America's Matrix
 

Hello all :D

How do you guys feel about your media in general (im talking all the peeps from USA) there has been allot of focous over here (Australia) about U.S media in general and its reporting on the war... or should i say flag waving, score board carrying enthusiasm (imho). How do you all feel? think its biased? to right to left ? not enough of either?

i'm pretty happy about it, you have different sources if you dont like one.

International news has a completely different view of the US, try watching some sometime its very entertaining what they think of our policies.

yeah, i was in canada and we watched the international...um...CNN, i think it was. we were pretty much a joke to them

really? have you really looked at the ROOT sources for news organizations? AP, Reuters, UPI... it's their wires that usually gives you the national and international news.

Here's how it works in it's simplistic form:

local journalist finds a story.
UPI/AP/Reuters picks it up and puts it ono their wire.
CNN/FoxNews/MSNBC get the newwire feed and they generate a story or send a local reporter to cover it.

Truly your sources aren't all that many. The packaging may be slightly different with 3d graphics and music intros, but the original source is usually one of the 3.

chances are, there are more than 1 local journalist that covers the story.

and what you did applies mainly to small stories.


if it is a big story, the networks + local stations would have crews there.

even then... the person hold a press conference... and the information is still that same.

Exclusives are few and far between nowadays, and no...what I mentioned applies to international stories as well.

and what gets the reporters and crews to cover it? the first dispatch from the newswire.

and who is to say what is a big story? You mean the media giants that buried the FCC ruling into obscurity? There isn't as many media outlets as you think.

I'm not speaking about this from opinion or the way that I think it works, but from actual facts since I've worked with the newswires, and news medias from local NYC news WB11 to WCBS.

yes, but there are some stories that FOX (for example) will not pick up. So you have to check multiple news sites to get a complete picture, and sadly some news will be ignored by all...

that is correct. there is a watchdog group that watches all the major networks and counts all the stories and locations of the stories, based on local CT, local NY, local NJ, national and international, in order to make a case that there isn't a balance in reporting especially for CT. NJ is usually under represented as well, but they fight the fight very hard to keep on the radar screen.

You would be supprised how many stories are actualy brought to a network by PR companies - particuarly finance and filler stories.
You know those stories where theres some new wonder drug for cancer and they talk to some doctor who says "oh yes drug x is a marvelous breakthrough" and then they shw a patient who says "thank god for drug x becasue now i might be able to walk again"... well guess what 9 times out of ten that entire story - the fotage, the editing, the script is made by a PR company on behalf of the company that makes drug x and is given to hte networks pre packaged and ready to go... allot of news is in this format..

very true.. news agencies love it because they don't have to do anything but put the tape in and find a spot in the schedule.

My country's media really let me down during the war. It made less patriotic when i looked at how my country's media wasn't giving me both sides of the story. If i cant believe CNN, who can i believe?

The Dude, check these links out that descibe what holdings each company has:

AOL/Time Warner

Viacom

Disney

NewsCorp

Now these are up for sale. Viacom is interested in Sci-Fi Channel and USA Networks...Vivendi Universal

Clear Channel has thousands of radio stations across the USA.

You can look at rest of the media giants here

Neil Hickey put together a good Q&A regarding this very subject in 2002.

News Journalism is, in my opinion, a seriously threatened profession.

Media outlets delude themselves and dupe the people into thinking they provide anything but subjective rubbish with no higher goals than filthy lucre. If they can smear a reputation in the meantime, all the better.

Worse, the outlets are intent on pushing their view (Fox News: Enemy of the Truth No1).

To take a hackneyed phrase from the "War": "Truth is the first casualty of Journalism".