It's all the media's fault

[marmar]

It’s all the media’s fault
We’re a consolidated lazy miasma of ignorance – and the government is to blame for that

By BRIAN KAREM
Columnist
PUBLISHED APRIL 27, 2024 6:01AM (EDT)


(Salon) ....(snip)....

Stern, who dressed up in a suit a little too small for his expanding girth (according to him) fawned over Biden for a bit before asking him a few noteworthy questions. Biden confirmed he’d be willing to debate Donald Trump. That was the big news. But at one point the president turned the tables and asked Stern in essence, why does the media suck today?

Stern blamed social media and Biden said he “hasn’t figured it out yet,” but that the “free press isn’t speaking up as much as it used to.”

....(snip)....

Fewer and fewer companies own more and more of the media outlets, independence is waning and as a result, the news business is just a cash grab built around knee-jerk reactions and preconceived notions. David Pecker’s stewardship of The National Enquirer exposes the worst problems in today’s press. He is the bottom of the barrel and some politicians absolutely love it.

....(snip)....

Media managers could demand better. They do not. They populate the press corps with young, inexpensive, ignorant and arrogant reporters because it serves their bottom line better. The reporters, enamored and, to Stern’s point, fearful, don’t aspire to anything greater than access. They think they’re important just because they’re in the room, yet they are often more politically naïve than Howard Stern. As we gather for the “Nerd Prom” the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in D.C. this evening, what exactly are we celebrating? Our mediocrity? .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/04/27/its-all-the-medias-fault/

[Uncle Joe]

1. I believe that it's the oligarchs fault

It's not tough public policy questions so much as just political soap opera gotcha questions that the corporate media loves to focus on because you don't represent the interests of the American People in regards to the critical issues and policies affecting us.

If you did that would be front and center as your guiding North Star in all your coverage, public policy.

The corporate media is so conglomerated, and monopolized that you can't help but primarily serve as political intelligence gathering institutions for the corporate supremacists and oligarchs; your owners, and that's almost always the focus of your journalistic interests.

Your focus is not so much in informing or enlightening the American People as selling and influencing us, Murdoch and Pecker are just the most blatant examples.

You're too monopolized and that dynamic has disconnected you from the people, with the result being you're way too eager to demean us while insulting our intelligence, the American People are becoming the "other."

You wouldn't be monopolized if your industry and not just the Peckers and Murdochs' ilk weren't lobbying congress with the relentless desire to conglomerate in the first place.

It's the same with the medical industry, that one industry has about 1500 lobbyists for 535 Senators and Congress people.

I believe these myopically focused trade group interests of all stripes are killing our nation's innovation along with our chances of adapting to a rapidly changing world.

Thanks for the thread marmar.

[et tu]

3. entertainment verses enlightenment

are we entertained? verses can we evolve?
even in a lot of college courses, the prof
tries to be entertaining to keep students
engaged. great is the prof who can do both~

[live love laugh]

7. And who are the oligarchs but "Conservatives"? Right Wing owns the media plain and simple.

[shrike3]

2. Media aren't so much afraid as lazy. And concerned with their own careers and proximity to power.

I haven't forgotten the Bush years and neither has anyone else here. Judith Miller doing her thing, reporters posing near tanks, the media corp oohing and ahhing over Bush barbecues -- ooh, he gave me a nickname! And Margaret Carlson explaining why she and pals went after Gore and not Bush. "I suppose we could all get out our calculators and go after Bush. But it's so much more fun and entertaining for us to go after Gore."

And yeah, it's your fault. Not all your fault, there's plenty to blame, but don't tell me politicians alone are to blame.

I wonder if he knows how inadvertently hilarious it is that he's praising McCurry of the Clinton administration. After the way much of the press behaved during that administration.

[ancianita]

4. Re the WH Correspondents Dinner tonight, let's hope Biden stays funny af as he zeroes in on their

core corporate failures. Hope Colin Jost kills it.

