I've written countless times before about how the corporate media's coverage of politics deifies trivia over substance. Here's yet another example.
Guess what the latest tempest in a teapot has the insular little world of yapping heads in a tizzy.
Fox News [sic] taunted Chelsea Clinton for explicit refusing to answer questions about her father's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Apparently, the corporate media feels that the ten-year old story has been ignored, swept under the rug, not at all dealt with by the political class.
And while it's easy to pick on Fox News [sic], the 'story' was also harped on by CNN*, which may stink but remains the least bad TV news broadcaster in the country.
(*-That's the always disappointing CNN Domestic, not the fairly decent CNN International)
Why should the corporate media focus on trivial stuff like the threat of stagflation and skyrocketing food prices when there are juicy sex scandals to titilate the public with?
9 comments:
I don't watch TV, but listen to the radio quite a bit.
BBC Int'l is more rightist than you would think. I usualy agree more with CBC and NPR.
Unfortunately, I think both the right and left have decided the only way to balance the news is to have different networks skew the news oppositely. I mean like FoxNews' deluded mantra 'Fair and Balanced'; I believe they think that means trying to tip the scales back to the right by being as 'rightly' biased as possible.
Balance, regarding the news in my mind, should mean neutral.
Although, I must say Renegade Eye, the news isn't something I usually 'agree' with left or right. I didn't think that was the point unless you mean Op/Ed.
Jim, I've always contended that the TV networks (cable and 'traditional') are first and foremost corporate, before they are left and right. Even the only overtly ideological network (Fox) is that way because of corporate decision making in order to cater to a segment of the market. As appendages to a corporate behemoth, the networks are very risk averse (which is why you rarely see any outside the establishment get an air time, whether they're Ron Paul or Ralph Nader0. The networks are also very homogenized, which is why they all talk about the same irrelevant tempests in teapots.
Furthermore, I disagree with you that news media should be neutral. And frankly, I'm not sure you do either. For example, when 9/11 happened, the news media did not cover it as dispassionate observers. If it were neutral, then it would've been treated no differently than any other event where a few thousand people died... in other words, far less so than, say, the 3 million (more than 3000 every half week for the last decade) who've died in the DR Congo due to war and disease. But I think most Americans accepted this non-neutral treatment of the 9/11 deaths. I also don't remember many Americans complaining about non-neutral coverage of Saddam's regime, which non-neutral descriptions like dictator and butcher.
News media should pursue the whole truth. I don't think it should necessarily be neutral. I think it should be objective.
A great example to illustrate this. During the Balkans war, 90 percent of atrocities were committed by the Serbs. But the neutral reporting you espoused for the most part blandly stated, "Both sides are committing atrocities."
Now that statement is factually correct, but is it really the whole truth?
I'm sure some US soldiers committed war crimes during WWII but consider a statement, "Both Americans and the Nazis committed atrocities." That might be neutral. That might be factually correct. But I'd hardly consider that fair or objective.
I want reporters to tell me what they see and know. I want them to find out as much as they can. If their efforts show that one side predominantly is doing bad things, then I don't want them to neuter the power and truth of their reporting with some bland, half-truthful neutrality.
Brian,
I'm not sure why you're parsing words here. It was my understanding that neutral and objective, when referring to subjects like the news, both mean unbiased, uncolored and unprejudiced.
"News media should pursue the whole truth."
That begs the question: Whose whole truth? Unfortunately, your whole truth is possibly quite different than someone else's. Should journalists give us facts or determine truth? Not to get too philosophical about it, but facts and truth are different. When facts are presented to us, in an unbiased fashion, we can make up our own minds.
To some, the overt bias before the Iraq invasion was 'truth' and there it fueled an immoral catastrophe.
Whose truth is the real truth?
And, I forgot to add, I don't mind Opinions and Editorializing. I write quite a few opinions myself. I just want them labeled as such, not as 'news'.
Jim,
I think the difference between neutral and objective is not merely semantic and is very important. I believe it has huge implications for how journalism is practiced. This is why I've written about it many times.
At present, standard journalism is practiced with neutrality. The Recipe is like this:
a) Introduction of issue
b) Comments by boilerplate liberal
c) Countercomments by boilerplate conservative
d) Conclusion that does little more than re-state boilerplate liberal and boilerplate conservative opinions
(obviously b and c can be in reverse order, but by this Recipe, they must be of comparable time/word count)
You can see how limiting this is. Everything is homogenized. Everything is restricted to establishment opinion. Nothing is put into context. Even the strict facts you crave are very limited and embedded within one point of view or another.
To me, neutrality is presenting everything as equal even when it's not what the journalist observes.
Objectivity means presenting things fairly (and yes, this is always debated) based on what s/he sees or is told.
To me, neutrality is artificial. It often limits itself to partial truth because everything has to be 50-50.
Objectivity is organic. It respects the judgement of the journalists, which is why they exist in the first place. It reports the whole truth as the reporter sees it.
Again, refer to the examples I gave.
"90 pct of civilians killed during the Balkans' wars were killed by Serbs."
"Both sides killed civilians."
Both of these statements are factually correct. By my understanding of the terms, the first is objective. The second is neutral. Both are facts. Both statements are true. But wouldn't you agree that one provides a deeper understanding of the circumstances? Wouldn't you agree that one provides a more full truth? I'd contend that the neutral statement betrays a bias by implicitly equating very unequal situations, by bleaching the nuance out of the reporting.
This is why I think mainstream journalism (esp. TV) in this country is so disappointing. Neutrality renders so much reporting into mere transcription journalism. Is TV news really any more informative than CSPAN, which is great for background but is not journalism?
"Democrats claim x. Republicans claim y." Well, who's right? Maybe this isn't always clear but you can seek broader points of view to make the information more full. What about good government groups, what do they think? What about Libertarians? Progressives? Citizens groups? Scientists? Other experts?There are not two sides to every story. Often, there are more. Neutrality erases these nuances into a flavorless, nutritionless mush.
This lack of substance and depth from neutral transcription journalism creates a vacuum that sadly has been filled by yap radio and TV, blogs and other sources of opinion which certainly have a role but are often nothing more than echo chambers.
And how you define unbiased? Is it unbiased (and a self-fulfilling prophecy) that the news media decrees that certain candidates are serious and merit coverage and other candidates are not serious and don't merit coverage? Can you say for certain that Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's or whomever else's poll numbers and vote totals wouldn't rise if their positions on issues were given as much coverage as Obama, Clinton and McCain? Aren't they prejudicing the race by giving an avalanche of coverage to a few and ignoring the rest? Are they not coloring people's perceptions by implying that only three candidates are worth talking and caring about?
Brian,
I think that as long as you see such a distinction between 'neutral' and 'objective', we will never be able to discuss this in a constructive way.
I disagree with you. I'll leave it at that.
Jim,
The dictionary definitions that I found of the two words are as follows:
Neutral, adj.: not aligned with or supporting any side or position in a controversy
Objective, adj.: not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts
I accept these definitions and believe that as they apply to journalism, there is a subtle but important difference.
Neutral means not appearing to take sides so the presentation of evidence has to be 50-50 (or otherwise evenly split).
Objective means presenting the evidence as you find it even if the preponderence of what you find is for or against one particular side.
If you disagree, I'd be happy to hear why you think I'm wrong. There's no reason why the discussion couldn't be constructive. It's been so far.
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