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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
Media Future in Computer World
From the New York Times Columnist Gail Collins 8/12/23
“But on a more cosmic level, Bret, I worry and wonder all the time about the future of the media in a wireless world. Very hard to make money doing critical chores like covering state and local government. Or even just pursuing hard news.”
Is National TV News Really “News”
Washington Post opinion article by Jennifer Rubin, 5/7/23
“The current state of TV news distresses me greatly. New outlets could spend their 24/7 coverage doing investigative reporting and deep dives into critical subjects; instead, they spend hours chewing over the same few stories. Panelists talk about the same items and raise the same arguments. CNN could try to do something innovative: real investigations, longer segments to explain complex issues, in-depth interviews with experts, etc. Imagine if it devoted just an hour a day to threats to democracy or the impact of climate change on different regions of the country. Apparently it believes there is no audience for anything other than regurgitated news and stale talking points. This is a critical moment for our democracy, and we need a better TV media than what we have.”
Jennifer Rubin, opinion columnist
The Mighty CNN Head Falls
Article in The Guardian by Martin Pengelly 6/7/23.
Headline: “CNN chief Chris Licht to leave cable news network days after Atlantic profile”
Sub-head: “Embattled chairman was under siege from within after article in the Atlantic revealed decisions made over Trump town hall“
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
. . . Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Excerpt from the Poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelley
Goodbye Chris Licht from CNN.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/07/chris-licht-leaves-cnn