describe to me a better means of representing “the people”.
Public Radio.
Or did you want to expand on your OP?
Public Radio? What’s that? In what ways does it reflect the opinion of the population as a whole?
Was your second comment rhetorical? If not, I am interested in people’s opinions of a “free” media.
Corporate media does not represent “the people”; it represents the interests of the controlling corporation.
Ok, first of all when you are talking about “media” I am making the assumption that you are talking specifically about news and information (rather than professional wrestling or reality television).
That being said, I do not think that it is necessarily a laudable goal to reflect the opinion of the population. Quite the opposite, actually, as generally speaking my general sense it that the general public couldn’t think it’s way out of a paper bag.
Therefore, I would hold that Publicly funded media is the way to go. I say this because I feel more confident in the information that I receive if it is from a source that is not beholden to the advertising dollar or other special interests. I want the folks that are reporting information to me to have as little “strings attached” as possible. This is something that I am willing to pay for.
I am sure that some folks will be along shortly to claim that NPR/PBS have a liberal bias. I am not really sure what my take on that is, as I am to the left politically and arguably may not see the same things that others do.
However, I will point out that (assuming that there is any factual basis to the liberal argument for NPR/PBS) it is interesting that when broadcasters are freed from corporate influence that they are perceived as or become more liberal.
Well, most of the arguments I hear are that the ‘Corporate Media’, at least in the USA, give insufficient airing to stories that either are representative of hard-leftist ideology, or are favorable to such a viewpoint. I would have to say this is true.
Whether or not the people want greater exposure to this information, is of course an open question. My view, as stated in other threads, is that if the majority of people did want this information, they would make their wishes known by turning to the alternative press, which, in the USA at least, is easily available to those who are willing to look for it.
I guess an additional major point of argument is whether or not what we consider to be straight news reporting by the major media actually has a propagandistic element that favors corporate (or market) interests above all others.
The argument from the left appears to be that a) all reporting has a propagandistic element (this impossibility of objectiveness apparently justifies the incessant editorializing exhibited in reporting by the alternative press) and b) that the public would be far more sympathetic to leftist causes if information demonstrating the ‘correctness’ of the leftist viewpoint were more widely aired in the major media. IOW, the role of the press as seen by the left is as a means of ideological indoctrination rather than a neutral observer of events.
To summarize, I’ll agree with the rather terse OP to the point that the major media are in fact very good at selling the bulk of the public what it wants to see and hear. I do think, however, that pandering to majority public interest is not the be-all and end-all of journalism, and that there is a duty by journalists to give a fair hearing to all viewpoints, even when some of those may be annoying to certain interest groups. Thus, I think the alternative media serve a useful purpose; unfortunately, however, they are at least as guilty of excessive bias as the ‘corporate media’; probably more so.
Wow. All that from a ten word OP.
So, the people need to be told what to think by an ivory tower liberal elite that has total domination of the media. We tried that already.
Ah, but they do. The strings attached to the public media sources are the government purse strings. Just like the government influences hollywood movies by not allowing access for military personell and equipment for plots that make them look bad. However, since they would be outright controlling all of the funding this would be exponentially worse.
There is clearly more danger in a bias of 100 radio stations all being funded by the one government than having 100 companies controlling 100 radio stations.
I would like to just go on with the assumption that all here agree there is a left wing bias to NPR. If anyone is in denial of that I don’t know what would convince them otherwise. The question is why does the bias exist.
I would argue that they could be liberal for any number of reasons. Rather, Jennings and Brokaw have liberal leanings and they are clearly beholden to the corporations that pay them millions. Cronkite has admitted the liberal leanings of the mainstream media and he was in the private sector his whole career.
If one did want to try and understand why NPR is liberal because of the lack of corporate control I would make this argument: It is because they are financed by the federal government that they want to see a larger and more powerful federal government. Just like many think the “corporate media” is to influenced by the corporations owning them, the reverse could be true of the publicly owned media.
