> The Media- what do you think ?
 

What do you think ?

Are the Media in general responsible, do they seek the truth, or do they do whatever they need to do , to get a story, whether or not the story is correct, accurate, or do they just focus on getting it on TV or to print, before the competition ?

They talk about the Public's right to know, freedom of the press, etc., but very little about the responsibilities of the press, to the public...almost as some would say...the trust that society needs to have in the Press to ensure that they actually do seek the truth ?

What do you think when they ignore cogent stories?

Your opinion.

I worked in Media for over 20 years. I think you're trying to over generalize here. Like any other business, there are good ones and bad ones. I've worked both small and large markets. In my experience, the small market news media seems to be the most inept as far as fair and balanced reporting.

Thanks for posting a thread that can be considered seriously.

The media falls short of the ideal in most cases, but freedom of the press is absolutely essential to the survival of our freedom.

It is pretty frightening that Rupert Murdock is buying so many media outlets. For all the shouting about leftists journalists I find a lot more media is owned by rightists who will stifle stories that do not fit their ideas of correct politics.

There is a movement politically right now to allow big money folks to buy more and more radio and tv stations. This is a real threat to our freedom.

Tom W

News media have to make a living so their primary responsibility is (and should be) to make a profit. There are many, many ways to make a profit in the news. They vary from informative and truthful to entertaining and bizarre.

It is up to the consumer to decide what he or she wants from the news. Where we put our money determines the type of news media we get.

B

By media I assume you mean news outlets. I agree that a free press is essential.


Agreed. They are not there to tell us the important events that occur in the world. They are there to make money. Their content is designed to make money and to have people tune in. Neither of these requires reporting information that the citizenry should know (or would want to know). So long as you are talking about them or listening to them, they don't really care what they provide to you.

This I disagree with. Americans (those free market/conservative types especially) have this mistaken belief in the power of the consumer. The consumer wields a portion of power, but hardly one that regularly changes markets. It's overly simplistic. I hear the same argument about gas prices. Some (most) markets are driven by the providers, not the consumers. A free market does not require a powerful consumer.

The alternative is to have news come from something other than a free market. That means that the news would be beholding to something other than the market.

What entity would you suggest?

How would you determine whether the alternative to a free market source is manipulated or not without having competing media sources?

Let's say (just for fun), that the current administration started-up a media source dependent on government for it's creation and continuation. Would that source be biased or unbiased? How would you tell?


B

You misunderstand. I'm not saying don't have private companies do news. I'm saying consumers are not the ones holding power just because it is a free market. There are plenty of free markets in which the consumer has little to no power.

Also, bias is not a concern to me, as I've mentioned previously. The news outlets can be manipulated to anyone's purpose. My biggest problem with our news outlets is lack of information, not slant in presentation of information.

No media outlet will survive without consumers. The number of newspapers that have gone under in the past 20 - 30 years is huge. Many of them were bought-up by companies that offered more of what the consumers wanted. How do they attract consumers?

If the conglomerate fails to successfully deliver that which the consumer wants then the conglomerate will go under.

I read recently that less than half of the S&P 500 companies in the 1950's are still in operation today. Those on that list are the most stable companies in the USA, yet half of them are gone.

The news media is no different from any other company. If they don't deliver they will die.

No company in a free market can survive without consumers.

B

Welllllll......the current administration DID do that in Iraq.

Tom W

And so .... ?

I'm a simple guy and require simple explanations.

B

Newspapers are dying because people get their news from other sources, not from dissatisfaction with the paper's content/tone/whatever. That is an effect of technology. It is a problem with the product's form.

Yeah, obviously a business dies if no one buys their product. If no one wanted oil, there wouldn't be oil companies. That doesn't make the consumer a driving force in the industry. Through media (non-news outlet types of media), government influence, etc., the consumer is relegated to a minor position.
They have a free market economy in India. Things may have changed since I was last there, but the consumer has no power in India. An example of this is buying clothing. In India lots of people buy cloth and have clothes tailored because it's not that expensive. Saris are essentially big pieces of cloth. If a woman goes into a fabric shop in India and picks some cloth, especially if it's not in stock, she is virtually guaranteed not to get what she chose. And she can't do anything about it because every store does the same thing. They'll give her whatever they could get their hands on at the right price.

We essentially have the same system with gas. Americans are bound to their cars. And the same system with the newsmedia. The media has the added power of influencing and shaping how we think. They do subtle things like manipulate color saturation in graphics to create affect our perception. They do obvious things like all talk about the same thing, so we end up considering it important.

And you won't be getting them from me anymore than I got one from you.

Tom W

Oh. So you are saying that your statement had no point?

Media for most likes to paint the popular concept of truth or illusion in general. Actual news is quite morbid and can be mundane at times. Sometimes that very concept of sensationalism leads to so many misconceptions. Media is also an active tool for politicians to manipulate their agenda and lead the public like sheep. Has happened once too many often.

No doubt that things vary from country to country and time to time.

