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News :: Miscellaneous |
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FEAR & FAVOR 2000: FAIR's First Annual Report on How Power Shapes the News |
Current rating: 0 |
by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
(No verified email address) |
15 Feb 2001
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NEW YORK - February 14 - FAIR is pleased to announce our first annual roundup of the
year's most egregious examples of owner, advertiser and government influence on the news:
"Fear & Favor 2000: How Power Shapes the News." |
NEW YORK - February 14 - FAIR is pleased to announce our first annual roundup of the
year's most egregious examples of owner, advertiser and government influence on the news:
"Fear & Favor 2000: How Power Shapes the News."
A "serious" talkshow turns itself into an infomercial for Campbell's Soup, complete with a
veteran news anchor leading a chorus of the "M'm, m'm, good!" jingle. A Boston reporter is
suspended without pay after writing critically about a bank that is a major advertiser in his
paper. A network news show interviews a sock puppet-- a puppet that is the mascot for a
company the network's owner has a stake in.
Welcome to the sometimes whimsical, frightening world of the corporate-owned media,
where the "fear and favor" of the powers that be can shape-- and twist-- the news. A few
items detailed in the report:
--In the final days of the 2000 presidential campaign, conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
publisher Richard Mellon Scaife ordered all photos and prominent mentions of Al Gore
removed from the front page. As a result, the pre-election Sunday edition featured George
W. Bush in every front-page campaign-related headline and photo.
--The AP's longtime Bolivia correspondent, Peter McFarren, resigned amidst revelations that
he had lobbied the Bolivian legislature for a $78 million water privatization project profiting a
foundation he presided over. One of the biggest stories in Bolivia, water policy was central
to McFarren's beat. After a query from FAIR, the AP did a story on the resignation, but
glossed over key aspects.
--After receiving pre-publication complaints from various bigwigs, Brill's Content watered
down a piece whose subject-- entertainment reporter Lynn Hirschberg-- apparently has too
many powerful friends. Brill's editor David Kuhn reportedly told staffers, "You don't
understand: I have to go to cocktail parties with these people."
Many journalists have heard war stories about controversial articles that got cut or quashed
before they were written, or, more chillingly, of careers cut short. The breakneck
consolidation of media ownership means news divisions are increasingly subject to
corporate control, but it can be difficult to find documentation of specific instances in which
this has distorted the news. With that in mind, FAIR has compiled reports of some of the
most outrageous examples of "fear and favor" in the newsroom from the last year.
We hope "Fear & Favor 2000" will serve to support journalists who are struggling to seek
truth and report it, empower the public to demand accountability from the media and inspire
all of us to fight back when the powerful try to restrict the free flow of information.
Read the full report online: |
See also:
http://www.fair.org/ff2000.html
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What really goes on behind the 1st Amendment |
by Paul Riismandel
paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
15 Feb 2001
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Just yesterday I was watching a little bit of the Congressional hearings on last November's botched TV election coverage on CNBC. It was amazing how every TV exec who got up in front of Congress made clear that they were willingly cooperating with Congress only for the good of the American public (and their bottom line), since the First Amendment otherwise makes them untouchable by lawmakers. The utter crass insincerety of these statements becomes chokingly intolerable when you read in FAIR's report how the goals of the First Amendment have been twisted and corrupted when the apparent beneficiaries are the media companies and execs themselves. The ruling media oligarchy holds up the Constitution like an armored shield in front of Congress, while instead it is more like a cloak, behind which they wheel, deal and piddle away the very things the shield exists to protect.
How can the media industry be an effective check and balance to power when it is itself a broker of that very power?
Kudos to FAIR for keeping diligent watch and trying to be a check on that power, its machinations and effects. |
See also:
http://www.mediageek.org
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