Do You Think the Commercial Media Is Corrupt? Unfair? Biased?

[MineralMan]

You're probably right, but they're free to be so. They're free to write and broadcast the news in whatever way they please, whether you like it or not. The Constitution ensures that freedom in the First Amendment.

Today, someone on DU complained that the NBC News had a headline on the TV that said, "Democrats in Disarray." That prompted a call for us to "control the media." No doubt that headline is somewhat exaggerated, but guess what: The Democratic Party is in disarray. That headline is justified, based just on the debacle that took place at the Iowa caucuses and the confusion that has resulted from that. If that's not "disarray," I don't know what is.

Of course we don't like seeing headlines like that. But "controlling the media" is not possible. They will report as they see fit.

Instead, we need not to give the media reasons to say our party is in disarray. We need to do a better job with things like elections and the like.

The only way we can control the media is to be the media. But we don't own any media outlets. We don't invest in the media. We don't have a TV network to deliver news the way we want it to be seen.

Every day, many tens of millions of people in the US watch broadcast television news. The four broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC broadcast the news in the morning, in the late afternoon, and at bedtime. Those broadcast news programs have a vastly larger audience than cable news. I watch MSNBC, just like you do. But, I also watch the CBS affiliate's local and national news every morning over coffee. Then, at dinner time, I watch my local ABC affiliate's local and national news. On weekends, I watch the NBC equivalents. I watch all three. I do not watch anything on the Fox network.

So do those tens of millions of voters. So many more watch those broadcast news programs than cable news that it's not even close. If you're not watching those programs, you aren't seeing what most people are seeing. It might make you feel superior somehow, but it's not a great idea to ignore what people are seeing.

Is that broadcast network news biased? Sometimes. Is it corrupt? Maybe by the need to sell advertising. Is it unfair? Usually not, really. It covers what is happening out there, whether you like that or not. And it is watched. It is an influence on how our population thinks and votes.

So, headlines like "Democrats in Disarray" are unpleasant to see, but they're accurate and they're newsworthy. We are in disarray. We're fighting among ourselves, often cutting our own throats over small matters. Meanwhile, the Republicans are marching in lockstep with Trump. The news covers it all. The news isn't going to ignore Trump's awful celebration of the Senate's failure to remove him from office. The media did not acquit him, but they will sure report the fact that the Senate did. You don't like it? Well, that's unfortunate, but it happened.

Do you want control over the media? Then become the media. Start a new network that reports the news as you'd like it to be seen. Sell ads to pay for the fantastically enormous costs of operating a nationwide television network. Invest in it. Watch it. But, you can't control the news networks that already exist. You just can't. And most voters are watching those networks.

Don't want to see headlines like, "Democrats in Disarray?" Then don't screw up in Iowa so badly that nobody trusts the results, if you're the Democratic Party. Because the media that exists is going to report on that across all of the news networks. If you don't own them, you cannot control them.

[kacekwl]

1. Of course they are.

That's one of the reasons trump is in the White House. Probably the main reason.

[MineralMan]

2. You didn't read the whole post, did you?

[kacekwl]

54. Yes I did. I just answered your question.

Democrats in disarray is misleading. What is in disarray was the poor planning that caused this f-up. Not to mention trumpkins jamming the phone !ine. The Democratic Party , the Democratic candidates are not in disarray as the headline suggests.

[Mister Ed]

3. There you go, talking sense again. n/t

[MineralMan]

4. I try to, anyway.

[Hoyt]

5. Not really. Stupid and/or racist voters/viewers are the problem. trump's exposure should turn

people off. Unfortunately, far too many people support the Racist-in-Chief and those like him.

I used to listen to Air America -- with Al Franken, R Maddow, R Rhodes, etc. -- but not enough people tuned in to make it viable.

I'm convinced if we got rid of FOX, Rush Limbaugh, etc., we'd still have just as many ignorant white wing voters.

[MineralMan]

6. FOX and AM Right Wing Radio Are a Pestilence!

However, we can't shut them down, due to the First Amendment.

As you say, Air America was an enormous bust. It's easier to attract an audience of haters than an audience of decent people, apparently.

So, we gave up. But, before we gave up, we also didn't listen to Air America. No listeners, no advertisers. No advertisers, no money to keep the thing going.

ABC, NBC, and CBS try to present the news with as little bias as they can. News, itself, though, is often made by biased people. The Right is biased. So is the Left. We're all biased, really.

