What's the matter with the Media?

Folks are asking me why the national media isn't reporting many of the things mentioned in this blog. Here are my guesses (there could be more):

• The majority of the major media outlets in this country are owned by a few corporations or wealthy individuals (it's in their interest to run what best supports their business model)
• Many news outlets have been eliminated or seriously reduced
  
• Many "journalists" today were never trained in journalism or trained in the field (hence fail in digging for answers)
  

Media Ownership

In 1983, newspapers, television & radio were less centralized, with 50 corporations controlling the majority of all news media in the US. There were more "mom & pops" if you will. After deregulation of the media by the FCC, the big boys started buying even more markets. Here's a list of the current 6 Big Boys:

• David Westin, President, ABC News
• Mark Hoffman, President, CNBC
• Jonathan Klein, President, CNN
• Bill Galvin, Vice President, CNN Headline News
• Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, FOX News Channel
• Steve Capus, President, NBC News, MSNBC

"Nine giant companies now dominate the US media landscape, providing most television programs, films, videos and DVDs, radio shows, CDs, books and other leisure-time products and activities. They are Disney (ABC), AOL-Time Warner (CNN), Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (Fox TV), Viacom (CBS), General Electric (NBC), Sony (the former CBS records and Columbia Pictures), Seagram (Universal film and television studios), AT&T (cable television systems, including former MediaOne), and Bertelsmann (a German firm that controls the publication of one out of ten adult trade books in the world). (Some analysts put the number at six in the mass media field, excluding Sony, Seagram and AT&T.) Their media revenues range from $8 to $30 billion a year. According to Robert McChesney and John Nichols, the authors of It's the Media, Stupid, “Another twelve to fifteen firms, which do from $2 or $3 billion to $8 billion per year in business, round out the system.” (p. 28) These include Comcast, Hearst, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cox, Advance, Tribune Company and Gannett."1

The above was in 2000. By 2004, "only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth."2

What does this mean? It means fewer news organizations provide fewer differing viewpoints from which the American public can make good decisions. In addition, these for-profit organizations are obligated by law to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations.

Reduced News Bureaus

"In a striking effort to cut costs, NBC said yesterday that it was closing its New York bureau, which has a news staff of 11. That announcement comes a day after NBC said it planned to close its Miami news bureau, which has a total staff of 13. The closings in New York and Miami will reduce the number of NBC news bureaus in the United States to seven. In addition, the Frankfurt news bureau will be closed and the staff of the London bureau has been reduced. NBC has also reduced its employees in Boston and Pittsburgh. NBC is owned by the General Electric Company, and a number of NBC employees said they felt that G.E. had been particularly aggressive in its cost-cutting efforts."3 According to the August 15 issue of The Colorado Independent, "A decade ago more than a dozen newspapers and wire services embedded reporters in the state Capitol during the legislative session. Today only seven do."4

What does this mean? Fewer reporters are available to track down & uncover news stories. It means more news is slipping through the cracks due to lack of oversight.

Journalism or Field Training

Many working journalists actually urge their students not to get a degree in that field. Most, however, want their reporters to have a liberal arts degree and experience in the field. They also need to be fast writers. US journalists are not required to take any continuing ed courses 0r career training. "Fully half the journalists questioned in a recent survey by the Council of Presidents of National Journalism Organizations said they get no training at all...The lack of ongoing training was most evident for journalists in local TV stations...More than half (54 percent) of TV journalists said they needed training in content or specific coverage areas, but just 13 percent said they were getting that training."5

If you listen to talk radio, watch out. According to Project for Excellence in Journalism,"

"Talk radio is running America," complained Mississippi Republican Senator Trent Lott. "We have to deal with that problem." On June 28—more than 40 days after the introduction of a compromise immigration bill backed by President Bush and some senators—the year's most ambitious domestic legislative initiative was defeated in the Senate. Lott was not alone in attributing the bill's defeat to talk radio. Some Democrats even talked of reviving the long-repealed Fairness Doctrine as a way of potentially balancing the politics on conservative-dominated talk radio. In talk circles, this became known as the "Hush Rush" bill, a reference to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who was a vocal critic of the immigration bill.6

What does this mean? Talk Radio is commercial, and many "radio heads" are not trained journalists. They selectively feature those "facts" that best make the case for a specific ideology.

Sources
1. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/med5-d27.shtml
2. http://www.corporations.org/media/
3. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6D9113DF931A25754C0A967958260
4. http://staging.coloradoindependent.mypublicsquare.com/view/loss-of-the-capitol
5. http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0203/ijge/gj07.htm
6. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/profile.html