As a Community Blogger for the local newspaper, I first try to decide which direction to go. As the Dr. once said: We can't stop here. This is bat country.
As I begin my blogging project with The Anniston Star, I feel the need to first address the disconnect many in my generation feel with the general concept of news outlets. We've grown up for the past three decades having most everything prepackaged with bells, whistles, and eye-catching artwork—a technique that has proven successful for industries profiting from goods like cell phones, video games, music, and movies.
However, an industry that hasn't been able to catch our attention for more than a few days is one I personally refer to as the “news-media” industry: and international group of corporate-owned television and radio networks that commonly report news through an entertainment business model. While more often than not the companies within this industry seem to put quality journalism a close second to their bottom line, there are stand-out factions that continue to damage an otherwise respectable and necessary profession.
A recent example of the more extreme side of the news-media industry is the Fox News Sunday interview with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. From the start of the interview, Stewart defended his description of Fox News as an “...agenda-driven, 24 hour news-opinion, propaganda delivery system.” Chris Wallace asked if Stewart thought “mainstream” news organizations like ABC, NBC, The New York Times, and others were “promoting a liberal agenda” and Stewart blamed their media bias on “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness” rather than political agendas.
In an attempt to prove a mainstream agenda, Chris Wallace showed a clip of ABC's Diane Sawyer exhibiting a “liberal bias” in her report of Arizona immigration laws. Stewart was quick to admit that her description of the new law could easily misinform viewers, but her description was not necessarily promoting the liberal slant that Wallace claimed Fox News tries to counteract. Stewart went on to give an example of the news-media's bias across an entire industry when he reminded Wallace of a news story from the previous day—when 24-hour news outlets abruptly ended live coverage of a press conference once a story was no longer a story:
However, an industry that hasn't been able to catch our attention for more than a few days is one I personally refer to as the “news-media” industry: and international group of corporate-owned television and radio networks that commonly report news through an entertainment business model. While more often than not the companies within this industry seem to put quality journalism a close second to their bottom line, there are stand-out factions that continue to damage an otherwise respectable and necessary profession.
A recent example of the more extreme side of the news-media industry is the Fox News Sunday interview with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. From the start of the interview, Stewart defended his description of Fox News as an “...agenda-driven, 24 hour news-opinion, propaganda delivery system.” Chris Wallace asked if Stewart thought “mainstream” news organizations like ABC, NBC, The New York Times, and others were “promoting a liberal agenda” and Stewart blamed their media bias on “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness” rather than political agendas.
In an attempt to prove a mainstream agenda, Chris Wallace showed a clip of ABC's Diane Sawyer exhibiting a “liberal bias” in her report of Arizona immigration laws. Stewart was quick to admit that her description of the new law could easily misinform viewers, but her description was not necessarily promoting the liberal slant that Wallace claimed Fox News tries to counteract. Stewart went on to give an example of the news-media's bias across an entire industry when he reminded Wallace of a news story from the previous day—when 24-hour news outlets abruptly ended live coverage of a press conference once a story was no longer a story:
“3 networks—Fox, CNN, msnbc—are going live to the Nancy Pelosi news conference because they are sure, coming on the heels of Anthony Weiner resigning, that she is going to make some sort of incredible statement about 'I am disappointed in Anthony Weiner.' So they are all locked on it, and the whole time there is hand-wringing: 'Aww, I can't believe we have got to go and do this. The American people don't care about this. They care about jobs. They care about the economy. That is what the American people care about. We are about to go live to Speaker Pelosi.' She is about to do that. She steps up to the podium and says what? 'I am not going to comment about Anthony Weiner. I am going to talk about jobs and I am going to talk about the economy,' and what did everybody do? So what is you're proof again about the partisan agenda and what I do? That is the embarrassment. The embarrassment is that I am given credibility in this world because of the disappointment that the public has for what the news-media does.” (Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday - 19 June, 2011)
Pundits, talking heads, and average citizens dissected the interview for days. The left snapped at Fox for editing a short (yet poignant) portion of the interview during their replays—technically the unedited version is available on their website. The right paraded a remark made by Stewart that was blatantly false—his point was later reiterated and verified on The Daily Show.
Chris Wallace offered his own final opinion of the conversation when he told Don Imus "...if you were a liberal, you thought that [Stewart] just wiped the floor with me. And if you were a conservative, you thought I just wiped the floor with him." This statement perhaps speaks louder than the entire 24-minutes Stewart and Wallace shared; the very sensationalism, conflict, and laziness described by Stewart can be seen in both the producers and consumers of the news-media industry.
However, The Anniston Star's Community Blogging Project will hopefully prove to become and new way to finally blur the lines between news-media “producers” and “consumers.” A younger and more tech-savvy generation is becoming more involved in the economy and government—and in a time where television, radio, and newspapers are losing ground to the internet as the main news source for the public, the distribution of information concerning government and economic issues becomes that much more important. Instead of dwelling on the failure of mediums like cable news networks to inform 'We the People,' I'm excited to instead do my part in a network of citizens who want to see progress, not politics.
-MDS
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