How well is the traditional media doing its job?

[Joanne98]

A fellow named Perry Bacon of the WaPo answered a whole series of reader questions. Bacon felt that, yes, "...most Americans can follow Tiger, the Salahis, health care and Afghanistan..." without skimping on comprehension or losing track of any particular subject. Is that true? Wel-l-l-l, the "public option" is, to progressives, an absolute necessity for the health care plan that's been debated for the last several months to truly succeed. The WaPo's own Ezra Klein pointed out that, despite the fact that the "public option" concept is, "fairly simple, and undeniably prominent," most Americans (66%) don't feel they could confidently describe what the phrase actually means.

My own memory of discussing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (The "stimulus bill") in the online comment sections of my local paper was that my fellow citizens didn't have a very clear idea as to what constituted a true economic stimulus. A frequent complaint was that the bill, passed in early February, constituted "spending" and not "stimulus." Note: spending IS stimulus and even the WaPo columnist David Broder concluded that the stimulus bill was successfully doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

While I don't think anyone could argue that America's supermarket tabloids and various TV channels devoted to gossip and Hollywood news do not do a perfectly adequate job of covering subjects like the romantic difficulties of Tiger Woods and the party-crashers the Salahis, I find it very highly questionable that America's traditional media sources are doing even a barely adequate job of covering their primary beat, serious stories like health care and Afghanistan.


The challenge has been put forward:


I dare the Post to conduct a scientific poll of its readers, asking them a basic question about health care reform: According to the Congressional Budget Office, would health care reform that includes a government-run public insurance option increase the deficit or reduce it?

Obviously, if the readers of the WaPo were as well-informed as the paper claims they are, such a question would a simple no-brainer. Readers would be able to answer it without even thinking twice. Remember, progressives consider the public option to be a necessary component to a successful nationwide health care plan, so this crucial bit of data should be something that citizens have at their fingertips.

In FAIR's November issue (This crucial media watchdog group is running a fundraising drive right now, so if one clicks on the link, one will get a fundraising message above the analysis piece), FAIR looks at how well America's news consumers are being served by their for-profit, free-enterprise media. The answer? Not very. FAIR cites a study that found that having a college education made a significant difference in the US and Britain in terms of citizens being conversant with their issues of the day, but in Denmark and Finland, both of which spend heavily on public media, the gap between those that are highly educated and those with knowledge of the issues disappears.

Citizens in Denmark and Finland with just a high-school education are just as well-informed on the issues as are those with a college education. FAIR recognizes that a straightforward government-funded media would not be a practical alternative to our current free-enterprise model, so that piece and others explore different methods in which our media might be made more responsive to the information needs of US citizens. The need for a change is urgent. Traditional media in the US is fast becoming irrelevant to serious, real-life problems.



http://www.prawnworks.net/

http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-well-is-the-traditiona-by-Richmond-Gardner-091211-384.html

[jotsy]

1. The barbarians at the gate don't work for the commons anymore.

I attended a class on mass media in the early 90's and understood then the concept of the "gate keepers" and what information sees a public light of day. What I see now is a media that acts as a conduit of corporate interests rather than a credible source of information. They are doing the job they are paid to do, but it's just not the job as we might perceive it. We expect a free and independent press, and what we're getting is more farce than far from that.

[baldguy]

2. The "traditional" media died when it became less news and more entertainment.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. How about looking at the readers and watchers of this media...

everyone likes to complain about?

It's not just Denmark. Everyone I've ever met in Europe knows a lot more about what's going on than many Americans I know. The difference is that they actually read newspapers and magazines and watch and listen to "traditional news outlets."

PBS, NPR, the NY Times, and the New Yorker have done a good job explaining the ins and outs of health care and economics but I actually watch and listen to PBS and NPR and read the Times and New Yorker and don't wait for someone to link to an article or for Media Matters and FAIR to complain about something.

[blm]

4. Except most people are not conditioned to get their news that way. There's a reason

the phrase 'dumbed down' came into existence.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. It's a conspiracy? The people need accept no responsibility...

for their own ignorance?

It's all someone elses's fault so all we have to do is find the bad guys and deal with them and everything will once again be...

(Or something like that)

[blm]

6. You think they KNOW they're 'ignorant' when their assumptions match much of what the

so-called 'news networks' have been airing? They focus on OJ, blue dresses, Tiger's sex appetite because is that what 'news networks' focus on for far greater amount of hours than they do anything else.

FAIR came into being for a reason, too. They saw the manipulation of the news industry (and aimed at keeping the public distracted) early on.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. A-HA! The public bears no responsibility after all-- it's ...

those nasty news manipulators and their mind control.

There's no question that media consolidation and bias is a problem (it's always been a problem) but, FWIW, I've heard numerous local news mavens complain that whenever they tried to do investigative news and in-depth reporting their ratings tanked. And, just how does this media manipulation play into the massive reductions in newspaper and magazine readership? And how does the wholesale laying off of experienced reporters and editors because of the decreased circulation and revenue help the situation?

There's also the interesting anecdote of a local newspaper here endorsing the "wrong" candidates for the town board one year and finding just about all their advertising pulled. The endorsed candidates won, but that paper folded.

(Things are never as simple as they may seem.)

[blm]

8. Why insist all or nothing? IMO, people who buy into coincidence theory contribute to the dumbing

down.

You really think the RW's steady buying of corporate media throughout the 80s and 90s, both broadcast and print, was just coincidental to the dumbing down phenomon?

My spouse worked for KnightRidder/McClatchy from 1997-2008. I know plenty of the behindthescenes stories. They aren't pretty.

[madamesilverspurs]

9. "Barely adequate" -- what a sadly apt description.

Witness this summer's town halls and the strident ignorance that was both preached and swallowed. Efforts to offer reality-based information were often met with a defiant determination to exalt false opinion over proven fact. Bullhorned lies and bizarre signage are colorful attention magnets that pull both camera and pen from conversations that are boringly civil. It's been disturbing, to say the least, to ask someone to define the socialism they fear, and the answer is all too often a blank stare.

Remarkably, many of these folks do have the capacity to absorb and retain information; but in the annals of the history we are living how much relevance will be assigned to scores and team stats? Meaningful journalism is finding a home in cyberspace, relegating to the mainstream media the task of providing the circus to an increasingly breadless population.

---

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.:thumbsup:

[Igel]

11. The press is free.

Having the government or some small coterie define its job--and even worse, enforce that job description--strips away that freedom.

The role of the press in the US has always been diverse. Inform, entertain, polemicize, proselytize, agitate, etc., etc. Sometimes it's been less partisan than today, sometimes more partisan. Sometimes it's aimed for those with higher education and slighted the working classes; sometimes it's aimed for those with weaker educational chops. Often it's served private interests; more often it's served the interests of those that buy printed copies. When it's served private interests, they define the job for their press; when it's survived by selling copies, it's very attuned to what people want and usually tries to meet that.

Currently the press probably isn't meeting the needs of the people. Now, this sounds like what's said by FAIR, but I mean something entirely different. FAIR defines what the people need, in their quote; when I say the press isn't meeting the needs of the people I have in mind the needs that the people themselves perceive. Oddly, I find my view very democratic, with a doggedly small 'd'. It may not be content; it may also be mode of delivery. Dunno.

Still, even when the press has aimed for those with weak educational chops it's also served those with more academic, more intellectual, more scholarly interests. Nature, Linguistic Inquiry, Cognition, New England Journal of Medicine are all part of the "press" in the US.