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Originally Posted by shakran
In other words, people WANT to consume good news. It's just very hard for them to find a good source for it. NPR is great but for much of the country it's not listenable.
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At the risk of driving this thread even further off topic...
I can't argue with you on the coverage of NPR, I'll have to take your word for that. But I do take issue with your assertion that people don't have genuine (or at least
better) alternatives. I genuinely don't believe people will choose them when they have the quick 'n' dirty option over on the other channel. For instance, digital penetration (of the televisual variety, rather than the biological) is such in this country that BBC4 is viewable in a large proportion of the homes that can also view BBC1. And BBC4 programmes are often trailed (as is my understanding, at least) on BBC1. So why do we see stories about BBC4 facing the axe because people just aren't watching it? The choice is there. People don't take it.
Another example.
The three best-selling daily newspapers in this country are
The Sun (3,192,976),
The Daily Mail (2,341,437), and
The Daily Mirror (2,114,496). Source:
Audit Bureau of Circulation
The Sun and
The Mirror are basically as lowbrow as they come. Celebrity gossip takes precedence over a real news agenda. Stories are heavily slanted, and sometimes even outright biased. Comment and analysis is simplistic at best, myopic at worst. And in the case of The Sun, every day on page three, we see a different topless woman. Basically dumb as a brick. The Sun takes a line on a story, you can guarantee that The Mirror, its immediate rival will take the opposite line (assuming it's not something unarguable like child porn or whatever).
Then there's
The Mail, which is barely distinguishable from the above two titles, except it has a very high opinion of itself, an
extremely right-wing attitude, and nicer fonts. It's passing itself off as intelligent, and it really isn't.
These are my opinions, but they are well reflected throughout the print media.
Then we have something like
The Independent, which is probably (in my opinion) the best of the UK's national papers in terms of journalistic integrity, news values and intelligence. I generally - for the most part - find it balanced, rational, calmly-written and interesting. That's not to say it doesn't have its slants - it does. But it's hardly as phlegmatic in its opinions as the tabloids it shares the newstands with. Its circulation? 263,449. A tiny fraction of the readership of my other examples.
And it's not as if it's hard to find. It's on sale in my local supermarket, right next to the tabloids. It's even recently gone from broadsheet to tabloid (as in size) to make it more accessible. People don't choose it. To coin your example, they choose the meatloaf and carrots, even though the filet mignon (relatively speaking - no paper is perfect) is right next to it.
Now I don't know if there's an equivalent example in America, so that's perhaps where my argument springs a leak. But I genuinely don't have faith that people will choose the intelligent alternative when it is offered.
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Originally Posted by shakran
Regarding the BBC, first off, they're screwing up. That TV license fee should go to the BBC. No question. The government should not have the power to take that money away from them. The laws of the land should also specify that JOURNALISTS operate BBC. That would keep the BBC from doing nothing but air colorbars and collect the money.
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Actually, the BBC is a strange example, because they're not exactly competing on a level playing field. They depend on the government for their charter, which is what allows them to collect that licence fee. Problem is, the BBC isn't our government's favourite broadcaster by any means. Word is, Tony Blair dislikes the BBC and everything it stands for, and he's just one example. And they didn't win themselves any fans in Whitehall with that whole 'sexed up' Iraqi intelligence fiasco you may recall from a couple of years ago. The Hutton inquiry that followed that has certainly defanged the journalists to some extent, and has had the result of them sitting on 'exclusive' stories until other news outlets have broken them, to avoid drawing flak.
As far as the BBC competing with itself, yes, I agree completely. But the thing is, they have to show that they are fulfilling their duty of public service. If nobody is watching what they put on, because they're all tuned to Celebrity Jelly-making on the other side, then the 'we're performing a public service' argument falls down pretty fast. If it's such a great public service, why doesn't the public want it?
I guess we're not going to reach an agreement here. But it's been a fascinating discussion.
