The talking heads are just following orders

[mudesi]

I want to remind everyone that most of these "journalists" that you see on TV - The street reporters, the anchors - are generally not the ones who decide what to cover, what questions to ask, or what is considered objective or biased. The day anchors, some of the night anchors, the correspondents, they all have a producer running things behind the scenes.

Most of them are doing what we all do in our jobs: What they are told. Either that, or they're fired.

Certainly, some of them are conservatively biased. My observation is that the hard core neo conservatives usually have their own show where they get free reign of topics - O'Reilly, Cavuto, Scarborough, Carlson, Hannity, Beck, Matthews - while the other moderate conservatives and liberals read off a teleprompter or cover stories assigned to them. Stories such as Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson, shark attacks, American Idol, etc. The only exception I see is Keith Olbermann.

We tend to complain about these people here on DU and elsewhere on the Internet. There are exceptions, of course, such as Arwa Damon and Michael Ware, who consistently provide coverage of the truth. But the others, such as Judy Woodruff, Norah O'Donnell, Paula Zahn, Kiran Chetry, Suzanne Malveaux, Wolf Blitzer, Miles O'Brien, Jeff Greenfield, Anderson Cooper; these people, while it is possible that some are truly conservatively biased, are not really the ones responsible for the obvious corporate slant broadcast daily from the mainstream media.

The boss is the one who controls the message. He/She assignes what stories to cover, what speeches to cut off, what chyrons to display, what guests to have on. In some cases I suspect that even the questions these anchors ask are assigned to them.

Certainly, they receive memos on what subjects and questions to avoid, given the advertising revenue base that these giant corporations depend on. No atheists, no environmentalists, no gun control advocates, no socialists, no critical thinking "America haters" who dare question the government. And if one of the latter are on, be sure to include the "other side", no matter how factually incorrect that other side is, lest they offend their corporate advertising base. It's why you always get an Exxon Mobil "scientist" to "debate" global warming with a real scientist.

My point here is that I don't think for a second that the majority of these talking heads are actually the cause of this bias. It's easy to target the little guy, and that's just what they are. They are the pawns in the giant chessboard of the grand scheme of things - just doing what they are told - because they really don't have any other choice, now do they? I don't blame them because put in the same situation, I can't say I wouldn't do the same.

Are many of them paid hansomly? You bet. Some, exorbitantly. But it's not all about money, either. These people had to work hard to advance their careers, to get to the "top" (ie. Cable News), and it's no easy task to simply walk away from literally years of ambitious pursual of one's dream job based on principal. Many (not all) of them probably had idealistic dreams of being warriors for The Truth, real journalists that speak truth to power and demand answers and expose corruption, until they came to the sad realization that in the end, they must either follow their corporate masters or walk away from it all.

If we are to make any headway on the war against the corporately biased media, it is my opinion that we shouldn't be attacking the foot soldiers, but the colonels and the generals. Mr. Murdoch, and Mr. Ailes. Mr. Klein and Mr. Cavuto and Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Hannity and Mr. Beck. (I can't help but notice their genitalia all match, but that's the subject of another thread, I presume). In order to kill the beast, you must cut off the head. Only then can America truly regain all that she has lost.

[porphyrian]

1. I don't care if they were "just following orders," they're a big part of the problem.

They will be held accountable.

[ShortnFiery]

3. Many are accountable for nothing less than TREASON.

:grr: Especially with regard to Judy Miller's trash propaganda fed to her by Scooter and published directly on the front page of the NYT. :thumbsdown:

[madeline_con]

2. They're news readers.

They have no say in what they say.

[ShortnFiery]

4. But OMG, sometimes they encourage them to go unscripted!

The shallow quips that are emitted out of their unscripted mouths makes me almost prefer cyborgs. At least they can lie and spin like the evil geniuses working for the American Enterprise Institute. (AEI). But these News Model Reader Babes are "empty shells." :(

[Time for change]

5. I think you're right for the most part

But there is also a fine line. People in many lines of work are often asked to do things that are immoral. Some do it and some don't. Judith Miller, for example, went way over the line. On the other hand, I have generally not been much disturbed about what Wolf Blitzer says. He seems to me to be just going with the program. Anyhow, I think that people are responsible for what they do. And I think that you mis-categorized Norah O'Donnell. She's hard core right wing trash.

[C_U_L8R]

6. talking heads

reading teleprompted body copy approved by dick cheney

[KG]

7. fuck 'em

foot soldiers? they're basically fuckin' mercenary scum. anything for a buck. attack them all, relentlessly. they can all go to hell.

[gratuitous]

9. Yeah, those fat salaries aren't any incentive, are they?

Any of them with an ounce of integrity would walk away, but the money's just too good, and the sale's been made.

[PhilipShore]

8. They are professional actors -- not investigative reporters