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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Media



It’s a very good thing that I’m my own editor, otherwise this piece would never see the light of day. That’s because it’s about the news media and all its faults. The one thing that both the electronic and print media do well is report on the mis-steps and bad fortune of the public at large, but when it comes to having their own sores exposed they are very shy.

You can take your pick of the world’s media, they all pretty much march to the same drummer. The ironic thing is that they can only do so because of the support that we, the very people whom they so love to destroy, give them. What’s wrong with this picture?

In trying to start my rant I am finding it very hard to know where to begin. Which country has the worst press? I used to think that it was England with their News of the World, and the other tabloid papers. But America’s no better! It’s about what sells.

Now, of course, when I was a young lad I was discouraged from telling tales out of school. It was not a very noble thing to come into contact with interesting information, only to go as quickly as possible to pass it on. Well, that is exactly what the media do, and they all too often succumb to the temptation to place their own opinion or bias upon the news item.

You have seen the news interviewers yourself interrupt their guests, who they have asked to come on to share their views, only to shape the interview to satisfy the host’s own point of view. They seem to think that this is about being a professional. The fact is that they are like little boys and girls having tantrums because their opinion is the only one that matters, or so they think.

In the United States, Bernard Goldberg, a long-term news correspondent at CBS wrote a book after he retired called “Bias” an insider’s view of delivering the news with a liberal slant. He was condemned and ostracised because the media can’t even admit that it has an opinion about the news.

This is my point about news reportage: it’s all about someone’s point of view. Yes, I know that they control the printing presses and that they can say whatever they want. However, there’s something called the Media Trust. I can’t even begin to imagine what real work this group does as it sure does nothing about controlling the quality in reporting.

The late Princess Diana is a superb example of the hound dog mentality of the press corp. On one occasion she had been visiting a female friend’s home, only to emerge to face a battery of cameras. They actually chased her down the street to her car, but before she got there she came to a stop alongside a wall as she cowered from the continuing flashes. I thought as I watched that clip that those bastards will chase her to her death.

Perhaps you’re an editor of a small town newspaper where nothing newsworthy ever happens. This is called punishment and is the place where disgraced editors get sent. One of the tricks of the trade is to focus on a few members of the community in good standing and to build them up in stature, while at the same time looking for a mis-step that can be blown up and scandalized. If they request your opinion on something you can be sure they will go and find a contrary point of view. Beware of friendly news people! I have even seen capable and honest news brokers respond to the directives from “upstairs” to get tough.

Even the weather can be an ally. During this past Summer the area of Southern United States took several hits from hurricanes. Poor Haiti took one hit after another, but that was not where the major channels amassed their people. As residents were ordered to leave New Orleans the press came crowding in, because that was where the story was supposed to be given New Orleans history. When the storms changed direction they left to head for the next projected hotspot to be able to report on the expected death and destruction left by nature’s wrath.

I watched as the Force Five hurricanes were downgraded to a One, and the feeble efforts of the presenters to justify their presence. How absolutely pathetic and loathsome is that? They feed on bad news. They want images of people crying who have lost everything. The more dramatic, the better for the cameras! As viewers, we know only too well that people lose their homes and possessions and they cry. Please, give these people the only thing they have left, some privacy.

I would not be fair and balanced without presenting the other side of the media. They expose the crooks and bad politicians; they open up shady dealings to public scrutiny and hold governments accountable. In this regard they do a job that is actually beneficial to the public. I guess all that other stuff can be called entertainment for as one paper said, “Inquiring minds want to know.”

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael