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A comprehensive audit of coverage shows that in 2007, two overriding stories — the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential campaign — filled more than a quarter of the newshole and seemed to consume much of the media’s energy and resources. And what wasn’t covered was in many ways as notable as what was. Other than Iraq — and to a lesser degree Pakistan and Iran — there was minimal coverage of events overseas, some of which directly involved U.S. interests, blood and treasure. At the same time, consider the list of the domestic issues that each filled less than a single percent of the newshole: education, race, religion, transportation, the legal system, housing, drug trafficking, gun control, welfare, Social Security, aging, labor, abortion and more.

A related trait is a tendency to move on from stories quickly. On breaking news events — the Virginia Tech massacre or the Minneapolis bridge collapse were among the biggest — the media flooded the zone but then quickly dropped underlying story lines about school safety and infrastructure. And newer media seem to have an even narrower peripheral vision than older media. Cable news, talk radio (and also blogs) tend to seize on top stories (often polarizing ones) and amplify them. The Internet offers the promise of aggregating ever more sources, but its value still depends on what those originating sources are providing. Even as the media world has fragmented into more outlets and options, reporting resources have shrunk.

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Last year Borjesson’s taping was finished and the editing had begun. Borjesson’s requests to interview people working for the vice president had been denied. But, following standard journalistic practice (not to mention common courtesy), she sent an email to John Hannah in Cheney’s office in order to give Hannah a chance to react to what others -- including several of the same senior folks on Frontline last evening -- had said about him for her forthcoming report.

At that point all hell broke loose. Borjesson was abruptly told by Rather’s executive producer that by sending the email, Borjesson could have “brought down the whole ("Dan Rather Reports’) operation.”

The show was killed and Borjesson sacked. For good measure, she was also accused of “coaching” interview subjects and taking their words out of context. Since neither Rather nor his executive producer would provide proof to substantiate that allegation, Borjesson took the unprecedented step of sending her script and transcripts to all her interview subjects, asking them to confirm or deny that she had coached them or taken their words out of context. Not one of them found her script inaccurate or said they were coached. She has the emails to prove this.

This sorry episode and Frontline’s careful avoidance of basic issues like the strategic aims of the Bush administration in invading and occupying Iraq are proof, if further proof were needed, that the White House, and especially Cheney’s swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance.

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They seem to be saying that since amateur (my term) journalism sites don't allow everyone to post a la Rabble Babble, therefore they're the same as traditional news sites.

babblers know about plutocracies in North America and how lopsided the news media coverage is here in Canada. I think the U.S. situation is even more lopsided. Take this fledgling U.S. news source, Politico They've said that news media coverage favours Democrats. But we know the powerful right-wing lobby in the U.S. is able to exert influence on both mainstream parties' politicians when they need big military budgets passing or to crush any ideas about universal medicare. It seems Politico has ties to former Reagan administration officials as well as their fascist friends in Chile Money does grow on trees when the cause is right It's all a charade.

[ 28 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I want to point out, though, that both right- and left- wing viewpoints outside the mainstream are not served by the current news "industry". It is biased in favour of the status-quo rather than any particular point of view, IMO.

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Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.

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I want to point out, though, that both right- and left- wing viewpoints outside the mainstream are not served by the current news "industry". It is biased in favour of the status-quo rather than any particular point of view, IMO.

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For example, people on the left tend to be distrustful of authority and suspicious of government and yet the left looks to government, the very essence of authority, as an arbiter of fairness and justice and usually finds neither.

The Libertarian right, on the other hand, opposes "big government" but conflates individual interests with corporate interests and thus sides with and defends big business which is the primary patron and beneficiary of big government.

In both these cases corporate media plays an important role in convincing the left that collective interests and social justice issues are best managed by the very bodies of which the left is justifiably suspicious and distrustful, while at the same time, convincing the right that individual and corporate interests are intertwined and inseparable.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
For example, people on the left tend to be distrustful of authority and suspicious of government and yet the left looks to government, the very essence of authority, as an arbiter of fairness and justice and usually finds neither.

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I would say that the left is always suspicious of government

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The media is so adept, in fact, that we accept obvious contradictions and newspeak without barely any notice at all.

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In any case, I would submit that citizen journalism - of both left & right - needs to fill the void, and in fact could do a better job than the MSM on getting stories out there.

