Who Stole Television News? [View all]
Published on Tuesday, September 30, 2014
by PR Watch
Who Stole Television News?
by Joel Silberman
BREAKING NEWS—They're selling us another war on television.
As a Washington media strategist, people ask me, "Who's offering alternatives to war on the Sunday morning news shows?" As reported by the New York Times, military analysts dominating the Sunday airwaves, marshaling support for war in the Middle East, have been ex-military employed by defense industry contractors profiting from war. They appear with current administration officials/apologists, former members of the Bush Iraq War team, and politicians scoring points by being for a war on ISIS but against the president.
Dissenting voices are few: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation, Rep. Raul Grijalva and Michael Shank in The Guardian. But their viewpoint is often obliterated by the drumbeat of war. Or... they're simply not booked to appear.
Has television news failed us completely?
In today's 24-hour/7-day/22-minute news cycle, the repeated becomes the truth because everyone's saying it. The golden rule is—those with the gold rule. In television, those spending the most money, control the media narrative.
But not that much has changed. In the beginning, television was an advertising agency dominated medium. Nothing went on the air that didn't please the sponsors. Sponsors had complete control.
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