Progressives don't seem to be able to create a news network and keep it operating. Maybe we should figure out how to do that. I don't know. If we had such a network, and if people consumed it, then we could present our own version of the news, with our own biases.

[Walleye]

8. I think it is because liberals tend to listen to music on the radio.

[Skidmore]

7. You know, MM, you are absolutely right.

And then I recall the infighting and grousing around Air America, which didn't thrive because it was never left enough when the majority of those broadcasters were taking real chances a difficult time. The same is true for MSNBC, which has some fine investigative reporters and has been willing to fact check over the last few years. We don't have that many outlets that are readily available with a more liberal mass appeal. We shoot our own by insisting that screamers drown out reasonable voices. You can't insist that others honor free speech when you won't yourself.

[MineralMan]

11. Thanks. MSNBC is OK, but doesn't reach enough of an audience.

Besides, we have people who constantly grouse about MSNBC, too, for allowing some more conservative voices to participate in its pundit discussion programming. You can't simply ignore the other side and call yourself unbiased.

But, only a limited number of people watch MSNBC, really, especially compared to the broadcast network news programming. There is a lot of scorn for those broadcast networks, but they have a hugely larger audience than any cable network, especially when you combine them into a single news audience.

Fox News Network isn't actually news at all. It's all biased programming. It has its audience, that eats up everything it sees there. That audience will never watch an unbiased news outlet. It always seeks confirmation of its own opinion. Really, we all do that to some degree or another.

So, we have MSNBC to watch, but it rarely actually does any straight news reporting. For that, we have only the broadcast news on the three alphabet networks. I exclude Fox, although its local affiliate stations don't do too badly on local news coverage. Still, many of us take great price in never watching network news. Why that is, I don't know.

We also have newspapers, many of which generally report the news fairly well. If you ignore the opinion and editorial pages, you can find out what's going on, both locally and nationally. Good newspapers even try to present both sides even on their opinion pages.

A lot of people confuse opinion with news. That has gotten worse because of the 24/7 news cycle on cable networks. Most of what MSNBC and Fox News Network present is opinion, rather than news. The two are very much unlike each other, but both are primarily sources of opinion, not news.

We see a lot of news stories on DU, but we also see even more opinion pieces posted here. Politico is not news. The Hill is not news. almost everything posted here from many sources is opinion, slanted to the left to some degree or another.

Raw news is getting harder and harder to find. That's what interests me. I'm perfectly capable of coming up with my own opinion about that news. I don't need any help there.

[jmg257]

9. Excellent post. hear hear!!

[Hortensis]

10. Yes, we KNOW many are corrupt and biased, AP, NYT, CNN, MSNBC.

Many others are also working to keep Republicans in power and grow that power.

This has been studied, measured, analyzed, reported on, peer reviewed. Some specific names of major and minor actors have been revealed, like Dean Baquet, the NYT executive editor. Plus, some actions by the media I named around the 2016 election (as our victories apparently caused many to put their careers and reputations on the line) were so blatant that no study was needed to reveal them.

Such as the 100% corrupt NYT article a week before the election informing the nation that the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation had found nothing of significance and implying it was wrapping up, when it was actually a major operation with hundreds of agents assigned.

Or the AP article and post card (those big black squares that pop up on the screen) they blanketed the nation with that claimed numbers to prove Hillary as SoS required donations to the Clinton Foundation from foreign dignitaries if they wanted to meet with her. The numbers were so blatantly phony that it wasn't up a half hour before the uproar began. The AP left it all out there on hundreds of millions of computers, in almost every newspaper in the nation, for either 10 days or 2 weeks.

But real numbers calculated for the all-day/every day biased coverage and outright smears of Democrats, especially our presidential candidates, from these outlets are published in scholarly papers.

We see the results here every day in people whose faith in Democrats has been destroyed, who in spite of all they should know have no idea who we really are or what we really stand for. The bombardment of lies is that old and that constant. We saw it in the children who cheered in theaters when aliens blew up the White House 25 years ago, many of whom don't vote because "both parties do it." (Bernie Sanders)

And while we're on the subject, candidates who feed off this massive deceit about us, notably including populist leaders Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, owe most of their success to corrupt media using them to affirm their own deceptions, disinformation and outright lies about the Democratic Party.

As for what we can do, we can start soaking up more reliable information, especially about who we are and what we believe in, reliably demonstrated by our accomplishments, and stop soaking up lies. If you know it's a dirty source, don't open it or turn it on. If you know it's a dirty candidate, turn him off, close articles promoting lies for him, and cut off his access to you.

