioned stories were all leaked by Manning, as was the Iraq War’s official death count (which Bush and Obama claimed didn’t exist), the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, and many other examples of shady and/or criminal government behavior.

richard09 wrote:

For an example of the media acting as a government propaganda vehicle, you can't do better than the wikileaks/Bradley Manning trial.

The media has to KNOW about atrocities to report on them.

Wikileaks told the media about them when? And how much coverage have you seen since then?

And notice that this is not a partisan issue. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans (nor their corporate paymasters) want to address the issue of government criminality, and the "watchdog" media falls into line and says nothing.

I have done a lot of reading about Julian Assange, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning -- two books, numerous articles, several websites -- and this is the first I've heard of these allegations.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I have done a lot of reading about Julian Assange, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning -- two books, numerous articles, several websites -- and this is the first I've heard of these allegations.

Exactly.

"Look at my clever son! He's the only soldier who is marching in step!"

NoCoPilot wrote:

I have done a lot of reading about Julian Assange, Wikileaks and Bradley Manning -- two books, numerous articles, several websites -- and this is the first I've heard of these allegations.

In all your reading, how much was about the actual content of what Manning leaked? Wasn't all the focus on the personalities, the legal ramifications, the definition of journalism, and on, and on - all quietly ignoring exactly what material was leaked?

Sooner or later, you will understand the strategy - to distract, confuse, diffuse. The establishment doesn't want you to read what Manning leaked. The "watchdog" media isn't just lazily failing to take notice, they are fully complicit in helping you to not read it.

NoCoPilot wrote:

"Look at my clever son! He's the only soldier who is marching in step!"

Your shallowness is breathtaking.

richard09 wrote:

Your shallowness is breathtaking.

Mmmmm, maybe.

I would argue that A) The allegations are out there, available to read for anyone who cares but B) they're a lot of ho-hum. Who the fuck cares about civilians killed in Iraq? Wasn't that sort of the whole point of the war?

The article in The Atlantic coincides in great part with my personal opinion about the current deplorable state of the American BigTime (I don't like the term mainstream) media. I also agree in large part with the reasons he gives for this current journalistic miasma.

The article in The American Conservative, however, I consider to be composed of scurrilous and supercilious assertions - about what one would expect from that publication.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I would argue that A) The allegations are out there, available to read for anyone who cares

They're out there now because of wikileaks, not because of "big-time" media.

NoCoPilot wrote:

but B) they're a lot of ho-hum. Who the fuck cares about civilians killed in Iraq? Wasn't that sort of the whole point of the war?

Actually, no. No-one I have ever seen or heard has ever suggested that the whole point of the war was to kill civilians. Until now.

Your government has committed various and sundry crimes at home and abroad, not merely a whole raft of war crimes. The information is indeed out there, if you go looking for it. Kim Kardashian's latest ass-scratch is out there too, if you look hard enough. Oh wait. The hard-working media elite have done the work for you, and made the important stuff easy to find.

I have to agree with you completely on this, R09.

richard09 wrote:

No-one I have ever seen or heard has ever suggested that the whole point of the war was to kill civilians. Until now.

Apparently you know even less about Iraq than you do about Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.

Quote :

But these two orders did serve a useful purpose for George Bush: The loss of so many skilled Iraqis from the work force helped to pave the way for U.S. corporations, and the lack of a viable Iraqi army provided the primary justification for the continued U.S. military occupation.

The two orders mentioned being the de-Ba’athification order and the dissolution of the military. Neither of which orders the killing of civilians. Do you actually read the stuff you link to?

@Richard= I haven't read that one I don't think but I did read one many years ago I read one that I forget the name of (I know, stop the presses right, Jenni forgot something) that sort of predicted this when all the media mergers were happening.

_Howard wrote:

The article in The Atlantic coincides in great part with my personal opinion about the current deplorable state of the American BigTime (I don't like the term mainstream) media. I also agree in large part with the reasons he gives for this current journalistic miasma.

Deplorable is right! I'd like to think it's a lot about money, it costs to do journalism right. But something tells me the thing is rotten to the core. That no amount of money would really fix it because the press is too busy shouting with everyone else about the emperors new clothes and how fantastic they are. One look at the BBC or even public television- PBS's Newshour shows a bit of the extent to which we are missing out. And then shit that's not even news gets on the evening news- which is the most important because that's what the average guy watches.

Jenni wrote:

I did read one many years ago that sort of predicted this when all the media mergers were happening.

Media consolidation has continued apace since the early 2000's when people started blowing alarms. This is bad for democracy, which needs a diverse marketplace of ideas to thrive.

https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/media-and-democracy/media-consolidation/

Yes, the small mom-and-pop print media landscape has been clearcut by media giants. The TV markets, with their limited bandwidths, are now dominated by six players with Sinclair Broadcast Group dominating the field.

Here in Seattle we have three major local news stations, KOMO (channel 4, which is ABC), KING (5 which is NBC) and KIRO (7 which is CBS). In 2013 KOMO was bought by Sinclair and everyone feared the worst. For the first ten years it really didn't seem that bad, nothing much changed.

But I've noticed subtle shifts recently, in the past couple of years. Mrs NoCo likes to watch local news on 4 because it comes on an hour earlier than 5 or 7.

• Stories about science or industry have all but disappeared. There are no longer stories about local entrepreneurs or start-ups, or promising research into cancer treatments or new technologies.
  
• Every single night, there is at least one, sometimes several stories about "troubled teens" and rising suicides and new drug epidemics and failing schools and homelessness. The Sinclair view of society is decided dystopian. Is it news? Well yes, technically... but without any balance of "feel good" stories.
  
• The biggest, and for me most disturbing, change is the not-so-subtle pushing of Christian mythology. Lot of stories about people praying, about churches doing outreach, about medical cures being caused by prayer. Every time a missing persons alert goes out, we are all encouraged to "pray for them." On Easter, the station went absolutely bonkers with Jesus stories. Is this news? Decidedly not.

Here's a typical opinion piece masquerading as news from KOMO:
https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/what-happens-if-we-dont-tame-unsustainable-federal-debt-committee-for-a-responsible-federal-budget-congressional-budget-office-deficit-united-states-national-spending-taxes-social-security-politics#

In it, the author says we must cut Social Security to limit the federal debt. Not mentioned is the HUGE hole in the economy caused by slashing taxes for corporations and wealthy people by Republican presidents in the past 40 years.

If it were me, I'd make the very few pay their fair share, instead of cutting further from the very many who are already suffering.