As they say about programming, the best way to complain about software is to write software. If you don't like what the media is reporting then start your own news organization of whatever kind, including satire. To complete the exercise, put years of your life into building circulation, attracting talented writers, dealing with technology costs and issues, creating and maintaining relationships and generally doing the things necessary to scale a business. Then after all of that investment, make the decision between "listening to your customers and giving them what they want" and "sticking it to the man".
The majority of media organizations don't select stories on the basis of what will be the most effective form of propaganda, but based on what they think people want to read about and discuss. Any business that has the mindset of telling it's customers what they want instead of listening to them and responding to their needs is going to have a rough go of it, including media businesses. You may not like the results, but any fault that you perceive lies more with your fellow citizens than it does with the organizations that deliver news to them.
>As they say about programming, the best way to complain about software is to write software. If you don't like what the media is reporting then start your own news organization of whatever kind, including satire. To complete the exercise, put years of your life into building circulation, attracting talented writers, dealing with technology costs and issues, creating and maintaining relationships and generally doing the things necessary to scale a business. Then after all of that investment, make the decision between "listening to your customers and giving them what they want" and "sticking it to the man".
This seems to me like a very American conception of the issue (culturally I mean).
The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first, and a business second.
The business aspect (ads, etc) is tolerated in the degree that the Press is independent, informative, helps decocracy and transparency, etc.
If a news outlet owner can't make money off of it, he can always not do it. Doing it badly, untruthfully, link-baity etc, is not something that's really OK (e.g. because "they have to make money" -- pimps have to make money too, that's no excuse), but something that is an example of a sick Press.
>The majority of media organizations don't select stories on the basis of what will be the most effective form of propaganda, but based on what they think people want to read about and discuss.
That's also not 100% accurate. Will a lot of stores are run like that, other aspects (like their stance in foreign politic issues, bills etc) are more often than not based on the interests of the owner or sponsors of the outlet, and in lots of cases downright propaganda (from the crude Operation Mockinbird ways onwards to today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird ).
> The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first, and a business second.
This is dangerous because it is a lie. If the newspaper can't sell itself as a business, it can't buy ink and paper, and it shuts its doors. The business aspect is inescapable unless it's owned and run by the government, which is even more dangerous to press freedom. If you deny the business aspect, you can't analyze it, and you can't see if it biases coverage.
> If a news outlet owner can't make money off of it, he can always not do it. Doing it badly, untruthfully, link-baity etc, is not something that's really OK (e.g. because "they have to make money" -- pimps have to make money too, that's no excuse), but something that is an example of a sick Press.
Except they do have to make money. If you think of that as a sickness, all Press is sick.
>> The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first, and a business second.
> This is dangerous because it is a lie. If the newspaper can't sell itself as a business, it can't buy ink and paper, and it shuts its doors. The business aspect is inescapable unless it's owned and run by the government, which is even more dangerous to press freedom. If you deny the business aspect, you can't analyze it, and you can't see if it biases coverage.
But you surely have to face the side that goes in the vain of simplistic pop music: it exists because people consume it; enforcing the production of more "refined" content won't make people switch to it. The solution of course is improving education (in a broad sense including cultural and political awareness).
On the other hand, while simply producing quality content can't change the picture, it sure doesn't hurt either. Take the BBC, National public radio, or a state sponsored network in Brazil called TV Cultura (culture TV), which has great content if not the most popular.
>But you surely have to face the side that goes in the vain of simplistic pop music: it exists because people consume it; enforcing the production of more "refined" content won't make people switch to it.
By itself no. But giving more refined content the same level of promotion as simplistic pop will.
In the sixties teenagers were OK to listen to something as evolved as the Beatles, and the industry went along. Regularly the top-100 was filled with stuff that was not cookie cutter (with the ocassional clunker like the Monkeys and such, but even "fabricated" stuff was of higher quality, like Motown, and even ventured into experimentation).
Now we're back to late-fifties style manufactured idols, because they can be produced, marketed to death, sell merchandise change to fit fashions, and tossed aside when done, with more ease, which increases the profit margins over promoting actual musicians who just care for the craft.
(And I'm not saying that because I'm anti-electronic music or anything. I like from Tom Waits and Lou Reed to Autechre and Aphex Twin, with all kinds of electropop thrown in, from Yello to Plastikman. This rant is about manufactered simplistic BS vs stuff with artistic pretentions -- or even manufactured "joy" vs actual fun of life).
It is interesting that the market demands this kind of news. I guess it's not surprising that since so much policy is predicated on American Exceptionalism, that the daily paper need only retell that story again and again so that we can all feel comfortable that we have the first-world lives that we deserve.
As long as others have it worse, we are doing well. I guess it's similar to the public hunger for embarrassing stories about celebrities, the stuff on Jerry Springer, etc. Most people don't realize that those stories they are reading in the NYT about womens' rights in the 3rd world are the same kind of indulgence.
As they say about programming, the best way to complain about software is to write software. If you don't like what the media is reporting then start your own news organization of whatever kind, including satire. To complete the exercise, put years of your life into building circulation, attracting talented writers, dealing with technology costs and issues, creating and maintaining relationships and generally doing the things necessary to scale a business. Then after all of that investment, make the decision between "listening to your customers and giving them what they want" and "sticking it to the man".
The majority of media organizations don't select stories on the basis of what will be the most effective form of propaganda, but based on what they think people want to read about and discuss. Any business that has the mindset of telling it's customers what they want instead of listening to them and responding to their needs is going to have a rough go of it, including media businesses. You may not like the results, but any fault that you perceive lies more with your fellow citizens than it does with the organizations that deliver news to them.