Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Democracy and the Media

Here is a withering and precise explanation of how corporate media is contributing to the erosion of democracy in America.

Democracy only works when an informed public makes sound decisions. When the news is all crammed with infotainment that turns out to be inaccurate, that undermines people's ability to make sound decisions. Look around you at the crashing economy, housing collapse, unemployment surge in which many people have simply given up searching for nonexistent jobs, and $4/gallon gasoline. Bad information spread by sloppy journalism has and continues to contribue to all of that.

The real journalists I described in an earlier post are all being removed from the field by "businessmen" who are buying out newspapers and other media. The purpose of newspapers is no longer to discover and spread news; it is only to make money. The more portions of the economy are taken over by businessmen, the worse the goods and services become, because quality is no longer a priority -- only money. In other words, those people are behaving like parasites, only interested in fleecing their customers rather than giving solid value for a reasonable price. More disaster ensues.

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  • 5 comments
ladyqkat

ladyqkat

July 12 2008, 19:32:50 UTC 12 years ago

Ya know, when Rollerball first came out a lot of people thought it was too outlandish and far-fetched an idea. I think we are living in the middle of it.
minor_architect

minor_architect

July 12 2008, 20:35:36 UTC 12 years ago Edited:  July 12 2008, 20:36:02 UTC

Another free press resource is ProPublica, which describes itself as "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest." The head of this newsroom is none other than Paul E. Steiger, the former managing editor and editor-at-large of The Wall Street Journal.
wyrmwwd

wyrmwwd

July 13 2008, 15:12:33 UTC 12 years ago

I TOTALLY agree with you! In fact, we talked about this in SEVERAL of my university classes. The fact that corporations own most of the media is a SERIOUS threat to democracy, and has, in fact, already done HUGE amounts of damage. I, personally, have seen an enormous degradation in my lifetime, especially since the 80s.
ysabetwordsmith

What We Call the News

ysabetwordsmith

July 13 2008, 15:35:31 UTC 12 years ago

It's gone from a situation where America had, if not the best and freest press in the world, at least one of them -- to a situation where American news is so narrow and full of propaganda that it's useless unless corroborated by a reliable foreign source. Appalling.

This resembles the situation in the Soviet Union with its partyline newspaper, Pravda. Now, the word pravda literally means "truth," but the party rag was so notorious for inaccuracy that Russian speakers would say, "Da, eto Pravda" to mean "Bullshit!" A summary of the paper's history is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda
I picked up the habit in Russian class and that phrase is still my typical response to politically or economically motivated propaganda.

Another favorite condemnation of mine applies to "infotainment" used as a distraction from vital news events. That nonsense triggers "Bread and circuses!" It comes from something the Romans did at various times while their civilization was declining and falling, in attempt to distract the populace from the ongoing disasters. They used free food and entertainment to pacify the masses and keep themselves in power.
http://www.bartleby.com/59/9/breadandcirc.html

A bitterly hilarious explanation of the decline and fall of American media appears here:
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/what_we_call_the_news
Now that's the truth.

wyrmwwd

Re: What We Call the News

wyrmwwd

July 13 2008, 16:41:46 UTC 12 years ago

Yup! That about sums it up.

I am a huge believer in the internet and its power to give voice to vast numbers of people who would not otherwise have a voice. Blogging and YouTube give me great hope. However, that is only one side of the problem. The internet does give voice to many, but there still needs to be independent, professional journalism that is able to get into places like the White House and tell us, the voters, what is really going on. Because what I studied was Religion & Society, I spent a lot of time learning discernment. Religion is a very hard subject to study objectively. I think students need to be taught discernment at the same time they are taught to read. Instead, children are taught to be good little producers and good little consumers, and that is about it.

I believe that the mess we are in now is a direct result of this degradation of the press.