KMA-628

Matt Drudge has one of his own little reports up on his website concerning coverage of the convention(s) by the networks.

The last paragraph of the article says this:

Addressing the challenges of covering politics in a politically polarized environment, CBS Rather stated that "fear has increased in every newsroom in America," and added that reporting on explosive issues can bring a torrent of e-mails and phone calls. That can lead to a situation, he said, in which journalists conclude that "when you run this story, you're asking for trouble with a capital 'T'. . . Why run it?"

To me this is sorta good and sorta bad.

I think it is about time that reporters thought about their public when considering whether to run a story or not (I think there is a read-between-the-lines issue of how the story is portrayed as well). I think that too many times the media tries to decide issues for us. One issues gets over-reported while another one gets no play at all.

There are obvious downsides to this as well. We are definitely going in the wrong direction if the press is legitimately afraid to run a story because of the public backlash. I stress legitimately, here.

But for me, the good side is that I feel like the press has forgotten that we are the customer here. It was feeling like the elite media was trying to tell us what to feel, what should be important to us, etc. I really think they were/are getting out of control.

All other feelings, sentiments, aside. I think that this sounds like the public is finally standing up for itself.

What do you think? Do Rather's comments scare you or make you feel like you have a little more control?

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

pan6467

I remember back in the 80's (God I'm getting old) someone famous said about CNN and the 24 hour news channels as they were starting out, "that they only have so much news to report on and eventually to make profit news will have to be manufactured. And eventually people will become totally desensitized to everything."" That quote has stuck with me, because it was a true prophecy of what news has become.

I truly believe we have become a society where nothing shocks us anymore. But I also feel that there are some issues that up until the 90's the press laid off of.

Had it not been for the press's hounding, I truly believe Clinton would not have had the troubles he had and would have been able to do what he was elected to do. In the past presidents got away with having affairs and they weren't exposed.

Rather's comments don't surprise me, but I think he's wrong. I see two sides. One the press competes with each other more now which means they can be more watchful of government and what goes on, but on the other hand the competition promotes news to be sensationalized, which in turn desensitizes us to true issues.

I don't see news being held back, except when one side (politically) wants to cover it up or spin it so that the other side looks bad.

I also think it is pathetic that we have this mentality now that this form of news leans left or this form leans right and we dig to find biases. (Both sides do it equally.)

It's divisive to the country, because in the end people stop trusting the news in general and only focus on what sources cater to their beliefs. Which becomes bad in that those sources then can control how you think about what goes on and how you react.

Example: you watch the 700 club, listen to Limbaugh and Dredge and watch Faux News (misspellings purposed) and hear how great the war in Iraq is going, and how people who oppose it are liberal commies who hate America, it taints your views on those opposed to the war.

Same as if all you do is read European websites and get your all your news from anti-war sources (Rense is a great example) that focus on just the bad. So then you are tainted and believe that everything we are doing is evil.

If you take both sides and then take out the sensationalism and spin you can come to a personal conclusion and may surprise yourself in what you find.

I do have to disagree with you, the public isn't standing up for itself, we are being led by one side or the other (depending upon your views) and being told the other side is totally wrong and hateful.

I propose that if people found a truly neutral news source they would be able to focus on issues much better and not just partisan politics (which is dividing and destroying us as a country). And we may find that what we have been fed these past few years has done nothing but divide us and keep us from focusing on how to better the country and get along. That the views of the people as a whole are not as different as the press they choose want them to believe.

Hope that made sense. I truly believe until the 90's the press was pretty centrist. But became more polarized because both sides realized that was how to control the masses beliefs and votes.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

hammer4all

It really scares me. Considering how many explosive stories the mainstream media has failed to report on, the last thing I would want to see is even more timid reporters.