[pwb]

12. You mean like when they talk like acquittal erases Impeachment? yeah.

Media gets money from me for wifi and subscriptions, Money from advertisers, money from elections of both political parties, they get money from all of us and what did they do? they gave and continue to give us donald trump every day, all of them social, cable, broadcast? Not one day without something, anything Trump. The Media gives trump an orgasm every time they say his name. Broadcast stations owned by Sinclair broadcasting read prepared political talking points so there is that?

[MineralMan]

13. Every President is news. Everything the President does is news.

Any President. Every President.

It's up to us to interpret what a President does, but what the President does is always news.

In our lifetimes, two Presidents have been impeached. That was news in both Clinton's and Trump's impeachments. Both were also acquitted by the Senate by a narrow margin. Those acquittals were also news. How does a news outlet not report such major events?

Clinton gave a 2-minute apology after his acquittal. Trump gave a 1-hour insane diatribe. Both were live on television as they happened, because they were news. It is up to the audience to interpret that news.

You are confusing news with what you want to hear about. News doesn't care about what you want. It is reporting what happened.

[pwb]

15. That is just the way Trump wants it? Control.

I don't give a rats ass about the trash that comes out of trumps mouth. That is not news and should not be repeated as NEWS.

[MineralMan]

17. It is not news you wish to consume. However, it is still news.

When a President speaks or does something, it is news. Always. You might not like what the President said or did, but that's irrelevant, really. It is news nevertheless.

That is simply a fact. And that fact will not change, even though the name of the President will, in the end.

[pwb]

24. It use to be important to listen to Presidents.

But now? Golfing and calling people names is not news to me and that is a fact.

[Johonny]

14. I think the media is not the media. I do not believe freedom of the press, means conglomerate

corporations that control most of the information flow and talking points that travel in the general comversation, and often label entertainment as information.

It is unrealistic to think average Americans are going to start news networks or major news papers. I also think it's unrealistic your going to get a plethora of different ideas and ideals portrayed in the news, if the sources are owned by a handful of people. I do not think the founding fathers foresaw conglomerate mass media newscorporations.

[MineralMan]

16. Here's the thing, though. You can start your own media outlet by

creating and writing a blog. On it, you can write anything you wish. You can even monetize it with advertising, if you like, as one DUer here does and is frequently criticized for doing so. Nobody can force you to stop doing that. If you attract a large enough audience, you can reach a sizable group.

On the other hand, a nationwide television network is a billion dollar enterprise. It's not something an individual can create, unless that individual is a billionaire or can attract enough advertisers to pay for it to operate.

Newspapers and magazines are folding daily and ceasing publication. Why? Because they are not financially sound. Publishing a newspaper is a costly thing to do, and those costs have to be paid. Advertisers have abandoned print media, because it doesn't produce enough results for them in today's consumer economy. You could start a newspaper, but funding it is the problem. Paying your staff, buying paper, printing costs, and much more can't be ignored.

News is expensive. You need reporters on the scene. You need editors. You need photographers and videographers. You need a radio or television station, an expensive, and extensive website, or a printing press to get your news out. There is no news organization that has just one person behind it, and everyone has to be paid.

The founders ensured "freedom of the press," but didn't define what the press was. In those days, the press was some guy in a building with a printing press, like Ben Franklin. Even then, however, someone had to pay for the paper, the ink, the printing press, etc. The population was tiny back in 1776, actually. As it grew, so did the costs of delivering the news.

And yet, the press is still the press. The media are still the media. That hasn't changed. Someone still has to pay for it. The only model that really works is advertising as a means of paying for it. The government can't do it. That would be a conflict of interest, you see. So, the press and media must be independent, but still have to pay for themselves.

There is no free press when it comes to meeting the costs. The only freedom is the freedom to publish what you wish to publish. That is guaranteed. The rest is up to those who deliver the information.

[Boomerproud]

18. Not only are they bought and paid for

The art and practice of journalism is gone. All that's left are performers. Lazy mannequins.

[MineralMan]

20. No, journalism is not gone.

It's still operating, but you're not going to see it unless you look for it and ignore all the opinion writing and talking heads.

Read the news section of any major newspaper. You'll find news there, written by journalists. They're still out there, but you're watching and reading something else. The same thing applies to local and broadcast network news. Skip the opinion and see the reporting. The news is still being gathered and reported, but you're watching something else.

Journalism is one of the poorest-paying jobs there is for the education required to work as a journalist. The news gatherers and reporters are mostly anonymous. It is only when you become a pundit, an editorial writer, or a talking head on television that you get paid well. But, the journalists are still there and still doing what they've always done. You just don't know who they are, because they're not celebrities.

