For all of the talk of Fox News being biased or pushing a conservative agenda, how can you find out if Rupert Murdoch is trying to shape the public's perceptions? You could ask him.
He was rated last year as number two (behind only Steve Jobs) on Fortune's 25 most powerful people in business for his worldwide influence via News Corp. He has a powerful influence most facets of the media industry.
If you don't like what he has to say, you'll have to do more than just avoid Fox News Channel. You couldn't watch The National Geographic Channel or local baseball games. No more Simpsons or American Idol either. And some movies would be out too-- Borat and Fight Club, Garfield, Juno, Marley & Me (book and movie). No to HarperCollins-owned books by Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Shel Silverstein. No to The Wall Street Journal and the Dow Jones. And now, even no to MySpace.
And although he's 77, with total worldwide assets of $62 billion, don't count on him slowing down any time soon.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Are moles and pins really the biggest issues?
I am continually amazed at the 'stories' that the media choose to cover; so often the topics are not relevant to peoples' lives, and aren't by any stretch constructive information. This is especially true now with the presidential race making up so much of the coverage.
Example 1: How many hours of coverage were devoted to Barack Obama NOT wearing a flag pin at a certain photo-op? His choice of lapel adornment doesn't affect his ability to be president, nor do I believe it reflects a secret inner aversion to America. But the pundits had air time to fill, so away they spun.
Example 2: John McCain can't be president because he's dying of skin cancer. Or at least that seems to be the message sent by the mainstream media back in July when he had a mole removed. Andrew Romano blogged about this 'event' being blown out of proportion, citing a Washington Post item that wondered "whether the 'mole like' skin has any long term ramifications on the campaign." How could it possibly?
Unless he's dying.
Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, wrote this week about the media's roll in deciding what's talked about. "The 24/7 news cycle--cable television, the Internet, the blogosphere--has the effect of trivializing big stories and making big stories out of trivial ones." So in the end, instead of engaging in issues like America's presence in Iraq or how to stop the mortgage meltdown, we're hearing about how a man is unfit for the presidency because he forgot to put on his flag pin.
A pin that was probably made in China anyway.
Now there's a cable news-worthy story.
Example 1: How many hours of coverage were devoted to Barack Obama NOT wearing a flag pin at a certain photo-op? His choice of lapel adornment doesn't affect his ability to be president, nor do I believe it reflects a secret inner aversion to America. But the pundits had air time to fill, so away they spun.
Example 2: John McCain can't be president because he's dying of skin cancer. Or at least that seems to be the message sent by the mainstream media back in July when he had a mole removed. Andrew Romano blogged about this 'event' being blown out of proportion, citing a Washington Post item that wondered "whether the 'mole like' skin has any long term ramifications on the campaign." How could it possibly?
Unless he's dying.
Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, wrote this week about the media's roll in deciding what's talked about. "The 24/7 news cycle--cable television, the Internet, the blogosphere--has the effect of trivializing big stories and making big stories out of trivial ones." So in the end, instead of engaging in issues like America's presence in Iraq or how to stop the mortgage meltdown, we're hearing about how a man is unfit for the presidency because he forgot to put on his flag pin.
A pin that was probably made in China anyway.
Now there's a cable news-worthy story.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
"Taking aim" at hurricane coverage
Watching the cable news coverage of Hurricane Ike the past few days, I've been amazed anew at how sensational it all is. I was with my Mom this weekend and she is a voracious televised news consumer. All of the news channels are programmed into the remote under 'favorites' so she can scroll through more easily. Needless to say I saw A LOT of the coverage and from different stations.
The Weather Channel was calling in all of their 'experts' and switting between their four meteorologist reporting from Texas. Then, what all the headline writers were waiting for happened: CNN.com reports that one person drowned off the coast of Texas, and Ike officially became a "deadly" hurricane. Then when the National Weather Service said that some families in some parts of Texas would face "certain death" if they didn't evacuate, several of the news stations seized on that. More than one made it their banner on the bottom of the screen, so that even if you were flicking by the channels casually, you couldn't miss the word "death" jumping out at you.
I noticed that the headline writers had a tendency to personify the hurricane, a trend that started around the time of WWII when hurricanes were first being named. Headlines on the channels said things like 'Ike takes aim at...' or 'threatens', or USA Today said Ike was "marching" inward. Other sources reported on Ike's 'punches' and his 'wrath'. Our culture likes everything to be a narrative, and every good story needs a good villain. Personifying a hurricane enables you to give it motivations and intentions, and it certainly makes it more dramatic. Having a storm that 'targets' Texas is much more interesting than one that is merely headed that direction.
