Opinion Journalism
Only 26 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the news media. This is according to a poll published last month. The same poll reports that 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view.
This is quite damning.
Is part of it because of the rise of ideologically based journalism?
Watch the LINK
I agree with Ted Koppel. The news today is not news. It is mostly entertainment. Ideological. Driven by opinions (and profit). Fear. Division. Tribalism. Some it is outright alignment with bad actor and bad state actors who never should receive such treatment from the press.
Here’s a statement Koppel made in 2018 before things really got bad:
Koppel is again on target. But check out Peter J. Harris, a poet and journalist on this topic:
Harris recently wrote in his blog — https://inspirationcrib.com/blog/ that you can’t applaud and take notes. The quote is from his journalism professor, Samuel Yette. It is obvious what the meaning is: the press is there to get the story, to report back, not to cheer for government leaders or the corporations. You are there to keep the fire under their feet.
Sam Yette taught for many years at Howard University. Yette and Harris are correct. What we see on social media and television and on the radio and podcasts is not journalism. Sometimes it is clear it isn’t. Oftentimes, it isn’t. Be careful.
Corporate Media
I am told by my elders that when the traditional news outlets kept exposing the hypocrisy and corruption of corporations, the corporate elites created their news outlets. Much of it, my elders tell me, is contained in a memorandum written by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. The memo is called “The Powell Memorandum.”
Many have written about Powell’s famous memo. It was (and is) a call to arms for corporations. Powell alleged that corporations were under attack from leftists, Marxists, Communists, and “other revolutionaries” who were out to destroy the system. They — the business sector — had to fight. They have fought back, and now they are upping the ante.
They did create their own information superstructure. They created magazines, journals, newspapers, media sites, think tanks, and all sorts of other information-producing entities. All of it is designed to advance their pro business agenda. They have gotten so good at it now that truth is a lie and lies are the truth.
This is the poison of the Powell memorandum. The facts regarding laissez faire capitalism were unsettling at the time and still are. The business sector could not win with the actual facts. So, they went out and bought their own facts. That decision continues to be destructive to the media apparatus of the world.
As a result of these decisions, a counter apparatus has been created. So what we have now masquerading as news is heavily influenced by corporate dollars. Fox News and Newsmaxx on the pro business conservative side and MSNBC and other outlets are on the other side but they are all corporate.
CNN has no identity. CBS, NBC, ABC, and other alphabet soup media networks resemble CNN. But all of them are at their core — corporate. This is not the role of the press in a free and fair society.
None of these outlets report the news of the people. It has forced many of us (me for one) away from all of them. Pro Publica, the Baltimore Banner, and sometimes, Democracy Now gives some truth. But no way can they do battle toe to toe with billions of dollars.
Here is an example of the task at hand from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), a web publication that examines corporate bias in media.
This is just one example of how the media fails the people and is in the hands of the moneychangers. Corporate media and opinion journalism is tearing apart the free press in America.
Do you agree?
Thanks for reading —
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This post was previously published on Brian G (aka ‘bumpyjonas’) – he/him.
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Photo credit: iStock
“So what we have now masquerading as news is heavily influenced by corporate dollars.” And how do those corporate dollars actually come into being? Who ultimately generates and expends those billions and billions of dollars that end up filling the coffers of the corporations? Not the corporation: It is the consumers who ultimately, collectively, gives all those dollars to the media outlets. With everything from advertising dollars, clicks, likes, views, posts, re-tweets; all this and more, ultimately, is traceable back to the individual consumer of the media. You can bemoan a media ecosystem that is malignant; but as voluntary (not… Read more »