[Wellstone ruled]

19. Your last

paragraph says it all. If your do not train your Precinct persons,this is what happens. If you do not have a pretested Info gathering plan in place,this is what happens.

Like you say,if you want different headlines,start your own Media Company. Media just repeats what is on the AP wire and Reuter's wire service.

[MineralMan]

21. Thanks. Iowa was news because it was SNAFU FUBAR.

Train wrecks are also news. Murders make headlines. Idiot Presidents rambling on incoherently are always newsworthy.

We don't like the news. That's hardly surprising. It's mostly bad news.

[Wellstone ruled]

23. Major FUBAR.

My Spouse said,watch for that Phone App to be compromised by the Orange Anus and his Crew.

[apcalc]

28. Trolls majorly clogged the phone lines .

[Wellstone ruled]

31. All boils down to one person.

Troy Price.

The Democratic Party of Iowa,fortunately has time to right the ship. Smelled a rat when the Orange Anus went to Iowa last week.

[VOX]

22. As of of 2019, 90% of the United States's media is controlled by five media conglomerates.

These mega-entities are AT&T, Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS, and Fox Corp.

Compare this current situation with 1984, when some fifty independent companies owned the majority of media interests within the United States.

This concentration of media ownership raises the issue (repeatedly) of whether monopolistic control of information can be fully accountable in serving the public interest.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

25. The media is corporate-owned

it follows the money, ultimately IMHO

[MineralMan]

27. Pretty much everything commercial is corporate owned.

No news there.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

49. Right. No news there.

Just saying.

[apcalc]

26. Biased for sure. Gawd knows ya gotta be a white man to get good press.

[at140]

29. Media in general thrives on making news sound sensational

because boring news will not pay the bills. So always use liberal amount of salt.

[MineralMan]

32. Yes, of course.

We all have to think about what we see, hear, and read. We always have had to do that.

[njhoneybadger]

30. Whatever it takes to keep their ratings up

[redstatebluegirl]

33. Great post, I love some sanity now and then.

[Kurt V.]

35. msm behaves the way they do bc of government policy. They're been deregulated like

so many other industries

[Mosby]

36. What's wrong with greatly expanding PBS and npr?

Every American should have access to round the clock non-profit news on tv and radio. We could fund it for the price of one f35.

[MineralMan]

39. You are aware, of course that corporate sponsorship keeps those alive, right.

Along with some government funds, although those are drying up.

[Mosby]

41. So change it. Take away the corporate "gifts".

[MineralMan]

45. How would you do that?

Anyhow, if that money dried up, almost all of those stations would go off the air. All have staffs that have to be paid, broadcast facilities that have to be maintained, and many other costs. I suspect that most of us have no idea what the actual costs are for a typical NPR or PBS station.

Viewer and listener donations don't even come close to covering the costs. I have friends who work for public radio or PBS stations. They're underpaid and always worried about the survival of their stations.

So, how would you change it while maintaining the needed funding?

[treestar]

37. It's the influence that is the problem.

people could think for themselves rather than taking up the talking heads' assertions.

I do disagree when on DU you see the statements to the effect that the Democrats are weak, and why aren't they pounding on this or that? They could be, they just don't get the coverage.

I was just thinking of how Dotard's primary challenger gets no coverage at all.

If they chose, they could go on about what a danger he is with headlines like, "Will Trump lose the nomination," but they have their reasons why they don't.

[MineralMan]

42. But, see, Trump doesn't really have any primary challengers.

So to say that he does would be fake news, wouldn't it.

Our local media in Minnesota definitely covered the story about the MN GOP keeping all competitors to Trump off the GOP primary ballot. It was news for a couple of days here. Apparently, though, Republicans are fine with that. There was no opposition to a single candidate ballot.

You're right, though, it's up to us to think for ourselves. Most of us here on DU do exactly that.

[SWBTATTReg]

38. Thanks for the series of well written articles on media, MM. Interesting reads and again, to the...

point.

[MineralMan]

43. Thank you!

[Caliman73]

40. I am surprised this has not been flagged.

I agree with everything you said. I am just surprised someone hasn't reported it as "bashing the Democratic Party" or something.

The media is biased toward what will bring in the most viewers. Conflict and stories of "chaos" bring in the most viewers. Of course the owners of much of the media are very wealthy and would likely have bias toward policies that would allow them to keep their wealth and add to it.

