Social Science Invaluable

Society prospers with the application of social science, which invented polling, statistical anaylsis, etc etc. This survey is more important evidence. They verify (or falsify) a beilef or susupician. In this case the evidence is overwhelming that corporate concentration of media is a very bad thing. Evidence like this is always helpful.

Tom should know, he once worked for the Asper Press

I have just canceled my subscription to the Sun, as the paper has just become a rag of misinformation.

As regular posters know, I have a certain knowledge of transit. The Asper Press have yet to write an honest piece on transit. They support RAV and have published all sorts of rubbish to back their support. Only the absolute collapse of business (predicted by myself 6 years ago) on Cambie St. has prompted the Asper Press to report on the situation.

All I want is the truth and with the Vancouver dailies, we get Asper bafflegab.

Canwest the odd one out

I wish the poll had also broken down the opinion data according to which media co.
journalists work for. For instance, I'd like to see how CanWest fares vs. other cos.

Since CanWest has become a joke among much of the public due to the heavy handed micromanaging, personal agenda advancing Asper bros., I imagine many CanWest journalists hold a similar view.

One odd thing about Canwest is that the owners seem more interested in propagandizing their own pet issues, than in making profits.

Grumpy: Well, better late than never.
I believe the most recent independent audit of newspaper readership showed a drastic plunge in Nat. Post paid readership (worst showing of any paper). I believe the Sun and Province were down too, more than average.

When are the Aspers going to realize they are alienating readers, and cutting their own throats?

It's about professionalism

If journalism is going to be taken seriously, reporters need to take a stand. Don't they have a professional body? Maybe you should need "certification" like all other professionals before you can work and be trusted to report. That way they would have to follow some ethical standard and could be dismissed from the profession if they mislead or lie to the public. It would also give them some protection from being fired if they reported something that their "employers" didn't like. Otherwise, what difference is there between a journalist at Canwest and a spin-doctor from Gordon Campbell's office?

Since CanWest has become a

Since CanWest has become a joke among much of the public due to the heavy handed micromanaging, personal agenda advancing Asper bros., I imagine many CanWest journalists hold a similar view.

I think you hit the nail on the head. You would be imagining. It is my sense that most everyday journo's know what the truth is. And in fact would if they could give the public the straight goods. However, i think the public's perception of journalists reflects the weighted impact of the likes of Baldrey, Palmer, Smyth and Good etc.

If journalism is going to be taken seriously, reporters need to take a stand. Don't they have a professional body?

Why would we single out reporters. Why would we demand that the average reporter stand up for journalistic integrity. Lets recall what happened to the Editor of the Canwest Ottawa Citizin a few years ago. That would have sent a chill through newsroom across the country.

As a trade unionist I will say I have been appalled by the comments many of my brothers and sisters over the years singling out reporters for derision. Reporters by and large are very representitive of society at large. Perhaps even more activist and community minded than the average person. This is why many go into the profession. To try and make a difference.

Over the years we have seen a corporate creep into the information field. So what do we expect journalists to do. To rise up? To quit their middle class jobs and leave the keys with the holder of the mortgage?

All I say is lets recognise that the issue isn't with the workers here, no more than hospital wait lists are the fault of the front line health care worker.

And these workers do have an organization. Most media workers are represented by the CEP and the Guild. Hopefully those organizations launch a campaign for corporate media responsibilty and assist in giving their members the tools and protection necessary to beat a path back to good reporting and proper allocation of space to report the key issues of the day.

To lay this issue at the feet of journalists is naive at best and harmful the our asperation for more progressive polices.

Citizens Journalism Coalition

I am currently in the process of setting up an online meeting and discussion for the CJC. I hope to invite journalists, frequent commenters and others who would like to participate in this. It will take me another two or three weeks to get this together (assuming that I don't get sidetracked, and this announcement is incentive for me not to let that happen). There are a few of the regulars on this site which I have emails for, but there are others that I think would make valuable contributions to this project. If you would be interested in participating please email me at r_oveson at hotmail.com.

So what this article reveals

So what this article reveals is that too many of these so-called "journalists" are becoming just people who for the most part always do what they are told,.... "what in this case the boss tells them to do"...."day after day, year after year, cheque after cheque", no matter what the price to others who count on them.... and no matter what the price to their own personal integrity?

