Mark Crispin Miller: "The Death of News"

[npincus]

This short piece was published in the July 3rd issue of The Nation, for those who haven't read it:

Ten years ago, when we first focused national attention on the dangers of the US media cartel, the situation was already grim, although in retrospect it may seem better than it really was. In the spring of 1996 Fox News was only a conspiracy (which broke a few months later). CNN belonged to Turner Broadcasting, which hadn't yet been gobbled by Time Warner (although it would be just a few months later); Viacom had not yet bought CBS News (although it would in 1999, before they later parted ways); and, as the Telecommunications Act had been passed only months earlier, local radio had not yet largely disappeared from the United States (although it was obviously vanishing). One could still somewhat plausibly assert, as many did, that warnings of a major civic crisis were unfounded, overblown or premature, as there was little evidence of widespread corporate censorship, and so we were a long way from the sort of journalistic meltdown that The Nation had predicted.

Thus was the growing threat of media concentration treated much like global warming, which, back then, was also slighted as a "controversial" issue ("the experts" being allegedly at odds about it), and one whose consequences, at their worst, were surely centuries away--a catastrophic blunder, as the past decade has made entirely clear to every sane American. Now, as the oceans rise and simmer and the polar bears go under, only theocratic nuts keep quibbling with the inconvenient truth of global warming. And now, likewise, few journalists are quite so willing to defend the Fourth Estate, which under Bush & Co. has fallen to new depths. Although its history is far from glorious, the US press has never been as bad as it is now; and so we rarely hear, from any serious reporters, those blithe claims that all is well (or no worse than it ever was).

Contrary to the counterclaims in 1996, there was, as The Nation noted then, copious hard evidence of corporate meddling with the news, and also, even more important, lots of subtler evidence of reportorial self-censorship throughout the media cartel. And yet what stood out as egregious back then seems pretty tame today, now that the press consistently tunes out or plays down the biggest news, while hyping trivialities, or, if it covers a disaster, does so only fleetingly and without "pointing fingers." (New Orleans is now forgotten.) The press that went hoarse over Monica Lewinsky's dress is largely silent on the Bush regime's subversion of the Constitution; its open violation of the laws here and abroad; its global use of torture; its vast surveillance program(s); its covert propaganda foreign and domestic; its flagrant cronyism; its suicidal military, economic and environmental policies; and its careful placement of the federal establishment into the hands of Christianist extremists. Whether it's such tawdry fare as Jeffrey Gannon's many overnights at Bush's house, or graver matters like the Patriot Act, or the persistent questions about 9/11, or the President's imperial "signing statements" or--most staggering of all--the ever-growing evidence of coast-to-coast election fraud by Bush & Co., the press has failed in its constitutional obligation to keep us well informed about the doings of our government.


Mark Crispin Miller

[Master Mahon]

1. Go here for great flowchart on who contols it all in MSM

http://www.thenation.com/special/2006_entertainment.pdf

[npincus]

2. thanks!

[slay]

4. Awesome chart - thnx for the info!

Really hits home how few control so much. :(

[DemReadingDU]

7. Great flowchart! n/t

[slay]

3. Excellent! - Many people underestimate the power corporate news has

over our access to information. And that power is huge. Unlike most of us, most people in America still get their news from one of the big three - CBS, ABC, or NBC (or god forbid FOX). They control everything that is seen or heard as far as so called "news" goes. If it was not for the un-censored internet, we would be well and truly fucked.

[truedelphi]

8. And the Internet could go bye-bye

Just through pulling the plug on the power

[tom_paine]

5. Succinctly said

Three short paragraphs covers quite a lot.

[enough]

6. The great prescience of that 1996 Nation article should also remind us of

the current crucial importance of net neutrality.

[EFerrari]

9. Thanks, npincus.

:hi:

[HamdenRice]

10. "or the persistent questions about 9/11,"

It is not a tin foil hat issue any more.