I could give plenty of examples:

Like the Bush administration's overthrow of the democratically elected President of Haiti...
Like an Afghan Massacre of more than 3000 Taliban prisoners...
Like the Bush administration's start of a patently illegal war in Iraq...
Like the Bush administration's rejection of peace offerings from both Iraq and Afghanistan before each respective war had started...
Like the Bush administration's illegal removal of over 8,000 pages of Iraq's UN Report...
Like the Bush administration's appointment of former criminals to key government roles...
Like the Bush administration's spying on UN diplomats in the Security Counsel in an effort to win approval of an Iraq war resolution...
Like the Bush administration's support of an attempted military coup of the democratically elected President of Venezuela...

I could go on and on, but I wouldn't want to bore anyone with these trivial matters...

Yes, it's really ridiculous what our "liberal" media doesn't deem important enough for us to hear. But then again, they're just a few self-interested multinational corporations trying to sell a product (docile audiences) to other multinational corporations (advertisers) in order to make an ever-increasing profit for their shareholders. So I guess we can't really blame them. Oh wait...

Peetster

I'm curious why you chose to modify reports with the adjective "little".

shakran

the public perception of what we do is honestly so skewed as to make it impossible for the average person to make an informed statement about the state of the media.

In your comment you made the assertion that we over-report some stuff, while leaving others by the wayside. Who do you think drives that decision? That's right, you the public. I'd frankly love to routinely spend 30 minutes sitting a candidate down and grilling his ass on the actual issues rather than just running 5 second soundbytes saying bullshit like "don't mess with texas." Unfortunately, no one would watch. Several months ago Diane Sawyer sat W down and asked him some hard questions about what he had done to Iraq. It was an excellent interview, but when the ratings came in, the reality shows had kicked its ass.

The public, by and large, does not want to be informed by the media. In fact, the public does not want to be informed at all. They'd rather watch a rerun of Big Brother than a new 60 Minutes.

Frankly I wish that didn't matter. Maybe if we made news available more consistantly, people would discover what a good thing it is and watch it instead of that episode of COPS for the 20th time. Unfortunately, the nightly newscast is no longer the prestige-earning loss-leader for the TV station that it used to be. Management has discovered they can make money off of a newscast, so now profit drives the news business.

Where I get annoyed is when people blame the journalists for the situation. It's really not our fault. Would you blame the soldiers for starting the Iraq war? Hopefully not. The reason TV newscasts aren't as informative as they could be is not because of the journalists, but because the execs listen to you the public, and every time they try to add more real news, the public rejects it.

Look at where most of the REALLY good news programs are scheduled - McLaughlin Group, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, etc. They're scheduled on Sunday morning, when most people are in church! If they scheduled these programs during prime time, they'd lose money because people would tune them out in favor of a sitcom or, more likely, a reality show.

Twin Cities Public Television tried to do a hard news show several years ago. It was excellent, and it really went in depth in the issues that were facing us at the time. It also tanked in the ratings because no one would watch it.

I guess I just get annoyed that people refuse to watch real news when it's offered, then turn around and blame the journalists for not offering real news. It's not our fault - we don't make programming decisions anyway - it's yours.

pan6467

From Shakran: "Look at where most of the REALLY good news programs are scheduled - McLaughlin Group, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, etc. They're scheduled on Sunday morning, when most people are in church! If they scheduled these programs during prime time, they'd lose money because people would tune them out in favor of a sitcom or, more likely, a reality show."

Actually in the 80's the highest rated weekly primetime show was 60 Minutes. But this was before the hate mongering and partisan politics we face today.

I truly believe if we stop the hate mongering and partisan politics we'll get real hard news again and it will work. But when your source of news or political party beliefs lead you to believe that this news is bad and this news is good it affects the ratings and destroys any hopes of unbiased news.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

ARTelevision

KMA-628, I agree with you here.

__________________
create evolution

KMA-628

Because the stories that he writes himself (which isn't that common) are either really short or really long.

This one was little.

BTW - I have read Drudge pretty much everyday for a couple of years (Homepage #2 on FireFox).

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

jb2000

Rather is highlighting what has been fact for some time now, and that is that the TV news job has been to tell us what we want to hear.

I don't think that it is only now that the media is paying attention to what we want.

