Journalism Is Killing America
Five years ago, the traditional media helped Bush pitch a war that got 4,337 service men and women killed in Iraq (to say nothing of the thousands and thousands of Iraqis killed).
Now, traditional media journalism is back to killing Americans, in this case by deliberately misrepresenting public views on health care reform. EJ Dionne describes how at least one network refused to cover civil, informative town halls.
But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?
There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.
[snip]
Over the past week, I’ve spoken with Democratic House members, most from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health-reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television.
[snip]
The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham.
The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly: "Your meeting doesn’t get covered unless it blows up." As it happens, the Durham audience was broadly sympathetic to reform efforts. No "news" there. [my emphasis]
But Dionne is conveniently blaming this on the "electronic" media and ignoring his own paper’s complicity. From OmbudAndy, we learn that 85% of the health care reform stories appearing in the WaPo’s A section have been about the horserace and the deathers.
In my examination of roughly 80 A-section stories on health-care reform since July 1, all but about a dozen focused on political maneuvering or protests. The Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism had a similar finding. Its recent month-long review of Post front pages found 72 percent of health-care stories were about politics, process or protests.
And as a result, Americans are confused and politicians are backing off the reform they know is needed and legislation supported by a huge majority may not get passed.
This will have predictable results. Regardless of what passes Congress, it will lack things that serve an important function: end of life care conversations to give Americans more control over their medical care; school-based health care clinics; subsidies for the working poor. More people will go bankrupt. More people will forgo necessary care.
People will die.
And inevitably the media will complain that it’s not responsible for the obvious consequences of its editorial choices.
No wonder traditional media is in such trouble. They’re killing their audience.
It’s a fool’s errand to seek reform, justice, or anything else good within the current system.
Revolution.
We had a great vigil/rally in New Orleans last night. NO protesters.
Person after person coming to the podium to tell their or their friends and family story about broken healthcare.
Two of the young women who spoke are un-insurable according the insurance companies. One was 26 and a mother of two who were on LACHIP. Retired teachers spoke about how they thought they could have a nice retirement, until the insurance companies started raising their rates. It was heartbreaking.
One tv station covered it. The ABC affiliate led with the story.
Here is the Link: http://www.abc26.com/videobeta…..-afe0-426e
-81ab-69611c9908d3&src=front
sorry the link was broken
Here is the Link: http://www.abc26.com/videobeta…..;src=front
Very cool.
Journalism isn’t killing America.
Power, meaning money, is.
Yeah, it’s cool to share a story of personal courage.
Change will happen only from force.
This started well enough, then dissolved into rot; makes one doubt your intentions.
“Hold your elected representatives accountable” would have worked better.
Example: Every day I get an email from someone in or purporting to be near the Obama administration. Some of them claim to be from the man himself. They’re very engaging–even call me by my first name. I reply to each & every one; a few replies would qualify as rants; mostly though, they’re short; and on Health Care Coverage Reform they are all consistent: Cover everyone; do it now; do it with a public option; or else.
Your logic is airtight, from where do you get your talking points? False flag or simpleton?
According to Reporters without Borders the US is ranked 36 in press freedoms. That is almost as good as our health care ranking. Yes siree that is exceptionalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…..ut_Borders
Gosh, you think there’s a connection?
Absolutely and here is another one
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/20…..227104776/
To be fair, these rankings were determined and published before the November election. Not that anything has changed for the better.
But Ezra Klein is able to earn his Villager union card by the age of 25, so the system works.
And how old is Jenna Bush
I think it’s rally/vigil time. With lots of personal stories. See if Shark Week TV covers it.
