In a
recent posting, we complained about the lack of coverage by American media of the traditional, long-standing Olympic sports, notably Track & Field. We remarked that such sports as gymnastics, swimming, and beach volleyball, while themselves respectable, were emphasized disproportionately, that this was the case because NBC (National Broadcasting Network) was delivering audiences to its sponsors while disrespecting history, the perception being that few people these days would prefer Track & Field over swimming and volleyball. We will never know.
In any case, we take note of a recent Letter to the Editor in the
Los Angeles Times Sports Section which agreed with our critique of the abysmal television coverage not only of Track & Field, but of many of the other 28 sports represented at the Beijing Olympics, allowing us to understand that others may share our view. The letter, written by Ric Taylor of Los Angeles, read:
"I don't have cable, and like an idiot I tuned into NBC's Olympic coverage. I wanted to see the world's best athletes compete in 28 sports, and as usual, NBC showed me basically four: gymnastics, volleyball (indoor and beach), basketball, and swimming (including every Michael Phelps event).
This wasn't the Olympics, this was "Americans winning medals." Now excuse me, I have to go watch the closing ceremony and the last sports event of NBC's coverage--Americans playing volleyball."
The deeper point of all this is that American media has moved ever more sharply in servicing the interests of their employers--the corporate owners of most of the nation's media. Yet it is one thing to complain about an imbalance in the coverage of athletic competition, it is quite another when viewed from the perspective of political coverage: How is Change-of-Government reported by the American media? How is the United States' foreign policy covered? Is American media moved and shaken by the same corporate ownership and their interests, in this case political interests? The answer is resoundingly, "Yes."
We print below a paraphrase of an interview between media critic Robert W. McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, and Dr.
Suzi Weissman, professor of political science and Los Angeles radio host.
McChesney: I'm talking about the
political economy of the media. We must ask who are the media? What kinds of issues do they raise? Much of current over-the-air and cable television programming during prime time reveals that American viewing audiences are obsessed with celebrities, scandal, sex, and death. Of the latter, Americans have particularly supported programs dealing with the forensics of death; that is, they appear unnaturally interested in cadavers whose live bodies experienced violent death. This is unsettling. It all projects an odd panarama of the carnival and the morbid as displayed in the viewing habits of the American television audience.
Yet, from this same media, the media we depend upon to
mediate the politics and other important areas of our culture, we hear not much about the pressing needs of most Americans:
rising food and fuel prices, the 7,000 houses being repossessed daily, (that is, the plummeting economy). Few in the media discuss much the
loss of respect for the United States by other nations in the world; few discuss or analyze in a sustaining way the
environment and what sacrifices we might consider to preserve it. In fact, environmentalists are often ridiculed as "tree huggers" and the like by the right wing, corporate owned media. Would you rather drink the water overseen by a "tree hugger" or the
water downstream of a Jack Welch run company?
Even so, surveys indicate that most Americans are not enthusiastic about war and empire. They are, however, concerned about the growth of inequality and the collapse of health care system. Clearly, the Right Wing's mantra of
"Let business run everything" has been completely exposed as a non governmental, non regulated approach to running a society. (Read non productive for most Americans). The evidence of ruin lies all about us: People paying more that thirty percent of their income on rent; "
About 10.4% of the entire African-American male population in the United States aged 25 to 29 is in prison, by far the largest racial or ethnic group." (
2,299,116 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails – an increase of 1.8% from year end 2006. Yes, societies need formal governance by fairly elected representatives. Yes, civilized political cultures require regulatory bodies that function properly.
What is the responsibility of media? It is to mediate the truth of what occurs politically and otherwise in human affairs. The role of media is to define important political and social issues while placing them side-by-side with similar historical events thereby putting current events into perspective, a perspective which enables citizens to make sound decisions.
All this is not occurring. All this is not the case. What has happened to change how media works in the United States? Answer: CORPORATE CONTROL, ADVERTISING SUPPORT, and CONCENTRATED MEDIA MARKETS in which
owners mediate their own political views. The fact is journalists working for corporate owners
HAVE INTERNALIZED THE VALUES and the desired range of debate of those owners.
The fact is American journalists are largely politically liberal,
but they do not write and report the news that way; they
report it to the RIGHT because they
internalize the values of their employers, the owners of the media;
they are pointed toward asking certain kinds of questions while not asking others; they
emphasize certain themes at the expense of others); example: It is not a "legitimate" issue to debate the "right" of the United States to invade other countries.
In effect, people in power set the themes in the news cycle and how those themes will be interpreted. For example, the
United States invades Iraq by using lies and deceiving the American people, but criticizes Russia for invading Georgia.
The sustained right wing attack on journalists, saying that they report with liberal bias has left Americans believing that reportage has a left-leaning bias. The two ideas do not cohere. It is not a fact that journalists, liberal in their private views, report the news with a left-leaning bias. The opposite is true and can be shown. The point: A society can not hope to be politically literate unless it has the opportunity to experience viable, balanced journalism,
particularly at the local level.
The Internet is not necessarily
the solution to the problem. People can not simply go online and read blogs to become informed (including this blog). Blogs
are important, but they are the
improvisers of information, they
do not gather the information nor decide which themes will be emphasized. Blogs merely play off themes by repeating them and interpreting them. As we have noted, television certainly proves not the cure for these ills unless you change the programming, and this will not occur so long as corporations own the airways and choose which programming to put on the air. As we have seen,
they prefer the culture of celebrity, scandal, and cadavers.Good journalism involves journalists going after those in power on all levels. You will find a few of those journalists still working for some of the nation's large newspapers, but more certainly you find their work in small, non corporate print journals such as
The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Harper's, and such online media as
The Huffington Review, Counterpoint, and of course,
Media Matters. Finally, don't forget to read the Letters to the Editor to monitor what your fellow citizens are thinking, even if it only applies to televised coverage of the Olympic Games.
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