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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Wednesday 12 December 2012
The honchos of America’s establishment media are quick to blame such external causes as the Internet for their problems, but if they looked internally, they might notice that they’re damn near eaten-up with a bad case of conventional wisdomitis.
The Mass Media Favorites Fall Out of Favor
Let us address the declining fortunes of today's mainstream mass media.
(Yes, I can hear your pained screams of "Nooooo ... we don't want to!" We really must, however, because it's not about them, but us — about our ability to be at least quasi-informed about who's-doing-what-to-whom-and-why, in order for us to be a self-governing people. So buckle-up, here we go.)
The honchos of America's establishment media are quick to blame such external causes as the Internet for their problems. But if they looked internally, they might notice that they're damn near eaten-up with a bad case of conventional wisdomitis. The problem with conventional wisdom is that more often than not it's nothing more than the contrived "wisdom" of the corporate powers.
Ironically, this narrow perspective not only afflicts their delivery of the news, but also their business model. For example, with newspaper readership declining, the accepted industry response by owners and publishers has been to fire beat reporters, shrink the news hole, reduce reporting to rewriting of wire service articles — and then run hokey PR campaigns hyping the shriveled product as "Real News."
But here's a bit of real news that very few newspapers have mentioned: The new owners of the Orange County Register are blazing a contrarian path toward their paper's revival and prosperity. They're expanding the Register's news staff, its coverage and the paper's size, doubling the editorial page and adding more sections. Editor Ken Brusic notes that offering less to subscribers and charging more not only is a rip-off and an insult to readers, but a sure path to failure. "So," he says, "we're now offering more."
Gosh — hire real watchdog reporters, dig out real news and actually try to make the paper real to local readers — what a novel notion for a news business! Unsurprisingly, the conventional wisdomites are sneering at the Register's nonconformist effort.
"It's not what most people are doing," said one analyst of the media business.
Exactly! And that's why it's so promising!
Of course, getting in the face of power and defying the conventional wisdom can be a poor career move. You can quickly begin feeling like B.B. King, when he sings, "No one loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin', too."
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein now know that lonely feeling. This teamed-up pair of political partisan observers have long been esteemed peers of the Washington punditry class. Cautious, middle-of-the-road, think-tank conservatives, they were popular on the insider talk-show circuit as reliable voices of conventional thinking. Until they went rogue.
In assessing the 2012 election, Mann and Ornstein have charged that the elite media deliberately failed to cover the biggest story of all — namely that the Republican Party and its nominees were flagrantly running a campaign of lies.
The duo was surprisingly blunt, noting that the GOP was not just practicing politics as usual, with a fib here and a prevarication there, but an orchestrated strategy of dumping bald-faced fabrications wholesale on the voting public.
"It's the great unreported big story of American politics," said Ornstein.
While the Democrats, too, tossed out some falsehoods, there was no comparison between them and the Republicans' intentional, ideologically extreme perversion "of facts, evidence and science." Yet reporters and their bosses, so fearful of being accused of taking sides, failed to make a distinction — which, after all, is their job.
"They're so timid," Mann said — and a timid press is a weak one. "You're failing in your fundamental responsibility," Ornstein said of them, asking the obvious question: "What are you there for? Your obvious job is to report the truth."
For daring to tell the truth about the media's abject failure, Mann and Ornstein have been blackballed. They're no longer invited to talk on the inside-politics shows, nor have those shows even mentioned the media's pusillanimous role in abetting the Big Lies of 2012.
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ABOUT Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
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By Ronnie Cummins
19 comments on "The Mass Media Favorites Fall Out of Favor"
December 14, 2012 2:37am
Sensacyjny salon sukien ślubnych La Mariee został otwarty w Białymstoku. Dzięki znanym markom sukien ślubnych takich jak: Tony Bowls salon prędko zyskał uszanowanie mnóstwa spełnionych klientek.
suknie ślubne warszawa
Obecnie w salonie suknie ślubne warszawa są bez trudu dostępne, dlatego że jest ich szeroki wybór: ponad 200 modeli. Suknie ślubne są tak dobrane, żeby zaspokoić okazałe pragnienia panien młodych. Dodatkowo wprawna konsultantka zagwarantuje biegłą pomoc. Zajrzyj na naszą witrynę, zobacz jakie suknie ślubne Ci się podobają i szybko umów się na wizytę.
