Washblog || Corporate Media: Beware the hubris

Corporate Media: Beware the hubris

By Brian
Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 02:40:54 AM PST
Section: Diary Topic: Traditional Media

Dear Seattle PI Editorial Board, you have no clothes. You write:

While many blogs do considerable research, many or most blog readers probably go to a site for advocacy or commentary more than news. With so much information available, that's not a surprising choice. There is a somewhat parallel phenomenon in Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," where cable TV viewers get humor along with a slice of news.
...
There's also a back-to-the-future aspect to the one-sided advocacy. American newspapers began as organs dedicated to serving particular political parties. Advocacy is a political right and a fundamental source of U.S. strength. But it's not the main thrust of journalism. And in the journalism generally practiced in America, accepting pay from politicians -- disclosed or not -- is about as far off the map as one can go.

(Cough) Talon News, (Cough) How quickly you forget!

While the Corporate Media continues its steady decline in audience, the PI (and many other media conglomerates) tries to convince itself - and perhaps some of its dwindling readers - that blogs are not reliable sources, stick with us. We have credibility, we have integrity.

Why should we?

One only needs to be reminded of the role so-called 'reporter' Judith Miller had in deceiving the public. Her articles on Saddam Hussein's nuclear factories and bioterror labs scattered across Iraq was completely discredited, debunked, toss out with the soiled diapers garbage. Surely the PI Editorial Board remembers some of these headlines from sweet Judy:

December 20, 2001, headline, "Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites For Chemical and Nuclear Arms".

September 7, 2002: headline: "US says Hussein intensifies quest for a-bomb parts".

September 13, 2002, headline: "White House Lists Iraq Steps To Build Banned Weapons".

December 3, 2002: "C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox".

January 24, 2003:"Defectors Bolster U.S. Case Against Iraq, Officials Say".

Mainly on the Corporate Media's zealous trumpeting for it, the Iraq invasion wasn't a matter of if, but when.

And after the war started, well lets just say you didn't want those pesky facts to get in the way...

The ACLU had a press release on prisoners being tortured to death, and the Corporate Media was right there to do its (snow)job.

A press release on these deaths by torture was issued by the ACLU on October 25, 2005 and was immediately picked up by Associated Press and United Press International wire services, making the story available to US corporate media nationwide. A thorough check of Nexus-Lexus and Proquest electronic data bases, using the keywords ACLU and autopsy, showed that at least 95percent of the daily papers in the US didn't bother to pick up the story. The Los Angeles Times covered the story on page A-4 with a 635-word report headlined "Autopsies Support Abuse Allegations." Fewer than a dozen other daily newspapers including: Bangor Daily News, Maine, page 8; Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque Iowa, page 6; Charleston Gazette, page 5; Advocate, Baton Rouge, page 11; and a half dozen others actually covered the story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Seattle Times buried the story inside general Iraq news articles. USA Today posted the story on their website. MSNBC posted the story to their website, but apparently did not consider it newsworthy enough to air on television.

But, boy that turkey-day stunt sure caught your attention, didn't it? Too bad for America, everything that surrounded that trip, all the way down to the plastic turkey itself, was a fake.

There are many more examples of your 'problem'. But its not like you are going to listen, anyway. Bloggers/citizen journalists, are taking marketshare from you only because you continually fail to do your job. As Sunil Saxena of Newwind wrote:

The year 2005 witnessed a new phenomenon--the birth of the Citizen Journalist. It was this journalist who captured the awesome power of tsunami just days before 2005 began; it was this journalist who flashed the first images of the Underground rail blasts in London; it was this journalist who showed flames leaping from Platform Three of ONGC's oil well in the Arabian Sea; it was this journalist who gave first-hand information of Hurricane Katrina...
The mainstream media arrived later, borrowed or bought these images and showed the world its ``exclusives.'' Was this an accident? Or is this a sign of changing times?

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Corporate Media: Beware the hubris | 5 comments (5 topical)

This definately deserves LTTE's

We should all fire some off right away. They have an online LTTE site don't they?

by Pen on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 09:50:07 AM PST

* 1 none 0 *

Carter is weak, Raygun is Strong, NYT

prior to the 1980 election.

I hate that rag disguised as a paper.

BTW - I ain't gonna spend a dime of my time or a second of time to prove things I read 26 years ago ...

yawn.

Want a mathematical FACT about political reporting?

The more the reporter claims to be objective, the higher the liklihood of:

doublethink /
selling the reader out /
lies /
synchophant singing to the powerful.

Want another FACT?

Even when counting, there is rarely agreement about what was counted and if the counting was accurate.

Want another FACT?

After counting, everything else is analysis.

Want another FACT?

ALL analysis is subjective.

I really think this farcical nonsense about journalistic integrity and objectivity is jsut a sophisticated smokescreen to make us sheeple

think we get 'the truth',
therefore NOT ask questions.

(don't wanna be negative, cycnical, bitter, angry ... right?)

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 08:50:05 PM PST

* 2 none 0 *

hope the citizen voting people follow through...

... don't care so much about the recount, but they claim to have had to file public information requests for any number of important pieces of public information (golly, I can't find them at http://www.metrokc.gov/ either) and that stuff needs to be out there for all of us. I applaud them for that.

by m3047 on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 10:57:48 PM PST

* 3 none 0 *

What became of Scott McClellan anyway? n/t

by m3047 on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 11:09:17 PM PST

* 4 none 0 *

N/T

Arthur
You sure you ain't staking too much on yer theories? Not enough common sense?

by Arthur Ruger on Sat Dec 09, 2006 at 10:04:13 AM PST

* 5 none 0 *

Corporate Media: Beware the hubris | 5 comments (5 topical)

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