Why the press doesn't report the news.

[against all enemies]

Frank Rich has written a good piece stating why the "bad" news doesn't make the media. I have read DU complaints on lack of coverage concerning war protests, Iraq war victims, and just now Iraq child rapes. Rich pretty much explains this as test groups didn't react favorably to this type of news. In fact, war protesters rated very low so no outlets would carry the story on it. Great, this country only gets the "good news". Good article, fun but depressing reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/arts/18RICH.html

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. So the bad news is all we get is good news?

Satire is almost impossible these days.

Choose Kerry Lose Bush - FUCK BUSH - Drop Bush Not Bombs!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[Spinzonner]

5. Or, in other words ...

"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."

On cynicism Lily Tomlin, American Actress & Comedian

[KittyWampus]

8. How Is Laci Peterson "Good News"?

or abducted/molested, pretty little white girls "good news"?

How are the clips of the latest "black man" mugger or rapist good news?

And the homicides featured prominently at top of every news hour?

I am off to actually read the article now, but it sounds like bullshit.

[against all enemies]

11. It's good news for TV, cute pregnant wife missing,

Blondie mistress, armies of people searching for them, and bodies on the beach. It is the news and a made for TV movie all in one. I'm only the messenger.

[KittyWampus]

13. I Know :-) IMO, Frank Rich Is Full Of Crap

just read the whole article and he's trying to cover ass.

Outfoxed has pulled the curtain back on the mediawhores.

[papau]

17. I agree - Focus groups? LOL - Disney walked away from 100 million

for F911 because it didn't focus group well ? - get real.

Clear Chanel censors inappropiate stories about the Administration - defined as a story that is critical of Bush

A Clear Channel Billboard rental contract is walked away from in Times Square because it was critical of Bush during the GOP convention (this one has a better than usual ending in that another billboard with a less critical message image will be rented instead in Times Square at a slightly different location)

5 corps control just about all the media in the US - and focus groups are not what determines what news they put on the air.

Frank Rich is full of it - or just another media whore for the GOP

I report - you decide.

[against all enemies]

25. Did Disney ever say it didn't release 911 due to focus groups?

thought they came right out and said they didn't want to offend Bushco. And Disney isn't a news group, it's entertainment. But you are correct in that the reason many of the items in F911 were news to the audience is that cooperate news failed to show us that information when it happened. Again, Jon Stewart is the best news show on TV.

[Yavin4]

2. Big Brother Doesn't Like Bad News

Yet another sign of creeping totalitarianism.

[fearnobush]

3. Wow, check this out - This why I often said CNN is worse than FOX...

In the new documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," Robert Greenwald unearths some juicy documentation of Fox News Channel's manipulations on behalf of its political agenda. But Fox isn't exactly pursuing a stealth strategy: anyone who can't figure out that it's in the tank with the Republican party must be brain dead. It's more insidious when some of its more fair-and-balanced competitors blow-dry the news not to serve an ideology but to tell the public what they think the public wants to hear. That's why the networks have been reluctant to show casualties in Iraq. That's why we rarely see on American TV the candid video Michael Moore unveils in "Fahrenheit 9/11," whether of the president or of the grievously wounded, sometimes embittered soldiers who've returned from his mission in Iraq.

Even now, as the entire press, including The Times, copes with the reality that it wasn't skeptical enough about the administration's stated case for war, the desire to gladhand the public can overcome news judgment, especially on television. Otherwise Americans wouldn't have found it such a novelty when the

Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish network, took on Mr. Bush in a TV interview last month, challenging him repeatedly about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and his claim that the war in Iraq has made us safer. The RTE reporter, Carole Coleman, wasn't pretending to be any viewer's family or buddy or lover. "I felt I did my job," she said when American journalists questioned her about her audacity. Maybe so, but next to the Ron Burgundys in her profession, she seemed less like a visitor from a different country than an alien from a distant planet

Dam I love my old country

[merh]

4. You read the article, we only want "good news" why did you post this?

<sarcasm off> This is very depressing. So, instead of no news is good news, we get all news is good news.

Nothing bad happens in the world, I will live in the land of the good news and nothing bad will happen to me.

[JNelson6563]

6. good article

thanks for posting!