This is the “make him do it” phase, and it’s going to require those people who worked together for Obama to try again to get him to live up to their expectations. Elections matter, but it’s increasingly clear that they don’t matter enough.
two points:
1.
nothing is more important to the our future than holding the media – print or electronic – to accountability.
that is what ew has done here
and what dionne did previously.
think about it. there are 360 million americans.
the corporate media is the ONLY way that 99.9% of our adult population receive any information about government activity and public policy – garbage pick-up, a new swimming pool for the community, the state board of education’s latest ruling, an invasion and war, adequate health care for each and every american.
yet this corporate conduit of info is almost never held accountable for the info it feeds the public- info that is mostly designed to heighten its revenues thru increased viewer/readership, which translates instantaneously into corporate emphasis on conflict, sensationalism, and emotionalism.
2.
where is the preponderance of the american business community in all this health care nonsense, that is, all the blatant propaganda against health care for all generated by the health care industry and the republican party?
in the south, when consequential decisions have to be made, one goes to the business community – not necessarily to the auto repair shops or the barber shops, but to the consequential businesses in the city or state.
i assume this happens elsewhere in the country.
there is no single action that the federal gov’t could take that would benefit american businesses more than to see that every american was covered by basic health insurance.
there is no single effort the obama admin could make than to create an alliance with the american business community, very small to very large, in order to obtain that community’s support (subtracting out the selfish health care industry) for health care for all americans.
as ew has pointed out previously, what a boon for the auto industry!
as rayne has pointed out what a boon for not-so-small businesses in communities!
i am frustrated in the extreme that this simple, obvious political tie – between the obama admin and the american business community on health care for all americans – has not been pursued and consummated by obama.
kissing the asses of the old fart democratic asses in congress is a dead-end political activity.
p.s.
oh, and by the way,
what better way to begin to build progressive institutions in the u.s. than initiating such a collusion.
in the south of the 60’s, and 70’s, where real racism existed (”real” meaning not mere name calling) and stalled efforts to meet education and transportation needs, the business-govt connection was how change benefiting all occurred.
other than the health care industry,
what business, tiny or large, would not favor health coverage for all americans?
when will rip van obama wake up?
and smell something burning
(his reputation and credibility)?
who knows.
Journalism is killing America, and also committing suicide.
Last one left turn out the lights.
Print journalism is indeed on a death watch, but unfortunately cable news is filling the void more than the blogosphere. I’m between careers just now and spend a lot of time pursuing stories to their truthful detail in front of my Mac. When I was working 60 hours a week like most Americans I didn’t have time to do this. I knew Fox was shit, but didn’t have any idea how managed was the message I was receiving from cable headlines and NYT. Most Americans simply do not have time in their lives to follow the news of the day in the kind of detail required to filter the truth from the propaganda and paid messaging that is the dynamic of today’s MSM.
I’m as happy as the next guy that the truth can be found on the blogosphere easier than at any time in history, but I don’t welcome the burial of print journalism. It bodes ill for the future, because for most of the voting public, cable TV will take its place. And that is not a good thing, to put it mildly.
Very true Bob.
You are so right. But of course the problem is so much deeper – even if people only have 15-30 min. per day to follow news, still they should be able to think critically, and question whether they are being fed bullshit. Many people don’t have this ability because our educational system has failed them.
Exactly, and I still refer to George Carlin’s stand up comedy article on how they ( the Powers that be ) want us to remain uneducated and uninformed.
i don’t know where else to put it, so i’ll put it here.
paul krugman has written a masterful, because it’s relatively comprehensive and relatively understandable, essay on how economic theory mislead the world in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…..=1&hp
have written what i wrote above, with its negative connotations, i feel bound to say that it was economic “theory”. that is, economic history and theory, put to practice (by, mostly, bernanke and his team at the fed reserve supported by the obama team), that just saved us from an economic fate far worse than the great depression of the 1930’s – far worse because there are many hundreds of millions more of americans these days than then, and because there are billions more humans on the planet now than then.
the misery issuing from a world-wide depression these days would have been terrible to experience, whatever your economic level.
read krugman and then keep in mind that our nation was in the thrall of a false economic doctrine for at least thirty years – a doctrine that so “coincided ” with right-wing and corporate political activity that it was readily adopted and promulgated as gov’t policy.
it would be hard to over-estimate the damage the right-wing has done to american society in the last 60 years with its loud demands on both foreign and domestic policy.
in time, for example, we may also come to our senses about such psychological/social matters as abortion, stem-cell research, sex education, and homosexuality.
but right now we are, at least, awakening from a right-wing induced intellectual coma involving economics.
thank god for the internet and voices like those at emptyhwheel.
and voices like paul krugman’s.