However, there is some sort of control in the private sector. If any corporate media venue becomes too over the top, if they become to biased one way or the other it will cost them in ratings and they would be replaced. If the government owned media gets out of control with it’s liberal bias, what’s to get it back in line?
Well, by the very definition of ‘conservative’, corporate sponsers are forced to pander to the status quo.
A couple of things. What is the objective of the media? Well, it’s to inform AND entertain. (it is also interesting that when broadcasters are freed from corporate influence that they are also freed from having a significant audience). You can’t force someone to hear about a story they aren’t interested in.
Debaser, while I can appreciate some of your sentiments I have to say that a lot of your post exemplifies how our way of talking about things has been hijacked by the folks on the Right on the political spectrum.
In my post I stated that basing the news on people’s opinion was not necessarily a good plan, and out of that you get that I am advocating Liberal Pinko Ivory Tower Elite who want nothing more than to tell everyone what to think. How odd.
I mostly agree with Kabong’s overall summary of the left’s argument with corporate media. I just want to point out that “bias” certainly colors our viewpoints and the way we look at the world. It comes from our experiences and our “education” over the years.
In leftist publications – which are available to the masses nationwide only from the standpoint that they sit out there on the World Wide Web hoping to be discovered – you most certainly get a biased point of view. In fact, it’s obvious. And, it’s so politically divergent from the American capitalist point of view, that the corporate media will never give it air time, unless it would be for the purpose to distort their point of view.
The corporate media foremost serve this purpose: To indoctrinate the masses with the official government/capitalist line.
They do a good job of it, to the point that you don’t even know they’re doing it, because you’ve known nothing else. In fact, most people don’t even know what “leftist” means, because the corporate media sure as hell isn’t going to expose you to their true beliefs and valid viewpoints.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory, just to hopefully stop us from leading down that road. I’m just stating the obvious – Big Business is the master of all media. Publicly funded media wouldn’t be much different, because government interests ARE corporate interests. They’re the same. The people who run the country are cut from the same cloth as the people who run our businesses.
Now, Kabong is right that there are alternative views out there if you want to search for them. But, few Americans want to listen to those “nutjobs,” because they’ve been told through the mainstream media that they ARE “nutjobs.” American society isn’t ready for the leftist version of truth. And, it doesn’t appear that will change the way things are going.
If you’re interested, here’s a list of a number of alternative Web sites. I don’t necessarily agree with the views of everyone here, but they provide a different point of view than the corporate media provides.
Strange, I know, but at least 2 other democracies in the world (UK and Australia, and possibly Canada) manage to maintain the concept of an independent, yet publicly funded broadcaster. Are Americans somehow incapable of such a feat? I know that I do not have such a low opinion of your countrymen.
Lovely image; heck, I’ll take it a bit further. Lonely lighthouses of Truth, their beacons barely visible on the horizon, guiding The Masses past the rocks of capitalism…out there hoping to be discovered, like TechTV’s reruns of ‘Thunderbirds’, like ‘ESPN Classics’, like Trains Magazine, like Utne Reader. (shrug) All journalism has to fight for space with all other journalism.
The alternative media marginalizes itself, not the public. It’s a pot-kettle situation, really. The alternative outlets are very good at pointing out the supposed doctrinal stance of commercial media, but in the example of, say, Pacifica Radio, they never, not just rarely, but never would air a story if it might be seen as conflicting with their overall ideological stance. This is not a situation which gives rise to a sense of trust that what one is hearing or reading is factual, and people are simply not going to sit still for the sort of relentlessly negative coverage of events that these outlets practice, if it is not relevant to their experience.
Stuff and nonsense. The corporate media foremost serve this purpose: to sell subscriptions and advertising, to retain these subscribers and advertisers as long as possible, and to build equity value for owners and shareholders. What is the official government line, one must wonder, on Ben and J. Lo hooking up? What is the capitalist line on the Weather Channel’s coverage of Hurricane Claudette?