December 13, 2012 1:18pm
The problem with post-Reagan "progressive" media is that it tends to adhere to guidelines established by corporate media. This country is its economy, and since Reagan, we haven't been free to have a legitimate discussion about the economic health of the country. The reason we can't is that we can't discuss poverty, and we can't discuss poverty because, by the 1980s, concern about poverty was branded as "namby-pamby liberalism." This issue was erased from the public discussion. Progressive media, which tends to be so concerned about fundamental human rights (per the UN's Universal Declarati0n of Human Rights) consistently ignores the human rights violations in our policies against the poor. Weirdly, the public appears to support mandatory workfare labor while opposing right-to-work, which are both core parts of the same agenda serving to finish off the middle class. Today, the discussion is solely about protecting the comforts and privileges of the bourgeoisie, turning the middle class class into a gated community. The reality is, you can't "rebuild the middle class" without addressing poverty.
December 12, 2012 8:32pm
Watch TV show "The Newsroom"
December 12, 2012 5:04pm
Yeah who would have thought that people would demand substance over image? It works for a while, but a substance-less life replaced by image is an empty and depressing existence.
But what should we expect? People in power are fundamentally uninteresting and substance-less themselves; and more often than not, selfish ego-maniacs with a huge does of DNA infused narcissism.
December 12, 2012 4:29pm
Thanks, Jim! Your word choice is spot-on! Pusillanemosity must be branded for what it is in the media and also in the legislators and corporate ne'er-do-wells the media is supposed to examine and expose.
The bar has been lowered both on journalism and governance.
December 12, 2012 3:54pm
the reason mainstream media is falling that all it does is parrot lines given to it by the dnc
December 13, 2012 1:10pm
You mean the Republican owned "Corporate News" not the Democratic DNC
December 12, 2012 4:59pm
@oldhat
Spoken like a true graduate of Fox news University.
(1) State your position as truth.
(2) Offer no evidence.
(3) Make sure it's emotional to confuse the situation.
Sorry bro. You're old shoes are worn out. Try retreating to your compound and smothering yourself in conspiracy theories, becasue you have become irrelevant in today's world. And the only reason I'm responding is becasue I have a personality problem of my own. I love to take fatuous people like yourself to the mat, and then smash their metaphorical faces into intellectual hamburger.
I really don't like doing it becasue it's a waste of my time, but I feel, most likely erroneously, that it's my duty. You know, something like live by the sword die by the sword. Of course you don't even realize that the intellect sword has run you through. But no matter. Others do.
Though I digress. It's sad you never learned to use logic and critical thinking in order to check your own beliefs. I assume Fox doesn't teach that? Actually, I know it doesn't.
My evidence, for one, Glenn Beck's assertions about Muslim takeovers of the US judicial system, et al., when researched, are nothing more than a textbook perfect profile of schizophrenia.
Reality check: Your beliefs do not create nor constitute truth. Hard to swallow, isn't it?
December 13, 2012 5:41pm
evidence for dwdallam latest is benghazi libya attach most of media stayed the course on blaming it on utube clip rice showed up sunday and restated it and no one challenge get out of yopur parents basement the fumes have gotten to you
December 15, 2012 1:55pm
Wow! Ddeallam didn't have to wait long for you to prove him right! I realize the Benghazi distraction is the latest shiny toy that Faux News has dangled in front of your face, but you made no effort, none, to engage him on the evidence.
December 15, 2012 2:57pm
drizzle are you really that dumb or are you paid by the dnc?
December 12, 2012 3:45pm
"conventional wisdomitis"
It's a common enough affliction.
Way to go, Mr. Hightower!
December 12, 2012 2:53pm
I want to subscribe to a newspaper. Sometimes I call up to subscribe. I can't subscribe for a newspaper. I'm told that for gigazillion dollars that I can buy meals at high-class steak houses at a discount, get a discount at a over-priced spa, which I think all of them are; I can take so many people to a playland, and get a discount book that will give me a free appetizer if I order for 40 people at one meal. I'm told that I'm getting a $120 value for $40-that's probably the appetizer. I just want to subscribe to a newspaper. I'd buy a daily newspaper, but there aren't any outdoor news racks in this area, where I can pick one up while walking my dogs-so I drive over pick up the Saturday paper for the TV guide. I'd like to subscribe to a newspaper--
December 12, 2012 1:23pm
Bravo!
I agree wholeheartedly with Hightower. The internet gave itself relevance when it brought to light, for better or for worse, undisclosed facts and alternative narratives to disclosed facts. Traditional news sources (MSM) fell into irrelevance when the same, tired, pro-corporate narratives repeated themselves day in and day out, and facts that didn't fit the narrative got short shrift.