Sometimes people will do a better job when they're doing something for free.

What absolutely needs to happen, though, is the establishment of an independent trusted authority that validates such independent cites, and separates the wheat from the chaff.

If a respected school of journalism were approached and asked to perform random audits on certain websites, and give some kind of approval on them as a result, that might tell the public that these sites are better than the average basement crackpot websites.

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
If a respected school of journalism were approached and asked to perform random audits on certain websites, and give some kind of approval on them as a result, that might tell the public that these sites are better than the average basement crackpot websites.

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Who funds journalism schools? Carleton's journalism school has a chair funded by CTV. Ryerson University has the Rogers Communication Centre. Western University has a Canwest Global Fellow, and a Rogers Chair. Etc. and so forth.

Does this mean that these schools are not independent? No, of course not. But a quick glance at a few journalism school faculty lists show that they're full of professors who have worked for mainstream media organizations, and funding for some of their positions provided by those media organizations.

So what you're proposing is that mostly mainstream media journalists who work at journalism schools that are funded by the mainstream media be the arbiter of alternative media sites.

For far too long people have been told "professionals" are trained to know what's best for society, and ergo they do what is best for society. This is not a truth.

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Originally posted by remind:
Personally, I believe that people, the readers of alternative news sites will validate them andn separate the "wheat from the chaff".

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Who funds journalism schools? Carleton's journalism school has a chair funded by CTV. Ryerson University has the Rogers Communication Centre. Western University has a Canwest Global Fellow, and a Rogers Chair. Etc. and so forth.

Does this mean that these schools are not independent? No, of course not. But a quick glance at a few journalism school faculty lists show that they're full of professors who have worked for mainstream media organizations, and funding for some of their positions provided by those media organizations.

So what you're proposing is that mostly mainstream media journalists who work at journalism schools that are funded by the mainstream media be the arbiter of alternative media sites.

I wouldn't be against that, necessarily. I think that journalistic standards are important and that there's an awful lot of alternative media out there with pretty low standards. But it should be recognized that "respected journalism schools" are not some objective third party, divorced from the mainstream. Quite the opposite, it seems to me.

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That's an interesting criticism, and one that I hadn't thought of. I suppose I didn't realize the extent to which independence of such schools had slipped.

That being what it is, some sort of objective and apolitical professional standard will need to be used in order for new media to gain acceptance as a legitimate news source.

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Personally, I believe that people, the readers of alternative news sites will validate them andn separate the "wheat from the chaff".

For far too long people have been told "professionals" are trained to know what's best for society, and ergo they do what is best for society. This is not a truth.

And why would anyone want to have those who fail to report the news accurately and fairly with no agenda being the guardians of the gate of alternative journalism? Might as well stay with the news media we have then, eh?!

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The problem is that new media tends to speak to narrower interests, rather than to the broader population. As such, people are drawn to sites that agree with their viewpoints.

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Exactly. If there's to be a point to citizen journalism it's to defeat the gatekeeper function that the traditional media have filled. Replacing them with a different set of gatekeepers doesn't accomplish that.

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The biggest gatekeeper to the MSM is lack of profit. As such, the left-ness and right-ness of media is less of a priority than how saleable it is.

For a healthy democracy, this approach is somewhat akin to feeding junk food to a starving person.

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Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
Although I agree that there are biases in mainstream media, I think that the bigger problem is that democracy is built on the concept that objective and worthwhile information is available to the citizens, and at the moment it isn't profitable to produce such information.

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In any case, I would submit that citizen journalism - of both left & right - needs to fill the void, and in fact could do a better job than the MSM on getting stories out there.

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I agree with that but disagree with the rest of it. Michelle makes a very valid point. Even if corporations didn't fund journalism schools, journalism schools remain part of the establishment and support the interests of the status quo. Journalism schools train grads to find careers not to dig truth.

And I agree with Remind that people must be left to make up their own minds as to what is credible and what is not.

The MSM is an empire in decline. They would not be trying to circumvent 'net neutrality if they weren't bleeding users and viewers on-line and there is no doubt that conventional news media is also in decline.

The reason for that, I think, is that people who are committed media consumers, such as the people who visit this web site and other news junkies, are also people who are looking for more indepth information and who believe the MSM will not provide unfiltered reporting that does not conform to the party line.