Sorry, but the above quote really just seems to be sloganeering.
Re: the question by gex gex:
Apparently not, given recent attempts to pull funding for public radio and television. There’s certainly a political element; it seems a lot of people feel, for some reason, that publicly-funded radio and television would be far more of an indoctrination tool of the government than privately-owned media.
I think it also stems from a general attitude that public-and private-sector enterprises should not compete in the same markets, . I’m not making an apology for this attitude, and I don’t particularly agree with it, but it explains a number of oddities here, from a lack of funding for public radio/TV to the dismal state of public ground transportation in this country.
I would say a public television/radio constitutionally guarenteed a operating budget whose aim is to ENHANCE conventional boradcasting rather than replace it.
In other words, like the ABC in Australia or the BBC in the UK.
Oh yeah, “Washington Week in Review”, “Wall $treet Week”, and “The McLaughlin Group” were all packed to the rafters with frothing left-wingers.
The objective of the media is to sell stuff. Informing and entertaining are obligatory diversions they haven’t been able to shed.
Corporate media is mostly BS.
You will think what the corporation tells you to think. You will love the corporation. You will be grateful to the corportion for your job. You will show approval for all other corporations.
The corps are mother, the corps are father.
The PSI corp has taken over Human Resources.
Dal Timgar
Yes, I agree. How though, is this different from representing the interests of the government, assuming public funded media is popular? At the very least, corporations must pay attention to their bottom-line. Neither situations is ideal, obviously… but the question is, what makes corporate media inherently worse than any other form of media? I assume that people are naturally sycophants; it cannot be helped that outside influence will influence them in some way.
I have a master’s degree in journalism and I used to be a newspaper reporter, for a couple of years. I can attest that reporters dream of doing what Woodward and Bernstein did: exposing corruption to the light of day, bringing down the mighty with nothing but your pen and the truth. In short, playing Jack the Giant-Killer. For a reporter, that’s glory, that’s achievement. Now, this is a “liberal” bias in the sense that it involves going after people in high positions of power – be they politicians or business executives or religious leaders. Of course, for this purpose a Democratic president is just as juicy a target as a Republican one.
The conservative bias of the media is just as real, however, and much more powerful. It is based on the simple fact that reporters are not their own masters. Most of them work for media conglomerates which are owned by still larger conglomerates. Personally, I never had a story killed because it might piss off some business interest, but I was just doing small-town news coverage; the only people I was ever in a position to piss off were local civic leaders. In the higher reaches of the profession, however – well, I don’t ever expect NBC News to run a story exposing misconduct by General Electric, which owns NBC. And I wouldn’t expect any other network to do it either – you know, interlocking directorates, golfing buddies, etc. It’s almost the same with PBS and NPR – no corporation owns them, but they do depend heavily on corporate donations and in any case their target audience is mostly upper-middle-class. It’s not that the press and media tell lies. Usually their bias is expressed by simply ignoring certain things.
For purposes of balanced news coverage, the ideal media organization would be, not unbiased, but multibiased – that is, its editorial staff would represent a wide range of political views from Communists to Libertarians. That way everything would get covered even if the idea of covering it pisses off a large minority. But I can’t imagine how such an organization could come into existence.
I am not doubting that it is possible. I am saying that it would be worse.
Mostly. They are willing to sell less, however, to protect their other corporate interests. Remember, the company that owns NBC happens to be Microsoft. Even if the people were interested in shows dicussing open source software, do you think it’s likely that any NBC show advocating it would stay on the air very long?
How about this. Remember the bill a few years back that gave away the ability to broadcast on the digital spectrum? Remember how much attention it got from the media? I sure don’t. In fact, I can’t remember hearing anything at all about it.
Pandering to the masses is fine with me. Let them have their Buffy, and their Spike TV. When corporations start trying to control the masses is when I cry foul.