Comcast's local-news pledge rings hollow

[Joanne98]

Source: LA Times

Among the many promises made in its just-approved takeover of NBC Universal, Comcast Corp. pledged to sustain and even add hundreds of hours to the news and public affairs programming at the 10 TV stations NBC owns around the country.

As a baby step in the right direction, NBC should start by putting in the garbage-disposal all those no-calorie "news" segments about, for example, "The Biggest Loser," "Law & Order," "America's Got Talent" and movies from Universal Pictures. Convert those time slots, instead, to some meat and potatoes coverage about what's happening in our neighborhoods, our schools, our city halls.

Not that there appears to be the vaguest hope that the news savants at NBC will ask local stations to back away from shameless hucksterism. That's the stock in trade across the television networks when it comes to using the news to pump up other corporate properties.

If you want to see Exhibit 1 that NBC's local stations don't have a clue about what constitutes real news, take a trip out to KNBC's headquarters in Beautiful Downtown Burbank. There, like at other FCC-licensed stations, you have the right to eyeball the "public file."



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia-20110122,0,7059636.column

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It's time to wage a fifty year war on the media. The goal should be complete destruction of corporate control. You can't think of this evil monster as "our side/your side". The whole bloodsucking vampire is so connected it's a living organism.

They LIE, they distract, they corrupt, they trivilize, they deceive, they destroy..

They're evil.

There's lots of things that can be done but we're stuck with cowardly, worthless, good for nothing leaders as usual.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the left's lack of leaders that are worth a damn is our biggest problem.

I'm going to hang in there for a little while longer but if I don't see any sign of strong, bold, fierce leadership coming down the path then I'm just going to find something else to do. Politics is becoming a sham and a total waste of time. I don't believe the Democrats didn't know that the Comcast merger would destroy our TV stronghold that took so long to build. They just didn't care. Our corporate scum Dems have totally sold us out. It's getting too hard to hold my nose when I vote for them.

The attack on net neutrality is coming next. The corporate SCUM won't stop until they control every little piece of content.

You would have to have been blind, deaf and dumb to not notice the negative effect the media has had on the country for the last 30 years.

The health of the country, our citizens and our communties should be a national security issue. I think it's possible to get a right/left agreement to co-operate on a "destroy the MSM" agenda.

Which may be the only way to get anything done.

[naaman fletcher]

1. technology is doing away with the corporate media

We don't need them anymore. So, we see the new merger and attack on net neutrality. The goal is nothing less than to turn the internet into cable TV. That's where the key battle is. Don't worry about the programming. I don't watch TV anymore, and more and more people are like that. The internet is all I need. That is why they are attacking the internet.

[Joanne98]

4. Yep.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. One teeny point of disagreement, if I may.

"the Comcast merger would destroy our TV stronghold that took so long to build"

That "tv strong hold" was pretty much trashed long before this merger.

Witness CNN being the network that presented the last Iraq war as a tv show, complete with a damn
BUILD UP of the impending attack, then carried the actual attack live, with many repeats.
( but strangely, not much else of real news in Iraq after that)

PBS was bought out some time ago, as was NPR, and even C-Span in the last of the Bushwa years has been
infected. I noticed THAT when they did their revamp of the home page which made finding any archived content almost impossible.
CBS...it just disappeared. At least on my channel line up when we had tv.

I see the Comcast merger as being the *culmination* of the last 20 years of the slow death of tv as means of intelligent information.

[Joanne98]

3. True.

[EV_Ares]

5. In their cuts out of government all of the funding for like any public broadcasting

funds or NPR is to be cut.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Agree w/posts #1 & #2 and would add

the "problem" is not "the left's lack of leaders". The left has MANY "leaders" (some quite vocal) of many causes. The problem, IMHO, is that lack of the MEGAPHONE. The left owns little or no media outlets and is essentially left to operate on the internet - albeit in an "underground" but powerful fashion, but a place not generally the first stop of the very masses that need to be reprogrammed out of the RW lunatic fringe prospective. The goal needs to be that the message gets to the people from that underground position.

Continually bashing the current crop of Dem politicians is self-defeating in that they really have no way to communicate to the people without the M$M distorting and obfuscating their words. And this results in extra effort having to continually be made by liberal bloggers and paid (satellite) or streaming left/progressive-leaning radio stations, to correct the damage. In fact, it was a year ago yesterday that Air America officially ceased programming and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

As much as the left and right like to toss off the name "Soros", where are these wealthy liberals (and they do exist) when it comes to funding left & progressive media outlets? Where is the counter to ClearChannel? Premiere? Salem? Are there any attempting to get in line for the new short-range radio licenses? Citadel Broadcasting is again considering Chapter 11 and is anyone there to possibly pick up the couple dozen stations that they have been rumored to be selling? And are there any ready to pick up what might be bundles of small stations originally bought by the corporate RW conglomerate who have essentially declared "Mission Accomplished" and may be ready to dump those stations (which would become available for left-programming)?

What are "we" who have the means, going to do outside of adding to others hurling insults at the "leaders" when they are forced into convoluted code talk in order to get a message out past the edited and distorted sound bites of the lunatic fringe media? :shrug:

[w4rma]

7. Bad people take over a media network and people hope they might not be bad?

Not going to happen.

[jwirr]

8. I agreed with you until I got to Law & Order. While it is an entertainment

show many of the segments are the way to teach lazy watchers about the issues. For instance not too long ago I watched a segment about fracking. Most of America is not going to watch a documentary on fracking but they did learn about it on that "entertainment" show. For a while in the 80-90s I turned off my tv altogether. But when I moved in with my daughter I watched what she watched and found out that some of the shows actually tried to get liberal ideas out in the public. MSM news refuses to talk about most of this stuff but the shows like Law & Order do not. Let us not shut down one of the few ways we still have of getting our side out to the general public. The other shows you mentioned have no redeeming qualities what so ever. They are just used to dumb down America.

[harmonicon]

9. Just stop watching/reading it.

I have no idea when the last time I watched any network/cable TV news was, or the last time I read any paper, maybe apart from The Guardian and my local paper while in a waiting room or something. I'm no longer surprised, but continually disgusted by the assumption made on DU that everyone is constantly watching worthless cable "news". Topics like the unionization of low-wage workers get much less attention on here than the last thing that Sarah Palin said, or what some reactionary "left wing" media personality had to say about it.

[jwirr]

10. That is fine for self edification. But if you are trying to educate the

rest of America you have to go where they are. That is why I defend shows like Law & Order.

[harmonicon]

11. I think you'll run into a wall if you reason that it a logical end.

What most supposed left-wing media is only preaches to the converted. I prefer the idea of leading by example. I am an educated person able to come to thoughtful conclusions based on the information put before me. I'm also inquisitive and seek out information. I would rather not think that other people are not this way. Instead of complaining about the media, why not give up on it? More people's minds will be changed by getting one person a good education than would be by setting up media to preach to 100,000 who already want it. As long as capitalism is what's at play, we're going to get what it delivers, and that's not going to be what you want. Luckily, capitalism isn't (at least not yet) involved in things like public and higher education, and that's where real changes can be made.

[jwirr]

12. In the mean time we will not bother with those who do not want to learn

and do not seek out truth. The programs I am talking about at least provide a small input into those homes by telling an entertaining story about a truth. I too am educated. I have lived what I believe unfortunately most of the idiot rwers think I am one of them by my example. They do not even see the difference. "Oh, look she is so good to everyone. She cares about us." Oh sure.

[WCGreen]

13. Beef up local news...

Outside of weather, why would anyone watch that shitfest.

It's the same all over the country, not just at NBC's owned stations.