Life and the hard choices that come with it ain't easy for anyone. Just take a glance around the world and through the pages of history for evidence of that.

So why continue on with the farce? You're not really a reporter any more, certainly not an investigative one, you've become a mere paid shill.

You are the pretend reporters that pretend governments count on.

Highly worth the read: "We Need to Be Told" by John Pilger, a real investigative journalist who has risked much to get the truth out there:

http://www.newstatesman.com/200510170022

It begins:

Quote:

"When journalists report propaganda instead of the truth, the consequences can be catastrophic - as one largely forgotten instance demonstrates..."

And it ends with:

Quote:

"Since the invasion of Iraq, I have spoken to a number of principled journalists working in the pro-war media, including the BBC, who say that they and many others "lie awake at night" and want to speak out and resume being real journalists. I suggest now is the time."

P.S.

I want to add one more quote from that Pilger article:

Quote:

"When will important journalists cease to be establishment managers and analyse and confront the critical part they play in the violence of rapacious governments? "

who for the most part always

who for the most part always do what they are told,.... "what in this case the boss tells them to do"...."day after day, year after year, cheque after cheque",

Ok Lynn, so they rise up against the machine. The most miltant are fired, the union grieve's, but the arbitrator rules that there is no evidence of a sustainable community of interest. Now every self respecting reporter quits.

Who do you think will replace them?

Instead of being full of anger I would suggest you get out and organize against the media establishment instead of beating up average reporters. Thats just plain wrong.

Save your hate for the opinion shapers like Palmer and Good, the ones who have a wee bit of license.

Finally your logic would apply to school teachers, health care workers, forestry workers, government employee's, police, construction workers. They should all quit their jobs because they work for the man.

The list is endless actually. Please think this through.

Teachers and nurses

"Finally your logic would apply to school teachers, health care workers, forestry workers, government employee's, police, construction workers. They should all quit their jobs because they work for the man."

Both nurses and teachers have to be members of their professional regulatory bodies. If there is unethical behaviour, they can lose their certification and the right to do those jobs. Peter, your anaolgy is a poor one.

I don't think anyone is singling out any individual, but the "collective" has some responsibility in pursuing ethical practises. I wouldn't want any individual to put themselves on the line. Collective action seems to work well in a democratic society. Teachers and nurses, as a group, have gone to the wall on many issues without quiting their jobs. But, if journalists are so easily replaced, perhaps they have a bigger problem than I first thought.

Traditional media is dead anyway -- why do we care?

Why does The Tyee care about the old media, such as TV broadcasters and traditional newspapers? There seems to be article after article about falling standards or media concentration. Could one contributor at The Tyee answer me this: With customer trends swinging hard against old media, why is this subject even worth the candle? Isn't the Vancouver Sun and CTV where Encyclopedia Britannica and print edition dictionaries were 15 years ago?

Sinking ship

Ohhhh, I'm sure Big Media would find others quite easily who would willingly comply and tow the corporate line. That's how big Media thrives isn't it? By relying on a coalition of the willing and the complicit.

That's how the machine works.... just one cog easily exchanged for another. All about keeping the system continuously and effortlessly oiled.

No hatred towards reporters, Pete L, just not that much impressed by the willingness of far too many of them to co-operate with the intentional sabotage of the public's right-to-know. As Michael makes clear Big Media is a sinking ship so why are we so fearful to abandon it.....we certainly aren't going to change it...it will just take us down with it....(which was the point I was trying to make about reporters...that through their co-operative approach they were not only betraying the public's right to be informed but themselves as well - the real journalist inside of them that they trained so hard to be.)

Some really excellent points on collective action as well made by Chris H.

...

I think it is "worth the candle". I keep hearing old media is on the way out, and yet everywhere I turn I still see its influence.

In, BC, CKNW still rules the airwaves. Canwest are still the only game in town when it comes to the dailies. Canwest-Global and CTV still take the ratings for local news coverage.

Yes, more of us turn to the net for news, but that doesn't mean the majority have stopped watching or reading old media. What seems to solidify the influence, in my mind, is how the players legitimacy is strengthened (in the public's mind) by becoming so interchangeable.