B

Bias should be a major concern. News, by definition is what happened, not somebody's OPINION about what happened. The truth is the product, if the product is defective, the provider will lose credibility and go out of business, and should. News organizations need to be held accountable for mistakes/misinformation, just as you or I are responsible for our negligence. But in the case of news, bias is more intentional than not, so there is a malicious component to it as well. If you don't believe that, watch that idiot Keith Olberman.....

Tailoring in India is a dying profession. Its ready made and with India's vast ethnic and cultural backgrounds, its myriads of choices. Saree is not just a cloth, its a particular cut and the designs, type of fabric and prints available to Indian women is simply mind boggling. If you like variety, India is the place to be. Far more so than the dull and typical clothes in other parts of the world. Of course, sadly the younger generation now prefer western clothes, usually the latest designer brands which are freely available here but the traditional Saree and Salwaar is still preferred especially for occasions. Cost is no object, never has been for the well to do but now even the upwardly mobile middle class is into spending big time. Indian marriages are among the most lavish affair and average women's wedding dress goes for anywhere between $15000 to 30000 and sometimes even more depending on the party. Then there is the jewlery and other stuff including feasting for 4 days.

About consumer rights. Its the foreign multi national companies that are more guilty of the selling junk and making a run for it. However recently some big laws have been passed which have empowered consumers to great extent. The biggest improvement is that litigation aspect has been improved vastly. Special quick acting courts have been setup just for the legal issues regarding consumers. It still has a long way to go but recent court decisions against the likes of Samsonite, BMW, Skoda etc. have been highly favorable for the consumers. Airlines for instance are now bound by strict laws. If a passenger gets delayed, he or she can take them to the courts and the compensation given is quite healthy. So its heading in the right direction, thats for sure.

Truth is relative. The news business lost real credibility a long time ago. They also do pay for their errors.
Bias is absurd. Fox News is conservative leaning, but it's not like Fox News doesn't report things liberals do, and never has liberals on. Every television news organization has point/counterpoint on its news programs. Bias is in tone, like the softball questions Wallace asks conservative guests v. more aggressive questioning of liberal guests, but I don't care about that. I can recognize it and dismiss it. It doesn't affect the answers. I think most intelligent people can separate the information from the means the reporter extracted it.
And that doesn't even consider that the news media is an outlet. They don't generate what goes in. That's how the administration was able to use them, it's how Clinton was able to use them, it's how anyone with the wherewithal can use them. So if any and all sides can use them, there is no bias.
The real problems with the news are 1)they don't cover world events, and 2)they don't inform even when they are supposed to be. Bill X is being hotly debated. They get Congressman X and Y to tell you why it's good or why it's bad. They don't tell you what Bill X is. They don't tell you what Bill X does. You get that from the party spinners on the show.
Americans have virtually no idea how they are perceived around the world, or why they are perceived that way. When my cousins lived in India, they knew far more about what America was doing globally than the average American. They knew what was happening in Africa or Russia much better than I did, and I actually sought out multiple news sources. Still didn't get as much news as they did.

Olberman is like O'Reilly, neither of which is news.

Been there, done that, have multiple tee shirts. And you know what I learned?

That what foreigners think of my country is something that I care very little about. People will say anything depending on their mood, their tummy, the ambient temp, who won the latest athletic event, their astrological sign, WWJD, etc.

It matters a hell of a lot more what nations or people do, not what they say.

B

No need for the question mark at the end of that sentence.....

I care very much about it. What people do is dependent on what people think. Since nations are groups of people, I care what they think too.

I find it makes it much easier to deal with someone if you have even just an inkling of how they perceive you.

Other's perception is important when you need friends across the globe for any mission. Even though US has the power to go at it alone, a general consensus always helps so perceptions are important.

....and so it would be biased.

Tom W

Not at all. You got the point, but as usual whenever a point is made you deny that it is a point if it disagrees with yours. And if a question is asked that you don't want to answer you just dance away.

Never admit a point is made against you and in your mind you never, what?, lose?

Funny I thought we were having a discussion, not particiapting in a game where score is kept and there are winners and losers.

Tom W

Heres a little something I learned in oh about 9th or 10th grade....

Anytime anyone says anything to me I assume they are biased in one way or another, every human being on the planet is biased to their perception of the truth.

It's going to be an interesting future for "the media." If we just focus on the news divisions, then there is great cause for concern. Newsrooms don't make money. News as entertainment does, because it's a lot cheaper to have a talking-head, like Bill, Rush, Keith or Lou spouting off opinions and "feelings" than it is to have a real investigative reporter following the trails and writing the piece.

How much should we be paying for news reporting and not entertainment?

....on that we can agree.

Tom W

Not much. Most of the news is not especially important to me, though I often get agitated as though it were vital.

One time I took a job working in a foreign country in which I did not speak the common language. I was away from any outside communication for 10 days at a time and only back for a day and night (great incentive to learn a language). After 6 months I returned to the USA. Guess what the most important shift in common cultural symbols was during that time --- serialized television shows and television commercials. All of the local and national politics was pretty much unchanged as no great changes had occurred. International politics was just as incomprehensible as when I left. The same bunch of self-important clowns were preening in the warm glow of media lights.