Why consume that tired, elitist horse-shit? Meanwhile, the internet's far-and-wide news sources have indeed opened up the world and provided alternative-- and expanding--sources of facts that tend to collapse the American corporate narrative. Its apologists, naturally, consistent with their narrative seek EXTERNAL factors to blame, when the flaw is inherent to their structure, as Hightower points out.
On an autobiographical note, I reported for my college paper; I became a rip & read journalist for a time at a Top-40 radio station till I landed a job at a television station as an anchor-reporter. Wow! Do ratings and economics EVER determine "content." Demographics and the need to expand audience-share *determine* the broadcast "product." Sadly, populations age, job opportunities in the local community ebb and flow. And with those changes, the news product/content changed. Facts and a real world narrative--including macro-economic policy decisions that impacted on those demographics--counted for little; most of the time they were either too depressing or "too boring." Would this particular item "play" (as entertainment) and bring in an audience for 30 minutes? If not, it got scubbed.
The real world counted for nothing; the station's profits, now THOSE counted!
I moved on.
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Hightower.
December 12, 2012 12:31pm
"Real news" is virtually non-existent on mainstream media. Yes, they report the latest gun fueled carnage wherever it occurs. And if a "white girl/woman" is kidnapped/murdered, the "script writers" go into overtime at Fox and CNN. From our shrinking daily newspapers, to our remaining nationally published magazines, to our local and national "news affiliates," what we now get is a regular diet of "infotainment," often fed to us by attractive young men and women, whose "sole" job is to maintain ratings and bottom line profit. If you peruse Nation of Change or Truthout on a regular basis, amuse yourself sometime and see for yourself how few if "any" similaiar subjects are mentioned
on the "Nightly News," or in the pages of your local paper. The "dumbing down" of the public at large is essential for the maintanence and operation of a successful totalitarian/quasi-Fascist state. This is now where we live. You're much more likely to know the details of Lady Gaga's or Justin Bieber's latest exploits than to have an inkling of the vast spending and waste of the U.S. military establishment or have the inner workings of the financial sector explained to you. Just two examples. And I'm not quite sure I'd be exalting the "expansion" of the Orange County Register. Basically, "Fox News"...for those who still enjoy the morning paper.
December 15, 2012 9:07pm
So true and very sad that we have become so numb and dumbed down most of us don't even know what is really going on. I try and tell people that talk about how barbaric other countries are that the US is the worst. They don't believe it and get angry with me. I don't like the truth but at least I admit how messed up are supposed leaders are.
December 12, 2012 12:26pm
Let the media honchos gnash their teeth to their hearts content. It wasn't some external force, utterly beyond the control of anyone, that has caused their misfortune. It wasn't the internet or any other alternative media that screwed their collective pooch. It was the complete capitulation of editorial boards and editors to the accountants. Time was, business people stayed out of the editorial process. Conflicts of interest were less common (but not at ALL unknown.... W.R. Hearst? Anyone?), but even a grizzled pragmatic editor would view askance any attempt by the "business" side to intrude on the editorial process. That was then. Now?............. News, like every other aspect of the post-bush America, is a commodity. You and I and everyone you know is in the world view of the new economic paradigm, a commodity. We are not citizens, we are voting units. News is only a pre-packaged commodity one day being pretty much the same as any other. And since we're saving money here, how about lets not spend anything extra on "reporters" when you can get a reliable stenographer for a fraction of the cost? And the proof is in the product. Rather than investigate and try to verify the BS that is foisted off as political discourse, just have a competent steno present all competing point of views, regardless of merit. It not only reflects profit induced laziness on the part of "media" organs, it displays contempt for readers or viewers or listeners, and it displays at best indifference to democratic principles. And it's not a story we will be reading in the press. (But maybe it will run in Orange County).
December 12, 2012 11:47am
The corporate zionist media is the most regimented, control, and filtered aspect of our society. The corporate media would make Goerbbols bluse. Now they are thinking of a way to do the same with the internet. You can go months and years and not hear a single criticism or anything Israel is doing.
Working in the corporate media you seem to be given the choice of telling and living a lie or speaking the truth and leaving.
We live in a society in which the strings of the economic system is being tightened more and more. After the government and the federal reserve gave all our money to the banks they now are telling us there is a further need to cut social programs because no money is left. Trully our system is ran by an inhumane entity.
December 12, 2012 11:27am
Cancervatism and denialism go hand in hand. Hand in hand off the "cliff' is the hope.