:toast:

Julie

[Tactical Progressive]

7. "If it bleeds, it leads!"

Oh wait, that's bad news leading.

Which contradicts this new conventional rationalization of 'bad news doesn't get exposure', only good news.

Hmmm. Was bad news leading, now good news only.

The only comprehensive explanation that covers all of the theoretical contradictions of corporate media attention appears to be 'No bad news for Republicans.'

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Bad news is okay if it has

a sexual angle or involves a shootout or a multi-car pile-up or makes for spectacular film footage. That appeals to the viewer's voyeur instincts.

But the actions of your local or national government that affect your daily life? BAW-ring! Much better to present a soundbite about Laura Bush smiling through a drug-induced haze and presenting library books to schoolchildren.

[KittyWampus]

12. Frank Rich Is Just Bullshitting To Cover NYTimes Ass

His premise on why press corp doesn't grill Bush or cover news that would cause his support to collapse is either:

Conservative press corp
Pandering to american "taste"

Rich forgets the third option- untrained press corp doing the bidding of editors and conglomerate owners who tell them specifically not to ask tough question, who slant the coverage as far right as possible and neglect to cover vitally important info if its deemed "bad" for bush.

American's "Taste" can be manipulated easily. If television made hard news "fashionable" and well informed citizenry seem glamorous... then Americans would be rushing out to buy the newest copy of "Citizenship For Dummies".


Here's Rich's pathetic attempt to spin the Times' and other Mediawhores malfeasance:

In the now legendary White House press conference of March 6,
2003, not a single reporter, electronic or print, asked a tough
question about anything, including the president's repeated conflating
of 9/11 with the impending war on Iraq (eight times in that
appearance alone). To some critics on the left, this Stepford Wives
performance indicated a press corps full of conservatives, but I
doubt it. This lock-step spectacle was at least in part an exercise of
the Burgundy principle of pandering: don't do anything that might
make you less popular with your customers. In that same month,
Frank N. Magid Associates, still a major player in the news
consulting business, released a survey telling its clients that war
protests came in dead last of all topics tested among 6,400 viewers
nationwide. In other words, if you're covering the news based on
what's happening as opposed to what your viewers like, you're
taking a commerical risk. Given that the ownership of local stations,
networks and cable news alike is now concentrated in far fewer
hands than it was in the 1970's, such thinking quickly becomes
orthodoxy in much of the American news business.

In the new documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on
Journalism," Robert Greenwald unearths some juicy documentation
of Fox News Channel's manipulations on behalf of its political
agenda. But Fox isn't exactly pursuing a stealth strategy: anyone who
can't figure out that it's in the tank with the Republican party must be
brain dead. It's more insidious when some of its more
fair-and-balanced competitors blow-dry the news not to serve an
ideology but to tell the public what they think the public wants to
hear. That's why the networks have been reluctant to show casualties
in Iraq. That's why we rarely see on American TV the candid video
Michael Moore unveils in "Fahrenheit 9/11," whether of the president
or of the grievously wounded, sometimes embittered soldiers who've
returned from his mission in Iraq.

Even now, as the entire press, including The Times, copes with the
reality that it wasn't skeptical enough about the administration's
stated case for war, the desire to gladhand the public can overcome
news judgment, especially on television. Otherwise Americans
wouldn't have found it such a novelty when the Washington
correspondent for RTE, the Irish network, took on Mr. Bush in a
TV interview last month, challenging him repeatedly about the failure
to find weapons of mass destruction and his claim that the war in
Iraq has made us safer. The RTE reporter, Carole Coleman, wasn't
pretending to be any viewer's family or buddy or lover. "I felt I did
my job," she said when American journalists questioned her about
her audacity. Maybe so, but next to the Ron Burgundys in her
profession, she seemed less like a visitor from a different country
than an alien from a distant planet.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. It's Good News Week

someone dropped a bomb somewhere
contaminating atmosphere
and blackening the sky....

looks like the song has come true. We don't hear real news anymore.

[depakid]

14. I laughed when I read that part of the article

One thing I can tell you all from experience is that consultants are great at producing fancy reports (often with poorly applied stats and/or flawed methodology) wherein they feed their clients exactly what they want to hear- and take home big money for doing so. I have seen some truly amazing pieces of work in my day- and in a business like the news media- which already relies on a laughably invalid rating system to sell their product (advertising), it's in both the consultants' and the networks' best interests to reinforce the orthodoxy.