I can hear Palmer on CKNW, read him in the Sun, sometimes see him on Global and catch his hour show on the local station (not a bad watch, actually). Same with Smythe, Baldrey, and Good. They're everywhere, they defer to each other, and tend to reflect the viewpoints of the establishment.

When CKNW does politics, who do they call for a guest? Beers? Nope, Baldrey, Palmer, Spector, Tieleman or some columnist from the Post or the Globe.

I'm not saying these journalists aren't worth listening too or reading (that's your call), just that I don't see their influence or the influence of old media waning -- at least not in the near future.

I don't buy that people are abandoning old media for the new in droves. Most, like myself, watch/read/listen to a variety of media... if anything, it's the web that suffers credibility as an honest news source -- fair or unfair, beating up on the legitimacy of the web as a news source is still a favorite topic of old media.

Back to my original point, I believe an examination of the old media (and new) is always welcome and would love to see more on the Tyee. BTW, what has happened to do Donald Gutstein? Always liked reading his stuff.

Reporters aren't blameless

I don't think reporters' fear of being fired is sufficient excuse for silence or refusal to investigate. There's much that reporters can do (but don't)to better inform, without necessarily going so far as to risk their jobs.

Lynn's link addresses the British media's
journalistic failures.
NY Times columnist Paul Krugman addresses the U.S. media's failures and deliberate misinformation
http://iraqwarit.blogspot.com/ :

In October 2003, the nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study titled “Misperceptions, the media and the Iraq war.” It found that 60 percent of Americans believed at least one of the following: clear evidence had been found of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda; W.M.D. had been found in Iraq; world public opinion favored the U.S. going to war with Iraq.

The prevalence of these misperceptions, however, depended crucially on where people got their news. Only 23 percent of those who got their information mainly from PBS or NPR believed any of these untrue things, but the number was 80 percent among those relying primarily on Fox News. In particular, two-thirds of Fox devotees believed that the U.S. had “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization.”
...During the early months of the Iraq occupation... Fox gave breathless coverage to each report of possible W.M.D.’s, with little or no coverage of the subsequent discovery that it was a false alarm. No wonder, then, that many Fox viewers got the impression that W.M.D.’s had been found.

When all else fails, [FOX owner] Mr. Murdoch’s news organizations simply stop covering inconvenient subjects.

Last year, Fox relentlessly pushed claims that the “liberal media” were failing to report the “good news” from Iraq. Once that line became untenable — well, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the first quarter of 2007 daytime programs on Fox News devoted only 6 percent of their time to the Iraq war, compared with 18 percent at MSNBC and 20 percent at CNN.
What took Iraq’s place? Anna Nicole Smith, who received 17 percent of Fox’s daytime coverage.
...If there were any justice in the world, Mr. Murdoch, who did more than anyone in the news business to mislead this country into an unjustified, disastrous war, would be a discredited outcast. Instead, he’s expanding his empire...

If U.S. reporters and pundits had been doing their jobs,would the Iraq war have been successfully sold to the public? Would Bush have been re-elected in '04? Probably not.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html
The last 5 years has been a time when
the media had tremendous responsibility on its shoulders, which it abandoned, allowing incalculable negative consequences the world now has to live with. Reporters are not blameless.

Tyee italics acting screwy again

Not to confuse Times columnist Krugman's words with mine, his were supposed to be in italics all the way down to:
"...If there were any justice in the world, Mr. Murdoch, who did more than anyone in the news business to mislead this country into an unjustified, disastrous war, would be a discredited outcast. Instead, he’s expanding his empire..."

At the center of this debate

Bobb999 wrote:

Quote:

"The last 5 years has been a time when
the media had tremendous responsibility on its shoulders, which it abandoned, allowing incalculable negative consequences the world now has to live with. Reporters are not blameless."

That is exactly the heart of the matter, Bobb999.... and brilliantly expressed.

Bobb999

from Krugman's column in the Times today:

I'd post the link to the whole column, but it's behind subscription.

And thanks, Lynn

for your valued, often wise contributions to many Tyee threads!