Despite all conspiracy theories about conservatives owning all the networks or liberals running all the newsrooms, I don't think either has as much influence as the simple desire to get people to repeatedly tune in to your news show. If exposing presidential scandals gets viewers, they'll run it. If putting on raging neo-con screaming heads gets viewers, they'll run them. If repeated investigative reports on bad companies get viewers, they'll run them.

The bug is that now, with such a polarized environment, media news isn't sure what to do to get people to watch their show. If they run a bit on the President's troubles, they lose viewers offended by the attack on the president. If they ignore such an issue, they lose viewers that see the show as being a government patsy.

Heck, right now, a feel-good story about the fire-department rescueing a cat from a tree would probably get assaulted. One side would be complaining about the mayor getting preferential exposure while the other complains about the endorsement of such egregious government waste. That might sound silly, but it seems we are headed that way.

Why is Rather scared to run an article? Not because he's going to lose sleep because someone didn't like his bit. Reporters have always had to deal with this. But because he knows that for every nasty-gram he gets, an advertiser gets one too, threatening the sponsorship, and with such division, there's a good chance the advertiser will be sypathetic to the viewer's complaints.

__________________
"Don't tell me we're so blind we cannot see that this is my land! I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
And this is your land, you can't close your eyes to this hypocracy.
Yes this is my land, I won't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
'Cause this is our land, we can't close our eyes to the things we don't wanna see."

- DTH

KMA-628

jb2000,

Good points. Well thought out.

I think we have always complained about the news, regardless of ideology. I just really don't think they listened or cared to us. I honestly feel that many of the media outlets think they know what's better for us then we do. It wasn't like there was a lot of competition 15 years ago in the news world (I am referring to T.V.)

Now, with the information age, we get more news, faster and from different sources. Primetime news isn't the main source that it used to be. Plus, it is much easier to send a complain e-mail then it is to call the news organization.

With the internet we have the ability to research the news ourselves easily, from our own homes. In a sense, we are more enlightened.

Honestly, I want them thinking about the public reprecussions when developing a story because I don't think that this happened in the past. Its like a mini checks-and-balances system that we didn't have before.

I am also o.k. with the complaints to advertisers. Because that is another method that we can use to make sure that our voice is heard. In a sense, we are the ones paying for the news and we are the ones buying the products advertised on the news and such. This enables us to make sure that what we think/feel/etc is heard and attention is paid to it.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

jb2000

KMA,

I think you do have a good point in that the larger number of media sources, be it cable or satellite or internet, have forced a more competitive marketplace.

Perhaps the 'big 3' were used to aiming at a third of the market share, but with so many competitors out there, no one can reach that position. Perhaps psychologically they are still in that mode of considering that as their benchmark, and thus their continued aim to please all of the people all of the time.

That brings up an interesting concept though. With the multiple media sources, it would stand to reason that catering to a specific audience would bring success. Certainly, this can be seen amongst specialty broadcasters, from MTV to ESPN to TCN to the myriad of conservative talk radio stations. They do pretty well, but aren't too concerned about seeking a broader audience.

Is it harder now to attract a broad argument. In the past you only had to have broader appeal than two other programs also trying to gain broad audiences. Now you are competing against myriad special-interest broadcasting that attracts a lot of people (not to one but in agregate). Does it make good business sense for a news outlet to continue to seek that broad market if it appears to be diminishing? Or is there really a demand for broad objective reporting?

Fox succeeds because it has successfully identified its audience and is telling them exactly what they want to hear exactly how they want to hear it: we are winning the war, the president's a hero, and America uber alles, and you can trust us because this is objective fair and balanced (don't sue me, please!) reporting.

Do we want the other networks to follow Fox's lead and target specific audiences with tailored reporting? I think we all like the idea of specialist networks, so we can find something catering to our interests on the TV, but where do we draw the line between entertainment and news in this society?

