Media Malpractice in Madison ("the mainstream media has become journalistically irrelevant")

[highplainsdem]

http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/from-the-capitol-dome-media-malpractice-in-madison

From the Capitol Dome: Media Malpractice in Madison
by Abe Sauer on March 1st, 2011

-snip-

The irony of denying Althouse's husband access to the capitol without official media credentials is that the credentialed media has done a pathetic job of covering the events. Outside Wisconsin's own official news organs, the nationals' approach to covering the protests borders on malpractice. When Paul Krugman is bothered to get into the Times CMS to post "a blog" comparing the job you've done in Wisconsin to the one you did in the buildup to the Iraq War, well, you've done a pretty bad job.

If the events in Wisconsin prove one thing, it is that the mainstream media has become journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage. Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a macropatriotic framework and has proven allergic to anything that puts off even the slightest whiff of the class warfare that scares away big-market advertorial. Meanwhile, the other side is cable news' partisan echo chamber of regurgitated self-assurance, where no blow is too low and no fact needs sourcing before being leveraged to make a prearranged point. Cable news reporting on Wisconsin is like going to a whorehouse and then bragging to your buddies about this girl you seduced.

-snip-

Yesterday, I personally got to see the media's negligence in action, as a CNN crew ignored a large solidarity protest of police officers to instead wander to the edge of another small gathering and shoot from a distance. At about 5 p.m., a long line of protesters carrying "Deputies for Democracy" and "Cops for Labor" signs loudly made its way around the capitol. The CNN news crew literally did not even acknowledge the demonstrators as they marched past, American flag and all.

About 20 minutes later, the CNN crew meandered up toward the police line where a small group of protesters were peacefully facing the police guarding the doors. The CNN crew set up 25 feet away and shot, at best, three minutes of video, and then turned around and went back to their trucks, 200 yards away across the street, by all the other media trucks.

-snip-

[madrchsod]

1. the american media is being made irrelevant by aljazreera and the internet.

[Rageneau]

2. The American media has been in the pocket of the oligarchy all of our lives.

The crusading press is as much a myth as the free press is. There is no (and there never has been any) left wing media.