And don’t forget Keynes. John Maynard Keynes. He got trashed and we ALL got trashed as a result. And never forget where Milton Friedman reigned–the Univ of Chicago!
Yes, it’s the Chicago School of Economics at work; I see Doug Ruskoff has a new book out about the acculturation of corporatism, leaving no part of our lives untouched.
But we aren’t labeling it what it is — the Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein did a bang-up job in her book of the same title, outlining the methods by which the corporate class have reset our individual minds and our collective culture for their agenda and their ultimate benefit.
And until we remake business schools across the U.S., reframe their curriculum so that the ultimate goal is not dog-eat-dog capitalist, corporatism but co-petitive collaboration in a mixed economy, we are going to continue to see every commons spoiled, burnt down and salt plowed into its ashes.
The press is a commons, by the way; it was a place where we shared information key to our making rational decisions as citizens as the ultimate power of governance. In some ways, the blind spots of corporatism which nearly killed the American automotive industry are the same ones which are killing the American press. Corporatism wants lock-in, resists innovation if it is making money AND if it is receiving other benefits (in the case of the press, the owners benefited not merely from sales but from having a mouthpiece to further their interests). And corporatists failed to see the press as a commons, one which had been protected by law from abuses; they saw it only as a resource to be exploited, un-mooring it from its purpose as an information distribution commons.
Our business school system, however, will not discuss the commons and how to operate sustainably within a commons-framework. Communitarianism is not taught. We are going to continue cycling through massive bubbles until the Chicago School of Economics has been invalidated as the preferred approach.
Amen.
Well said! Thnx.
Corporations are creations of government.
Corporate power became more dominant that legal-state power and wealth became concentrated over the past 30 years. For instance:
In 2007, the CEO of Humana’s total compensation was $10,312,557.
The total 2007 compensation for the CEO of Cigna was $25,839,777.
The total 2007 compensation for the CEO of Coventry Health Care was $14,869,823.**
Thus, 50,000,000 go uninsured while 3 individuals make a combined $51,022,157 in a single year (2007).
When have you ever read or seen the media explain that simple set of relationships? Never.
You also probably have not heard the MSM point out that corporations exist to maximise profit for shareholders.
I’m increasingly convinced that GOPer Congressmen and Blue Dogs have not mastered the simple facts outlined in this comment.
I’m not a reporter, but I came up with those facts in a very short time. Which makes me exceedingly frustrated with the brain-dead bobbleheads. And as more databases and facts become available, the failure to bring these facts to public attention is inexcusable.
** Figures from p. 45, “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Health Care Reform”.
It’s the de-legitimization of reasoned debate, of actual facts, of accountability.
One side isn’t interested in making things better. All they want is their personal version of a “win”. If it’s labeled “D”, it’s automatically bad; if it’s labeled “R”, it’s automatically good.
Without honest coverage, it’s hard for me to see a way out. I think we’re fucked.
Wow, that’s so well put.
And it goes back to the simpering, sneering way the MSM treated Al Gore in 2000. Anyone who tries to do their homework or master complexity seems to come in for what’s really public hazing.
And just yesterday, I stumbled on a Financial Times article pointing out that Glenn Beck made $23,000,000 in either 2008 or that’s his estimated income in 2009. We have a media for unprincipled people who are using it to gain fortunes by delegitimizing sane, well-informed conversation.
Shorter: we’re fucked.