Aside from the fluff pieces, damn near everything on American broadcast news IS bad news, whether it's the crime blotter of who's been killed, what burned down, where the horrific auto accident was, or the latest right wing lies and spin. "Good" news? Only if you're disassociated from reality!

And with respect to the reasons why we get poor coverage of the costs of war and the peace protests- it has little or nothing to do with what viewers "want" to see- and everything to do with the views of major advertisers and senior management in the companies that own the broadcasting networks.

[Geo55]

15. "test groups didn't react favorably to this type of news."

Soooo....we only see what has "bells n' whistles" and not what just what happens to be current events ?

I have no words....

[annxburns]

16. Great, great article ....

.... drop the NY times a note and let them know we appreciate Frank Rich.

mailto:[e-mail]

[TA]

18. Thanks Ann

Thanks Ann,

The 50 bucks is in the mail.

Sincerely,
Uncle Frank

[lolly]

19. I agree with you

OK, Rich may be sidestepping to CYA a bit, but those who summarize his piece as "only good news is fit to use" are oversimplifying. It's not GOOD news, its NEWS PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR--or at least news that the most vocal politicians and the vocal people who follow them, want to hear.

They WANT to hear about kidnappings, damsels in distress, shark attacks, studies that show formica countertops may be bad for your health, whatever. These are sensational or pseudo-empowering in a harmless (to the power structure) type of way. Formica is bad? OK, if I just get rid of all my formica, and I'll be ok (at least until someone publishes a study on the dangers of tile grout . . .).

Stories that require a radical rethinking about the power structure are too scary, require a shift in thinking. They might force us to realize that changing the way things are requires a lot of effort and resistance, not just getting a new countertop.

[Cleita]

20. What little journalism I was taught as a reporter on my HS

paper indicates that news is not entertainment except in the Features section. So journalists have a duty to report the news no matter how unpleasant it is. Of course, when we high schoolers wrote articles on uncool things happening in the school's administration, and our editor managed to get it printed before the faculty advisor saw it, we were immediately "fired".

As this was a Catholic school and pretty much run as a totalitarian institution, journalistic integrity was okay as long as you didn't wash the dirty linen publicly. I think the same thing is happening today, but it is our whole planet that is being cheated by not reporting those unpleasant things.

[DeepModem Mom]

21. kick

[RandomKoolzip]

22. Seriously, everyone NEEDS to buy "The Republican Noise Machine"

by David Brock RIGHT NOW. And let all your "independent" friends borrow it.

The reason the media doesn't report the news is because they're being paid to promote right-wing ideas and combat the "liberal media" and liberal politicians by corporate-funded think tanks like the Olin Foundation and the Cato Institute. Whenever you see some right-wing shill on TV, spouting hateful nonsense, you have to understand that these think tanks are paying for that asshole to say those things. And that those think tanks share director's boards with many multinational oil, pharma, etc. corporations, and those corporations want right-wingers in power because the right wingers love deregulation. John Stossel is BOUGHT. Judy Woodruff is BOUGHT. Cato money is siphoned to her for saying those things and covering up the news; far more money than most "normal" journos get paid. Basically, it's one big money-making circle jerk......

Please, please, please, the reasons behind the right-wing takeover of the media and the way it all went down is explained in "Republican Noise Machine." If you haven't read it, you must.

[Hello_Kitty]

23. Ditto

That book is amazing! I had no idea the extent of the control these well-funded right wing think tanks have over what we read, hear, and watch. I am so much more critical now and more aware of how often you see these think tanks cited and mentioned. And all from a former insider.

[rman]

24. cr*p

The media don't report the news because much of the news is unfavorable to the owners of the media; the same big corporations that now rule most of the world, and want to own all of it, literally down to the very water that falls from the sky (google Bechtel rainwater).
By now people are so used to 'infotainment', so dumbed down by the trivialities that the media feed us, that people don't even want to see News that isn't 'fun'.

want to see "the other side of the story"?

The Corporation
http://www.thecorporation.com

Manufacturing Consent
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/mc
(bittorrent)