Media News
News about the media.
Decline in Local News Coverage Affects All Americans
From Associated Press 11/15/23
“The decline of local news in the United States is speeding up despite attention paid to the issue, to the point where the nation has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005.” Giant media corporations continue to dominate American information outlets – even digital media decline.
https://apnews.com/article/local-newspapers-closing-jobs-3ad83659a6ee070ae3f39144dd840c1b
Reporter “Shouted Down” in U.S. – What’s Next?
Woman on right shouts “Shut up, shut up!” (Getty Image)
From the Daily Beast article by Riley Rogerson 10/26/23
Headline: “Dems Turn Mike Johnson’s First Viral Moment Into Anti-GOP Ad”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dems-turn-mike-johnsons-first-viral-moment-into-anti-gop-ad
Will any questioning or criticism be illegal soon?
How Can You Influence the Media?
From Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post 9/20/21
“You can write short, polite, specific and constructive letters to the editor and to individual writers. You can support good journalism by subscribing to solid local news outlets. You can use your own presence on social media to raise up examples of truth-seeking journalism. And you can tune out and turn off cable and TV news that practices bothsiderism and allows MAGA guests to lie with impunity.”
What Happens in Kansas – Doesn’t Stay in Kansas – Threat to Journalism
Article on 8/26/23 from the Washington Post about the police raid on the newspaper in Marion, Kansas.
Headline: “Police raid – what really happened”
“In New York and Washington, word of a police raid on a small Midwestern newspaper caught the immediate attention of a cluster of organizations devoted to asserting First Amendment rights and promoting the safety of journalists around the globe.
“Over the years, these groups have stood up for reporters detained by police while covering stories or pressured by prosecutors to reveal their sources, they’ve gone to court to challenge government officials over access to public records, and they’ve raised concerns about an overt strain of antipathy toward the media increasingly displayed by some politicians and public officials since the dawn of the Trump era.
“Yet an actual raid by police represented a kind of government intrusion on media operations that none could remember seeing in this country.”
“Seized But Not Silenced”.
Marion County newspaper that was raided by police – someone had a motive
Article from Associated Press by Jim Salter 8/20/23
Headline: “Court documents suggest reason for police raid of Kansas newspaper”
“The police chief who led the raid of a Kansas newspaper alleged in previously unreleased in court documents that a reporter either impersonated someone else or lied about her intentions when she obtained the driving records of a local business owner.
“But reporter Phyllis Zorn, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer and the newspaper’s attorney said Sunday that no laws were broken when Zorn accessed a public state website for information on restaurant operator Kari Newell.”
https://www.aol.com/court-documents-suggests-reason-police-183901188.html
Do the Media Promote the Idea That Incendiary Talk is “Free Speech”?
Article in the Daily Kos by Laura Clawson 6/3/23
Headline: “The media has embraced the claim that free speech means freedom to commit crimes”
“It’s bad enough that one of the main Republican talking points regarding Donald Trump’s latest federal criminal charges is an attempt to erase the distinction between free speech and criminal conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. What’s worse is that the traditional media is, in its “neutral” mode of reporting, taking these claims seriously.“
Media Often Use Right-wing Verbiage to Describe the News
From the Jennifer Rubin article, Washington Post 6/28/23.
Headline: “Will Trump seek a plea deal? Jennifer Rubin answers your questions”
The reality is that the Mar-a-Lago search was not a “raid” the FBI served a court-ordered search warrant obtained with probable cause. Yet every news outlet refers to it as a “raid,” which has a negative connotation.
“. . . the media’s mistakes are many: Referring to the charges against Trump as “mishandling” secret documents; failing to point out Biden had nothing to do with appointment of the special counsel investigating Trump; refusing to explain that average citizens not the prosecutor returned the indictment; declining to press each and every Republican as to whether he or she condones stashing such documents in unsecured locations.
“Substituting false balance and artificial neutrality for truth-seeking and educating the voters remains a major problem in media coverage. Too many reporters are deathly afraid of being accused of “liberal bias,” so they bend over backwards to allow the GOP to set the terms of debate”.
Can’t Pay for the News? Tough Luck. No Journalism for You.
Opinion article from the New York Times by Lydia Polgreen, 6/13/23
Headline: “It’s Not a Good Sign When People Who Don’t Pay for News Have So Little to Choose From”
“For the better part of two centuries, news that was free (or at least felt free, owing to its reliance on advertising) was good business. But the advertising dollars that once underwrote ambitious mass journalism are now stuffing the pockets of technology billionaires. We’re all — even those of us willing and able to pay for quality journalism — the poorer for it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/opinion/media-layoffs-journalism-internet.html