The news channels try to write the most ominous headlines to grab your attention when you flick by, and then once you choose their station, they pack their crawl full of sensational phrases and comments, and show you their reporters stationed in the heart of the storm braving the elements. As my mom flipped through her favorites on the remote, it seemed to be a competition as to which channel could be the most dramatic and exciting. If it seemed over-the-top, it's because the stations know how to get our attention: we watch drama. We stop on the channel whose headline includes Ike 'slamming,' 'ravaging,' destroying,' or 'wreaking devastation,' and whose footage includes collapsed buildings and a dumpster floating down the street (Weather Channel, for the record). The more extreme or bizarre, the more we watch.
As MSNBC switches between news stories and their hurricane graphic sweeps across the screen (accompanied by a whooshing sound), I can't help but think that I'll miss my new friend Ike, whom I've come to know so well recently. Maybe if we're lucky, another deadly hurricane will be born, to take aim at us and wreak some devastation. That would make for compelling television.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
“We criticize yet we consume"
“Gallup Poll (Jones, 2004) reported that
54% of Americans had even a ‘fair amount of trust and confidence in the media’
49% think media news organizations are ‘highly professional’
39% think the media are ‘moral’
Media consumption is a two way street. The media can produce all the irrelevant or inaccurate content they want, but we can’t lay the blame entirely on them if we keep watching. If a cable news channel airs a story about Celebrity X and it gets good ratings, then we are in effect giving them permission—even encouragement—to keep more similar stories coming. Is it the fault of the news stations as the suppliers? Yes, to a large degree. But we are also culpable because our choices create the demand.
Many people counted in the 54% of Americans who don’t even have a “fair amount of trust and confidence in the media” are still media consumers. I would bet most of the people polled who don’t trust the media are not worried about they themselves being corrupted by the media. This appears to be an instance of the “third-person” effect Stanley Baran writes about in Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture.
Baran says that we “disregard media’s power through the third-person effect—the common attitude that others are influenced by media messages but that we are not. That is, we are media literate enough to understand the influence of mass communication on the attitudes, behaviors, and values of others, but not self-aware or honest enough to see its influence on our lives." (p30) Most people seem to be wary of the morality of the news, but don’t see how it affects their own morality.
If we keep seeing stories about Muslim extremists, that may affect our attitudes towards Muslims in general, albeit slowly and subtly. If you ask someone, they’ll probably say that they know not all Muslims are terrorists, but who can say if their opinions haven’t been subconsciously affected by what they’ve seen on TV. So while people may decry the media as morally derisive, until we admit that it may be affecting ourselves as well, and start altering our behavior accordingly, we’ll continue to give tacit approval to the news media.
By continuing to watch, we’re saying “we like this, give us more”. If we continue to “criticize yet consume” we are no better than political dissenters who don’t vote. It’s the basic economic principle of supply and demand; our end of the bargain is simple enough: decrease demand. Turn the channel. Or turn the TV off. I have a “fair amount of confidence” that that would send the message.
54% of Americans had even a ‘fair amount of trust and confidence in the media’
49% think media news organizations are ‘highly professional’
39% think the media are ‘moral’
Media consumption is a two way street. The media can produce all the irrelevant or inaccurate content they want, but we can’t lay the blame entirely on them if we keep watching. If a cable news channel airs a story about Celebrity X and it gets good ratings, then we are in effect giving them permission—even encouragement—to keep more similar stories coming. Is it the fault of the news stations as the suppliers? Yes, to a large degree. But we are also culpable because our choices create the demand.
Many people counted in the 54% of Americans who don’t even have a “fair amount of trust and confidence in the media” are still media consumers. I would bet most of the people polled who don’t trust the media are not worried about they themselves being corrupted by the media. This appears to be an instance of the “third-person” effect Stanley Baran writes about in Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture.
Baran says that we “disregard media’s power through the third-person effect—the common attitude that others are influenced by media messages but that we are not. That is, we are media literate enough to understand the influence of mass communication on the attitudes, behaviors, and values of others, but not self-aware or honest enough to see its influence on our lives." (p30) Most people seem to be wary of the morality of the news, but don’t see how it affects their own morality.
If we keep seeing stories about Muslim extremists, that may affect our attitudes towards Muslims in general, albeit slowly and subtly. If you ask someone, they’ll probably say that they know not all Muslims are terrorists, but who can say if their opinions haven’t been subconsciously affected by what they’ve seen on TV. So while people may decry the media as morally derisive, until we admit that it may be affecting ourselves as well, and start altering our behavior accordingly, we’ll continue to give tacit approval to the news media.
By continuing to watch, we’re saying “we like this, give us more”. If we continue to “criticize yet consume” we are no better than political dissenters who don’t vote. It’s the basic economic principle of supply and demand; our end of the bargain is simple enough: decrease demand. Turn the channel. Or turn the TV off. I have a “fair amount of confidence” that that would send the message.
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