I'm all for better feedback to media companies, and for letting advertisers know directly what we think. I personally restrain from the advertiser route usually; I don't boycott companies just because they advertise on Rush, especially if they are advertising across a broad spectrum. It is not their fault that Rush has listeners, and that they need to access those listeners to get their message out. But we have to find ways to have effective voice as citizens, and it does work.

__________________
"Don't tell me we're so blind we cannot see that this is my land! I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
And this is your land, you can't close your eyes to this hypocracy.
Yes this is my land, I won't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
'Cause this is our land, we can't close our eyes to the things we don't wanna see."

- DTH

cthulu23

Would Woodward and Bernstein have been allowed to blow open Watergate today? It's the "explosive" stories that make the most impact, sometimes changing the course of history. To me, Rather is not speaking of slanted coverage, he's referencing reporting unpopular truths to a possibly hostile public. If journalism becomes beholden to advertising then we can no longer count on reporters to fulfill their societal function of informing the people in the face of power or fierce opposition.

jb2000

Exactly. But even the facts seem to have joined one party or the other in this country these days

I think that there have been a number of recent issues that would have had Watergate-like effect if they came out back then. But today, the public is more desensitized to scandal, and the politicians are more adept at dealing with them.

I too would like to see that kind of objective impartial reporting trump the pandering to audiences and advertisers in at least some outlets. Actually there are some, but they are not well patronized, so what is the gain?

Ultimately, it may be the truth that the free market media is not structured to provide information in the way so many of us would like it to.

__________________
"Don't tell me we're so blind we cannot see that this is my land! I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
And this is your land, you can't close your eyes to this hypocracy.
Yes this is my land, I won't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
'Cause this is our land, we can't close our eyes to the things we don't wanna see."

- DTH

shakran

No, I don't think we do, and I think Fox is very irresponsible to do it themselves. And yes, I'd think they were irresponsible if they decided to slant to the left instead of the right.

Look, journalists aren't personally objective. I personally hate Bush. But you'd never know it to look at my stories. Our job when we put that story on the air is to present an objective story. It's the VIEWER'S job to decide how to take it. When newscasts start catering to specific audiences, they lose their objectivity. They stop being a news organization and start being a political commentary organization.

People get shows like Rush and Al Franken's confused with real journalism. They're not real journalists, and they've never claimed to be. Their job is to present their opinion in the strongest way possible. A journalist's job is to present ALL opinions in the most neutral way possible. You can't do that when you're catering to one side or the other.

pan6467

I think Limbaugh implies he is a news source and he degrades other sources so badly that his loyalist listeners have turned off any media but the right slanting and even then will complain it's too liberal. Just listen to his show for a week and you'll see what I mean.

Dredge is just as bad, he claims to be a journalist, but includes editorials in his delivery especially on radio.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

KMA-628

I would argue your opinion about Drudge. He is freelance and uncontrollable by either the right or the left.

I like the fact that he will slam anybody, Democrat or Republican (He posted article after article blasting Bush for spending hikes).

As for Rush, it has been awhile, but I don't recall him claiming to be a "news" outlet. He espouses opinion and I don't think anyone is confused about that fact.

But....

We are getting off topic here and I am not helping.

I started this thread because I read this quote from Rather and my first thought was, "He is saying this like it is bad, but I think there is some good to it as well."

If we look back, has there ever been any balance in T.V. news? I don't think so and I am not referring to bias.

If you watch the "Big Three" there is no doubt where their feelings fall. The main anchors for these networks have gotten such a big head that they think they are more newsworthy than the stories they report on.

I have gotten to the point where I will not watch cable/T.V. news, period, regardless of the source.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

jb2000

I do think a lot of people get the information on which they form their opinions from talk shows and internet sources like blogs and the like.

These sources may not officially be news sources but they serve the same function for many and are having a greater effect upon the nation's decision making process.

__________________
"Don't tell me we're so blind we cannot see that this is my land! I can't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
And this is your land, you can't close your eyes to this hypocracy.
Yes this is my land, I won't pretend that it's nothing to do with me.
'Cause this is our land, we can't close our eyes to the things we don't wanna see."

- DTH