America's for-profit media corporations catastrophically failed us

[sharedvalues]

Link to tweet

America's for-profit media corporations failed in their duty to society in 2016 to a catastrophic degree.
There will be a reckoning.
-Eric Garland

He's talking about the Washington Post article by Palmieri, where she said the Clinton campaign tried to get the attention of the media about Russia and no one in the mainstream media was interested. And he's talking about the ratings-seeking behavior of CNN and CBS and NBC, not just Fox NC. (CBS CEO: "Trump is bad for America but great for CBS- the money is rolling in!!&quot .

Ken Tremendous (creator of Parks and Rec, an amazing piece of progressive entertainment) is on the same page:

Link to tweet

[jrthin]

1. Yes, they have. nt

[Caliman73]

2. I would certainly support a reckoning but I have my doubts.

Yellow journalism has always been around, but the advent of hyper media makes it more difficult to contain. I'd love to see a media that was beholden to the facts rather than the ratings. I am just not sure what that solution would look like.

[Docreed2003]

3. Sadly the Reagan folks killed the majority of real media with the repeal of the fairness doctrine...

From the moment he walked down that ghastly escalator to announce his run, the media fawned over every little bit of Trump news because it made them money. It's disgusting how much free publicity he received.

[sharedvalues]

4. Re-enacting the fairness doctrine would be a good step forward.

[Docreed2003]

5. Agreed!

[JCanete]

6. Yes, they failed us, but they did not fail. They did exactly what they are supposed to do.

I'd love to see a reckoning, but these are just the faces on the bigger problem. We could specifically target MSNBC or CNN or FOX or right-wing radio, but they would just be replaced by something else that is shitty unless we recognize who is supplying the incentives for that shitty journalism, and denying funding towards actual investigative journalism.

Ratings is a thing, but it isn't the biggest thing. The people they hire and what they expect of them is obviously skewed towards catering to certain foregone sensibilities.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. The media has been failing the public for years and years. But they are not only making money -

they are brainwashing the watchers....and all those ads!

We turned it all off 9 years ago and it is the BEST THING we've ever done.

[sharedvalues]

9. Us too! No TV is great for us.

Us too! No TV is great for us.

[elmac]

10. big money controlling media

as big money controlling government.

[lpbk2713]

11. That sums it all up.

"The money is rolling in!!"

The country is going to hell but as long as they are making money everything is just great.

[zentrum]

12. CNN failed

Below is from an opinion piece by James Wolcott, about the election coverage, in a recent Vanity Fair article titled aptly “Media Circus Maximus”:

“No cable-news organization disgraced it self more comprehensively than CNN. No one expects better from Fox News, but CNN used to stand for something—professional standards, stuff like that……it was slumming on the job. The President of CNN, Jeff Zucker was instrumental in the rise of Donald Trump as a media brand…[and] Under Zucker’s tenure any remnant of integrity and impartiality CNN once prided itself on is now scrap metal. CNN hired Corey Lewandowski, recall, after he was fired as Trump’s campaign manager and Lewandowski preceded to make no pretense of offering independent commentary on countless useless political panels—he functioned as an in-house hammerhead shark for the Trump campaign.

This was happening even as Lewandowski was drawing “large severance” checks from the Trump campaign, advising Trump on strategy and prepping him for debates….. flying on the Trump plane while working for the network.”

Like all of the MSM, CNN was utterly complicit. They'll doing better now because of Trumps treatment of them---but that can turn on a dime and they'll be colluding again if it serves their profit motive.

[pecosbob]

13. The mistake was

believing that corporate media was ever interested in serving the public good. Cut the cable now!

[democrank]

14. One ongoing example of media failure is CNN's willingness to invite guests like

Trump surrogates Jeffrey Lord and Jack Kingston. They flat-out lie, make excuses for anything Trump does or says, yet CNN anchors offer them up regularly. Apparently lies and excuses are worthwhile ways to use airtime.

[panfluteman]

15. Derelict Media Corporations Working Against the Good of Our Nation

Is just a symptom or particularized manifestation of a much larger and overarching problem. The world is a lot smaller now, a global village as Marshal McCluhan put it, and everything is all inter-related. In this kind of globally interdependent environment, it's now very possible, and in fact very easy, for one industry to enrich itself at the expense of the whole of the nation, of society at large, or at the expense of other industries. For example, giving special advantages or immunity to the big oil corporations and letting them off the hook lightly in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was great for oil companies like BP, but at the same time terrible for the tourist industry in the gulf coast states. This is just another reason why good, common sense regulations are now more important than ever, in spite of Republican propaganda to the contrary. We're getting screwed from all sides, in multiple ways - not just from the media in this last election, but all round.

[LiberalLovinLug]

16. K & R