Unfortunately, as you said, there was disarray in Iowa and the Democratic candidates are still fighting each other to be the one who fights Trump in the General.

I understand the impulse to want to make the media report only "important information" but that is the problem. When a story gets a lot of eyes, clicks, sells papers, etc... then that is important. We have an idiot entertainer as president and he is a 24/7 train wreck that brings in ratings. Important is relative to who the audience is.

I would prefer more technical, boring news that was informative about policy and issues we face, but I know that type of news programming would not be on the air very long because people would not watch boring stuff.

[MineralMan]

44. I'd be surprised if it was.

But, I have no idea.

[Baclava]

52. It would have been in the Primaries forum! and the jury would have a dozen alerts by now, lol

[Caliman73]

55. I try to stay out of that place.

[Baclava]

56. Bring your best walking on eggshells shoes! U be like, 'hey, ur guy is wearing scuffed shoes' Alert!

[hunter]

46. My wife and I quit television more than ten years ago. I read all my news.

It's not because it makes me feel "superior" in some way, it was for my own peace of mind.

I'm also cheap. I'd rather spend whatever money cable television costs on e-books and magazine subscriptions.

Netflix is $8.99 a month and newer movies are available at the neighborhood Redbox for less than two dollars a night. That's more than enough television for us.

Television made Trump and it wasn't just Fox News. That's unforgivable.

In any case I think traditional television and radio are dying. My adult children, and my nephews and nieces, pay no attention to either. They really can't imagine sitting down at a fixed time to watch "the news" or any other programming. In their cars they listen to music or podcasts via Bluetooth from their phones. Besides Netflix I have no idea which streaming services our kids subscribe to.

My oldest kid is married and lives in another city. Their television is connected to a Chromecast dongle. That's it. They have no DVD player, no antenna, no cable, no remote control. They control their television with their phones. My father-in-law found this confusing the first time he was visiting and wanted to watch "the news." We might have accomplished this using his phone but the moment passed and he decided to read instead.

I'm lucky not to have the Fox News debates in our family. My parents, and my wife's parents watch MSNBC and the local news.

[superpatriotman]

47. Lazy

And inept

[MineralMan]

48. Well, that's true, at least in part.

After getting my degree in English and deciding to write for a living, I applied for a job at a regional newspaper. They offered to hire me as a reporter, based on writing samples, but at a salary that was so low that I took a job working a lube rack and tire bay for the local county government's vehicle maintenance garage. It paid twice as much.

While I did that job, I started working on developing a writing career as a freelance journalist. It took a couple of years before I was earning enough to quit being a grease monkey, and a couple of more years before I was making a good living writing for major magazines.

Entry level jobs in the print media business are not attractive. They just aren't. I didn't investigate working for the local TV station, though, so I don't know what they paid entry-level news writers.

[GeorgeGist]

50. n1

Does not equal disarray.

[stillcool]

51. it's been consistent for years...

they know what they are going to report, and how they're going to report it. They choose what pictures to use, what guests to have on, and what they're going to discuss. I don't think of that as news any more, it's commentary. The people who flush out, and write the news, don't even enter the equation. And it's purposeful. The ratings song doesn't play well any more. Way back when, Phil Donahue was fired, while his show had great ratings. Rachel has great ratings, but then, as now, it means nothing. The corporations that own our media, are not driven by making a few bucks. Their take is much, much greater. They do influence on a grand scale.

[cachukis]

53. The media is us.

The cheetah has adapted to be where it’s at. It is a refined being, but the gazelle it pursues is pretty good at escape.

Apes, too, have been around for a long time. So have a multitude of hominids that have faced the anomalies of extinction from biological and even sociological difficulties.

The offshoots of our existence are what mostly pleasure us; their unwanted, unexpected side effects, we tolerate. We have to get along. We write documents, enact laws that try to ameliorate and coach.

We defer to wisdom, because we continue to make so many mistakes. Anyone with a measure of truth in their remarks, proffers an escape from the drudgery of failure. Failure is either a teacher or a burden.

The media are us. It is a means to share information. They are, in spite of themselves sometimes, the teachers we all gravitate to. We all support them and can use them wisely or not. They are our entrepreneurial spirit. They cannot survive on limited numbers. They have burdened themselves with investors who want to turn a profit.

Thankfully, philanthropy exists to keep art on display. Sadly, the average visitor spends fifteen to twenty seconds at a painting. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/travel/the-art-of-slowing-down-in-a-museum.html

How do democrats, who generally want the best for their society compete with those who know what’s best for their society? It is all hashed out in the media. It is us.