[Aviation Pro]

5. Information is now monetized for specific audiences

Journalistic integrity is a distant memory.

[aggiesal]

6. Interview with Stern, still no interview with NYT. 🤔 n/t

[GoreWon2000]

10. NY Times was a ring leader in media's war against Gore in 2000!

I'm glad that Biden ditched the NY Times and went with Stern. Biden is starting to get some of the same terrible coverage from the Times that Al Gore got in 2000. Anyone who wants to read the only record of the media's war against Gore in 2000 that was lead by the NY Times and the Washington Post can do so at the archives of the Daily Howler at www.dailyhowler.com. I haven't bought a paper from either the Times or the Washington Post since 2000 and I never will because of their bad behavior in 2000.

[shrike3]

12. Yes, they were.

They were drunk on winning a Pulitzer for Whitewater. A land deal in which the Clintons lost money.

There was an article called "The Press vs. Al Gore." Link no longer exists, too bad.

[GoreWon2000]

14. Daily Howler archive documents the media's war against Gore in 2000!

Just go to www.dailyhowler.com and scroll through the archives to see a thorough documentation of the media's war against Gore in 2000 led by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

[shrike3]

16. Forgot all about the Daily Howler. Blast from the past.

Thank you.

[0rganism]

8. Well, he's not wrong

Not sure there's even a way to improve the situation at this point.

[Mblaze]

9. Media has to improve

Just to achieve mediocrity.

[cayugafalls]

11. Our media is no better than the King's Criers of long ago...and they are a direct offshoot as well.

I once traced the Conde Nast media empire back (for a paper) to the roots of William F. Nast (married Esther A. Benoist) and if you go back a few hundred years, Nast, Benoist both prominent families, I ended the paper with the fact that the Benoist's family, in particular Guillaume Benoist who was Royal Chamberlain to Charles VII of France in the fifteenth century.

[Martin68]

13. It's NEVER "all the media's fault." That's a lazy and extremely oversimplified opinion.

The media plays an essential role in democracies. Good journalistic standards are important. The media, like everybody else, makes mistakes. But it is each individual's responsibility to be informed, weigh the value of different media sources, and come to conclusions based on consideration of different viewpoints. Without the media we'd be in a vacuum of information.

[GoreWon2000]

15. Media's campaign 2000 behavior tells a different story!

During campaign 2000 the corporate media made no effort to hide it's bias against Al Gore while it let off the hook and shilled for the unqualified, incompetent and election stealing W. The progressive media was all ga ga for Nader and helping him spread his big lie that there were no differences between Gore and W.
I suggest you scroll through the archives of the Daily Howler at www.dailyhowler.com to read about the media's all out war against Al Gore in 2000. It was an all out attack against Gore that the Daily Howler does a good job in documenting. To this day, the media refuses to hold W accountable for the many lies that he told and the election that he and his little brother and Florida campaign co-chair in Florida stole in 2000. Our country now teeters on the verge of becoming a dictatorship because of the media's anti-Gore behavior in Campaign 2000 and since.

[Martin68]

17. Generalization a little? Just blaming "the media" is lazy. What is the media you refer to? TV? Cable?

Streaming? Newspapers? Thousands of online sites?

People like you blamed "the media" for supporting the invasion of Iraq, but NPR (for one) reported on all the relevant factors against an invasion including the aluminum tubes being innocent, the fact that the Bush administration kicked out weapons inspectors after they obtained complete access to every site they requested, and the State Department's warnings about the need to understand the cultures involved and the need to consider the after-effects, the challenges of occupation, and how to maintain order once the regime was defeated.

I was deeply concerned about the Gore decision, but the mass media played only a small part compared to the Supreme Court and the full press attack by the right wing lawyers (the Burberry Mafia) who physically threatened on the ground election workers in Florida. The right wing media, however, was in full voice at the time and had an enormous impact - but they are not "the media" in my opinion. They are entirely political, entirely biased, and fully committed to a particular political result.