Dan Rather slams the media

[pru]

Go Dan, excellent speech:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/0 ... 05950.html

Net neutrality is even more crucial now that corporations and our government control mainstream media. Let your representatives know it's important to you, you lazy sacks of shit... or just keep those blinders on.

[Andrew]

I'm not clicking that link.

[pru]

it's a really good speech, but you can also get some of the jist of it from the text in the link.

I wish more people were interested in what is *really* going on... and how the mainstream media is merely a tool of big corps.

[Crankmas]

NBC is owned by G.E. do you need any further knowldge than this to see that "news" is what someone with an agenda deems the news to be?

[pru]

Crank, people are dumb. Evidenced by how often the press is still referred to as "the liberal media."

[ahab]

where's day?

[Wes]

You are soooo cute when you think you can make a difference, or that news on the web is any different the what you get on tv. Do you not think they look at their page hits / google ad stats any differently then NBC looks at nelsion ratings? Teh purpose of news is not to inform, but to get ads in front of people, and the best way to do that is to scare people. Traditional news does it with terrorism/gas prices/etc, while web news likes the government conspiracy/traditional media basis angle.

[Crankmas]

another casuality of the Bush administration? Wasn't Rather the one hammered by the story on Bush that circulated about his national guard service or similar "so what" topic, anyway Rather came away with do on his face and the news biddness has been trying to find its place in a traditional versus web format since, wanna be an embedded journalist in Iraq, if not, then don't fault? And yes Pru, I agree people are dumb, I include myself, its what I learned in college, in fact, those that know it all usually don't even know the question much less have the answers.

[tomdarch]

...Wasn't Rather the one hammered by the story on Bush that circulated about his national guard service or similar "so what" topic, anyway Rather came away with do on his face ...

Yes, Rather was a bit ahead of the trends. He did a report on how GeeDub blew off his "service" in the Texas Air National guard. (Political connections were used to get GeeDub into the Texas Air National Guard so that he wouldn't be sent to Viet Nam. While he was in the Guard, in a so-called "champagne unit", a shit load of money was spent training him as a jet fighter pilot. Later in his "service", he blew off duty time and even failed to show up for required medical exams (which may have included drug testing). As a result, he was not allowed to fly. Despite all this, he was not disciplined and was eventually discharged early.) Overall the report was accurate, but Rather made the mistake of standing by some documents that were provided to him that turned out to be forged. (By the way, they tracked down the military secretary who probably would have typed those documents. She said, no, she didn't type them, but yes, the story of GeeDub getting into the Guard and his subsequent special treatment was spot on.)

At the time of his report (late 2004), it was a bit too cutting edge for "the mainstream media" to report accurately on the current administration. As a result, even though the overall report was accurate, Rather's mistaken support of the bad documents was used to drive him out of CBS. If he had done the same report today, where things have swung a bit closer to reality, it would have been no big deal.

The current tests of "the mainstream media" are the military tribunals at Guantanamo and the drum beat to attack Iran. (Of course, there are numerous other critical issues to be reported on, like the administration's anti-Constitutional, and often criminal, actions, along with their plain old financial corruption.) We'll see if the "media" grow spines - from the reporters to the editors to the heads of news departments to, yes, even the folks who pull the purse strings.

Wes is right that money is a critical part of most news media. But it isn't impossible for real news to be reported. A big part of why the right wing shriekers so hate the New York Times is that it is privately owned. Private owners are much better able to say, "we're making enough money - let's get things right." It's the news sources that are owned by publicly traded corporations that are vulnerable to the incessant drive to maximize profits. I know it's cliched or trite, but a well functioning news media is critical to the functioning of a democracy. The failings of the major news sources (the NYT included) has been a major part of why America has gotten itself into the current deep shit.

[Crankmas]

well put Tom, damn you sounded more like Thomas Jefferson rather than Karl Marx- I impressed!