I still read Canadian dailies but I gloss over headlines for hard national and international news as I expect it to be fluff and lacking any insight.

In short, I expect the corporate line.

And it is not true people will only seek out sources that they agree with. I think, for example, lewrockwell.com is essential reading although I disagree with most of the politics. And there are some excellent predominantly conservative sites for financial news analysis.

Having spent my life addicted to news I have concluded the following: read North American dailies to find out what the government wants you to believe, and then read as many international sources as you can to get a glimpse of the truth.

In fact it is fascinating how many North American stories never see the light of day in North American ink.

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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I agree with that but disagree with the rest of it. Michelle makes a very valid point. Even if corporations didn't fund journalism schools, journalism schools remain part of the establishment and support the interests of the status quo. Journalism schools train grads to find careers not to dig truth.

And I agree with Remind that people must be left to make up their own minds as to what is credible and what is not.

The MSM is an empire in decline. They would not be trying to circumvent 'net neutrality if they weren't bleeding users and viewers on-line and there is no doubt that conventional news media is also in decline.

The reason for that, I think, is that people who are committed media consumers, such as the people who visit this web site and other news junkies, are also people who are looking for more indepth information and who believe the MSM will not provide unfiltered reporting that does not conform to the party line.

I still read Canadian dailies but I gloss over headlines for hard national and international news as I expect it to be fluff and lacking any insight.

In short, I expect the corporate line.

And it is not true people will only seek out sources that they agree with. I think, for example, lewrockwell.com is essential reading although I disagree with most of the politics. And there are some excellent predominantly conservative sites for financial news analysis.

Having spent my life addicted to news I have concluded the following: read North American dailies to find out what the government wants you to believe, and then read as many international sources as you can to get a glimpse of the truth.

In fact it is fascinating how many North American stories never see the light of day in North American ink.

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Yes, definitely - you point out some shortfalls of mainstream media that I hear from left- and right- posters in almost equal numbers.

I don't think I will be able to convince you that the problem of political bias in media is subordinate to the problem of junk information.

In any case, my idea is to offer a way to advance new media as a mainstream alternative. I believe such an alternative will be needed very soon.

Apple and Microsoft of both heavy purchasers of on-line media ad space. So, with that in mind, read through the following article all the way to the end:

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Apparently, in the view of our corporate news editors and managers, it is important for Americans to fully witness the bloody horrors of war when that war is being fought by Russia, but we are to be carefully protected from seeing such things when they are being perpetrated by our own centurions. We aren’t even allowed to see the grievous injuries and death being suffered by our own troops.

This is not news. This is propaganda, pure and simple.

American corporate news media broadcasts and articles should include a disclaimer: “This report was approved by the media managers of the Bush/Cheney administration.”

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Groundbreaking U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh contends that journalists have allowed themselves to be manipulated in their coverage of U.S. politics in recent years.

"My profession failed us when it came to understanding what George Bush and Dick Cheney were doing in Iraq," Hersh said Thursday on CBC cultural affairs show Q from CBC's Washington, D.C., studio.

"Generally, we didn't do our job, which was to be skeptical and give them the greatest scrutiny we could, to hold them to the highest possible standards. We didn't do that. We went along with them and became part of the team..."

And journalists are still being manipulated, he added. "We have a man in office [in the U.S.] who's demonstrated no capacity to get anything done with any success, and we've just given him $700 billion U.S. to ease the world's credit crunch. Of course, we've found out over the past weekend that they're only just figuring out what to do with this money."...

"When you have editors who want stories and are willing to take risks, you have a great newspaper," he said. "But most of the people who get promoted [to top editors] fit the corporate model, are malleable and predictable … less interested in stories and more interested in not making waves...."

Hersh pointed to a revolution in journalism that's been sparked by the Internet. Bloggers, he noted, have replaced the mainstream news media as cutting-edge news gatherers.

The public began learning about Sarah Palin, he said, "when bloggers in Alaska started flooding the Internet with accounts of some of her doings and the mainstream press picked it up. We have a new phenomenon at just the right time .… We don't know what to make of it … but I assure you, it is the future in terms of journalism."

He also noted that the public's appetite for celebrity gossip has resulted in the blurring lines between news and entertainment. "I don't care what they [reporters] think," he said. "I want to know what they know." - CBC

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