I agree, and wait until things heat up over the climate change bills in the Senate. The media fail on that is going to surpass its fail on healthcare reform. No doubt.
remember the Maine
journalism has always been a cesspool
There is an excellent essay in the forthcoming (posted early) New York Review of Books on this matter — a review of the demise of Corporate Media, and much else, and the experimentation now well underway around the country, infact, in other parts of the world. See Michael Massing in http://www.nybooks.com/index — second Article, New Horizons for the News, in the September 24th issue.
There are many changes happening at the same time, and it is key that we understand how these all relate to each other. For instance, Massing introduces some interesting survey evidence (you can follow the original papers in his notes) suggesting that the younger generation have become totally addicted to news, and in depth news no less, but they are not patrons of Newspapers. Similarly, it appears that across the political spectrum, people are spending more time searching and reading news than when they were newspaper and TV dependent.
Massing emerges from his travels (and yes, he apparently traveled the country to report the story), believing that a vast expansion of what he calls the PBS/NPR model as a business model, perhaps has the most hope to survive and grow strong in this new environment. He is particularly good on the substantial Foundation Grant and Risk Capital Investment funds being currently put into building new news gathering and dissemenation models. Particularly good at pointing to business models that seem more and less risky.
His predictions are interesting — unless they move toward a non-corporate and non-profit model, he thinks most MSM is fated to collapse as we know them in the near future. But he also believes we will have many more sources, and many more fairly focused and specialized sources. He believes that in the near future some of the Internet Providers — Yahoo, Google, AOL, and Microsoft, will actually create large virtual newsrooms, and enter the market in a fairly big-foot way. They will, he suggests, more or less monopolize the advertising supported revenue stream, (based on eyeball counts) though not in the way corporate advertising dominated old style TV and Newspapers, what with its financial dependence on Department Store Display Advertising, New and Used Car advertising, local want-ads, weekly supermarket specials and coupons.
What I found interesting was his discussion of the potential in the PBS/NPR model, and their current plans for vast expansion. Apparently NPR is fixed to invest in massive upgrading of local (or state-regional) newsrooms, and to make a much more significant investment (or develop partnerships with outside sources) for International News. He suggests this may be the closest we will come to a BBC like news source — and he believes the user-supported and listener supported model will sustain what they want to do, perhaps with the States and Feds making significant contributions for infrastructure (Obama’s push on Broadband, for instance.)
This intrigues me largely because Minnesota Public Radio is, in a sense, a model for this. It really is not just a Minnesota thing anymore — MPR does Business News out of its Pasadenia California Station, does environmental reporting from its Idaho Station, and is working on special focus for other entities it owns — Miama Florida, Northern Michigan, and the like. It has gone digital, (meaning 4 channels for every license) and is providing a Classical Music/Cultural channel, a News and current affairs channel that does International, national and local programs, and a new Contemporary Channel, which mixes Contempory Culture and music with a slightly less dense and youth focused news program. Everything is streamed on line, and everything is archived so it can be revisited after broadcast time. All of these channels support multiple blogs, and are particularly set up so as to capture temporary but focused breaking news matters and capture contemporary discussion of them. I think what Massing is suggesting is that this Minnesota model may go national as part of the PBS/NPR model. Apparently over the last 5 years the growth of the listening audience for NPR has been larger than for any other “broadcaster”, and of course it does so without significant major advertiser support. Clearly there is some sort of market for “above average” IQ news and public affairs. (Remember Wobegonners are all “above Average.”)
Anyhow, I would suggest everyone here, concerned about Media, read Michael Massing’s piece and see if you see value in it. The next question is how to effectively participate in the revolution he sees.
Gawd… I’m so sick of all the vitriol and conflict. This country appears, at least through the lense of communication vehicles, to be very sick and dysfunctional. I don’t know how long we can go on like this, and not all just kill each other. It’s disgusting and depressing.
And in case anybody straggles back here, you might be interested in this bit:
The only reliable and durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit, said James Murdoch, with regard to print media and in opposition to government-supported media models like the BBC.
Oh, sure, and greed is good. Look what it’s done for us.