What's Wrong With The Media?

[Morgan Wick]

This is a thread for you to sound off on all the problems you have with the mainstream media and the way it reports the news. No problem is too obvious to list. It may sound redundant to say it's in hock to big corporations, but list it anyway - but also try and get as specific as possible. Think about how and why. I'm trying to collect as many grievances as possible in one place.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Everything........

They no longer investigate stories, follow up on leads, triangulate what they're told by sources.

They simply read the press releases they were handed at the White House briefing room, by the CEO they "interviewed" that day, or the rumor they found on the Internet Tubes.

There are no journalists out there doing the leg work to bring real stories to the people. Those people collecting paychecks from media outlets are simply parrots, stenographers, talking heads.

They are worthless. I say ditch the bunch of them and hire all new J-School grads and people from local newspapers who maybe have learned the basics from old-timers, who know how to bring forth a good story instead of a sheet of copy that was written by someone with a vested interest in the subject at hand.

I've lived a long time, and I remember Edward R. Murrow. I remember Woodward and Bernstein, Katharine Graham, Ben Bradlee.

Today, Murrow and Graham are dead, Woodward is a talking head for anyone in power, Bradlee is retired, but Bernstein writes the occasional opinion piece that makes sense. That's all we have left, and it's not enough.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. i would like to know who decides on the lies?

do they have meetings the night before with their anchors etc to say - we have to bring down Obama as we want him to fail. I would love to see the minutes of those meetings!

[Old and In the Way]

3. When a major "news media" uses 5 month old videotape that's doctored

to try to spin their political point, you know it's goal is to misinform. When a comedy show actually does a more rigorous job of reporting, we can conclude that the networks are broken.

[RandomThoughts]

4. Yea lots of distorted stories out there.

You can guess some are manipulation either by selection or by omission.

Remember that journalist that admitted to making up stories for years, in a major paper. I got a hunch alot of stories are manipulated to transmit other messages.

Granted there is some good journalism, but there is also alot of misinformation, and when added to peoples brains, or lack there of, it just gets silly and sad.

[Old and In the Way]

6. In a perverse way, the piss-poor state of media journalism has made me a better consumer of news.

Back in the 70's/80's, I'd read a paper and never consider whether the information was true, spun, distorted or serving a political agenda. Today, I always factor that into my evaluation of the story. I consider the source, the author, the facts, and the conclusion. If I am skeptical, I'll search out more sources.

[alstephenson]

5. They are LAZY.

Lulled into complacency - they just report what the AP spits out. There are very few real journalists or reporters left.

[Cobalt-60]

7. Their breath smells

of Republican Johnson.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I'm amazed someone hasn't written a tell-all that names the names of those who tell people what ....

..... to report on any given day.

Surely some summer intern or former low level producer has a story to tell.

[ladym55]

9. Depends on the level

Mainstream corporate media is all about being an insider and making lots of bucks. They are more interested what they are wearing and who they know than making the effort to research a story. So whatever talking point is spit out, they repeat it without question. To them, being snarky is journalism. So if they ask a nasty question of a Democrat, they've "done" their journalistic duty. Their own wealth blinds them to any other reality than the party circuit they belong to. They are the biggest whiners about Obama's "war on the rich." THEY might have to pay a slightly higher tax rate.

Local media is filled with local space cadets. They don't read much, don't know much, and certainly couldn't investigate anything other than health code violations at the local Chinese restaurant. Their ignorance of politics, geography, and science is mind-boggling.

Local print media is often understaffed and underfunded. They also don't do such a good job at that whole "objectivity" thing. Our local paper can't mention the United Church of Christ with the word "liberal" in front of it or say Michael Moore without "leftwing." Glenn Beck, however, gets no adjective in front of his name. Guess he's mainstream.

The most important thing is get the media out of the hands of a few very large, very powerful corporations.

[Jkid]

10. Local Television News Sucks

It's all the same. Top story is always a murder or robbery, then it leads to stories outside the local broadcast area, then to international news, then to the latest medical study that they don't cite the source of, then to celebrity news, then off to sports, and a feel-good segment. With traffic and weather every 15 minutes.

[antimatter98]

11. MSM takes dictation, but worse, is not intellectually curious or responsible.

Our MSM today is all about "People Magazine" or "E!" level reporting. Michelle Obama goes
to a children's school, but the emphasis is, why did she wear a sleeveless dress?

Instead of actual news and issues being reported and investigated, we have distraction-news,
and news departments that align with corporate power. William Hears's newspapers, ages ago
were like this. With respect to the Spanish American War and the explosion of that ship
in Cuba that started it, Hearst said "you furnish the pictures, I will furnish the war."
Source:
http://www.smplanet.com/imperialism/remember.html

You cannot keep asking 'why doesn't the MSM..(fill in the blank)' but instead take it
for granted that we have a William R. Hearst/People Magazine MSM universe that is like a giant
propaganda network. If you take over a country, you seize the media and put your own
programs out to mold thought and opinion. This is what our MSM is doing and has been doing for
over 10 years at least. The Pentagon has a large budget for using media to influence
Amerians.

We're far far more manipulated by our media than we realize. Think of how the NY Times
helped sell the war, along with NPR and CNN and Fox. And today, notice that MSM has no problem
with banks getting trillions, but they don't like health care for us, or other populist issues.
Ask: why is this so?

[YoungAndOutraged]

12. The poor do not exist to the media

Instead we are treated with heartbreaking stories of how the super-rich are having to lay off one of their seventeen personal cooks. Then we're expected to feel sad for them. Fuck the media. They'll actually be shocked when 80% unemployment hits and america is flushed down the toilet with riots in the streets.

[antimatter98]

13. The media is not for populism, but for corporatism..we're looking for them to change and they won't-

and we see each day that Obama is not a populist either, but is fully
engaged as a corporatist himself. Eventually, you will see MSM more closely
align with Obama's goals---a corporate America that IS the government to a
greater degree than now.

The idea I think is to beat down populism, to defeat it, to render it
invisible, and that is where the MSM is right now in my view.

Anyone today who is a populist, waiting for FDR's return, is in for a generational
wait, and it is probably never going to come. We're well into a fascist
America--look up the meaning of the term before you say 'no way.'

Corporations and banking ARE the government. MSM is their spokesman. Obama is
the latest 'front man' for all of it. Bush did a great job in his own way, and
Obama is also---articulate, slick as can be, and able to lie in the spirit of
Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice.

MSM may take pot shots, but over a very short time they will see what is at hand
and love it, just as they did Bush and the War.