| The monopoly of the public airwaves by the right wing is not the result of more demand in the marketplace. It is because all of the broadcast media that we receive is filtered through corporate ownership. The sole exception to this - PBS - is now being taken over by Republican apparatchiks. |
| The dominant mainstream media...is driven by the corporate bottom line and filled primarily with fluff, sensationalism, right wing politics, PR posing as news, and a commitment to serve corporate advertisers.
Source: John Stauber from an interview with Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange - 03.09.05 BuzzFlash: We interviewed Bonnie Anderson recently, who was a producer at CNN for many years. In her book, News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment, and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News, basically she says there is first an accountability to the shareholders, then an accountability to the political officials because they can get deregulation passed or tax laws that will benefit the parent corporation. A distant third is a network's responsibility to the actual citizens of America or Canada. Paul Jay: The current economics of television journalism does two or three things. Number one, the bottom line pressures in the newsrooms mean fewer journalists, less time for investigative reporting, fewer foreign bureaus, and more pressure for sensational items that will give a quick spike to the ratings that are so commercial. And the fact is that television news is, by and large, actually just one small piece of a very big corporate conglomerate. GE makes light bulbs, weapons, nuclear power plants -- and owns NBC. So the conglomerates want their television operations to make money. Number two, they don't want the television operation to compromise other interests of the corporation. I don't think it's as clear as some internal censor vetting committee, looking at each item to make sure it serves the corporate agenda. But, someone has to decide -- we're hiring this person and not that person, for example. People get to know the corporate culture, and they know how to hire within the limits of the corporate culture. People know that if reporting crosses a certain line, it is not considered acceptable journalism. Something that's happened recently, in both print and television newsrooms, is that the limits within which a story can be investigated or reported depends on how the two political parties are defining the issues. Also, to some extent, when a major newspaper like The New York Times breaks a story, it becomes discussable. But even then, most television news won't pick up on it. Source: "BuzzFlash interview: Paul Jay" - BuzzFlash.com - 07.06.05 The CPB Chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson, turned the administration’s discomfort at embarrassing disclosures [on NOW with Bill Moyers and other PBS programs] into a crusade to discredit our journalism. Tomlinson left the chairmanship this week, but the right-wing coup at public broadcasting is complete. He remains on the board under a new chair who is a former real estate director and Republican fundraiser. She recently told a Senate hearing that the CPB should have the authority to penalize public broadcasting journalists if they step out of line. Sitting beside her and Tomlinson on the board is another Bush appointee—also a partisan Republican activist— who was a charter member and chair of Newt Gingrich’s notorious political action committee, GOPAC. Reporting to them is the White House’s handpicked candidate to be president and chief executive officer of the CPB—a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee whose husband became PR director of the Chemical Manufacturers Association after he had helped the pesticide industry smear Rachel Carson for her classic work on the environment, Silent Spring. Mark my words: If this gang has anything to say about it, there will be no challenging journalism to come from public television while they are around; no investigative reporting on the environment; no reporting at all on conflicts of interest between government and big business; no naming of names. Source: "Caring For Creation" - Bill Moyers - October 07, 2005 |
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