Maybe changes had occurred but certainly nothing on the surface. I was not a mind-reader so I could not determine what they were thinking. Only what they said. It's one of my many shortcomings, being unable to determine what anybody else thinks about anything. Even my wife of nearly 34 years. Maybe my Mommy inserted an aluminum foil hat under my scalp preventing mind-waves from penetrating my skull.

Anyway, with the Internet we can access so many different sources of information that we can obtain more points of view than we are capable of synthesizing. I contrast that with the time when we had 3 news networks and 3 weekly news magazines and 1 or 2 daily newspapers. All of them shared common education to a great degree and shared cultural paradigms. The result was a consistent message from all sources. It was a simpler time.

B

A free press is vital to a democracy.

When a dictator takes over the first thing to go is a free press.

Tom W

You too?! Mine's on top of my head, B! I can't even pick up CNN............http://www.trailerlife.com/glb/cfb/m...people_3_w.jpg

:D

Mr Ed??!!!

Mostly they focus on making money. In my opinion they do it in a short-sighted way that leads to a loss of credibility, which in turn eventually leads to a loss of profitability.

In newspapers it's been repeated around the country: new owner comes in, slashes staff, and increases the amount of advertising in the paper. Profits go up and stockholders are happy. But credibility eventually takes a turn for the worse, and the once-trusted source of local news becomes a local joke.

I once worked as a reporter for a paper where this was the case. One Saturday, a local kid was arrested for plotting to shoot-up a school in a city we covered. A serious cache of weapons was recovered. There was only one reporter on staff on the weekends and it happened to be someone who wasn't very good, IMO. This was a national story that attracted CNN, the NY Times, and just about any other national news organization you could think of. We ran an AP story about it even though it happened in our own back yard. To sum it up, we were a terrible newspaper and it wasn't a secret amongst our subscriber base.

I have no experience in TV media but when I tune into cable "news," I think I see the same thing happening. People like O'Reilly and Olberman have followings and sell ads (apparently), but I suspect they ultimately turn more people off than they attract.

I'm sure there are many reasons for the declining numbers of people who turn to traditional outlets for news, but a lack of quality product is a reason that looms large in my mind.

Maybe not exactly what you were asking about, but it came to mind.

I know a great deal about just a few topics in the world. When the media has had the occasion to report on these topics the results have been disappointing. They never, and I do mean never get the facts straight. I am not referring to media bias, as I am quite sure it exists, only the plain facts of where, when and how. Granted, they could be just screwing up the issues that I know about....? I wish I could say I think that they are trying to manipulate the populace. I fear the reality is they are completely clueless and haphazardly report anything that they think might increase viewership/readership. RT

The internet, when it comes to news reporting, is not so much a "wealth of information" as it is noise obscuring the signal. While every cellphone camera on the planet may be able to deliver a picture or clip . . . does it provide the facts or merely sampling the ocean with a thimble? The latter I think.

The internet model of news reporting is scary. If there is no economic model, who pays for the real reporters working on real stories to prevent us from ending up with TMZ or YouTube reporting. If more newspapers can't afford to operate, it's going to be one long sucession of news stories about young caucasian women going missing.

^^^ I'll bet most (if not all) traditional news sources have websites to which they frequently post news through the day. Finding them can be a PITA, but that's where Google News rocks. It will give tens, if not hundreds of news sources for any major story. Most of them are redundant -- AP or Reuters feed. But with due diligence one can also find original sources for news.

Let's say there's an international story about some hot topic -- Iraq? From my home I can check several Arab news sources, the Hindu Times, New China News, etc. By using the more generic Google I can find all sorts of sources including thoroughly paranoid conspiracies about ANYTHING.

With so many sources, how can one determine which is the most factual? Truthful? As with any event, there are probably multiple competing facts and an elusive truth. Was it better when we 3 TV networks and a dozen major national newspapers to tell us the news? No question in my mind that the current richness of information is far, far preferable.

B

:rolleyes5 Internet, scary?? LMAO!

If you think this........you're not tuned-into the right sources. Blogs are completely free of the B.S.

Would suggest you do some research, before making ridiculous statements against a 100% FREE Internet........

Most "blogs" are mostly B.S. As stated before, anybody can sit at a keyboard and espouse and pontificate . . . where's the reporting, the fact checking, the verification in the blogosphere?

A free internet? Unless someone on the 'net has harnessed the energy of nuclear fusion, then there will always be bills to pay. It's just that some believe that stealing, copyright violation or other methods are justified by a new communication medium. The corruption of Wikipedia is a nice little example of "free" as an economic model.

I'll continue to do research, but only if you promise to start as well.

Yes.

It seems that much of what appears to be news reporting is really entertainment. Confusion about this would seem to be one of the biggest problems. I don't know if this is anything NEW, though.

News is entertainment for some. Talk is cheap, actions speak louder thatn words, whether they be written or spoken. Coming out of these pearly whites, that was rather profound.