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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Deconstructing Wired: "IndyMedia in a Snit With CNN" |
Current rating: 0 |
by Wankstor X. Muzzlebutt repost by ML
(No verified email address) |
02 Nov 2001
Modified: 03 Nov 2001 |
Wankstor has an interesting analysis here on the earlier story about CNN banning mention of IMCs. ML
Indymedia's moving into the big-time, seen as a credible threat to the mainstream media. CNN's on the defensive, and Wired News is covering the skirmish. Unfortunately, the coverage is biased, on multiple levels. We will help you see through the spin with analysis of the article and more background info on Wired - interesting, no? |
Just to humanize things, above is a pic of Farhad Manjoo, the Wired News reporter who wrote "IndyMedia in a Snit With CNN" on 11/1/01.
First of all, read the original article, located here:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48058,00.html
There are several observations to be made here. We will start with the story-specific ones.
First of all, note the tone of Farhad Manjoo's story. It is quite tongue-in-cheek when discussing the Indymedia side of things, almost painting a picture of Mr. Manjoo shaking his head and saying, "can you believe these upstarts? What are they on, anyway?"
Meanwhile, CNN's comments are presented as fact, without any attempt at sarcasm or incredulity. I will give Manjoo credit for being a decent writer; he's quite subtle with his choice of words and story structure, so as to not be overt in his spin.
Secondly, Manjoo, like most corporate media "journalists," took no time to do any significant research on the parties involved this story. CNN is, well, CNN - what more do we need to know? The branding is enough to convey the sense of authority in its comments, which is why Manjoo does not toy with them.
Indymedia, however, gets tarred with the stigma of rank radical amateurs (probably a conditioning of protest coverage, since Indymedia is so closely connected with those, and the mainstream media *still* can't articulate our thoughts and ideas beyond "they're against globalization").
Manjoo also obviously did not look into exactly what open publishing is, either, otherwise he might have better understood the dynamic which drives Indymedia. If he had done so, he might have noticed that there is no 'spokesperson' or 'leader' of Indymedia; this concept is foreign to him, however, because working in the heirarchical structure of the corporate media is the norm in his world, and reporters always look for 'spokespeople' so as to quickly get their necessary quotes and meet the deadline.
It is also important to note CNN's explanation of this "snit." It claims Indymedia is "advertising" in its chat rooms, which makes sense given the profit motive inherent to the corporate media. Seeing people pop up in their chats and saying, "check out Indymedia for alternative news and perspectives" would immediately smack as an ad to CNN, because that is what it is conditioned to recognize as an ad.
The difference here is, anyone who was typing such stuff was performing adVOCACY. Two very different processes. I highly doubt that someone (or a group of someones) has the time and energy to "spam" CNN chat rooms with "visit Indymedia" pleas; note the lack of statistics from CNN to back this claim up.
That about covers the quality of journalism in this article.
I haven't been able to do much research on the corporate structure behind Wired.com - I only know that its parent company is Terra Lycos, which was formed a little more than a year ago (October 2000) and drew together a hodgepodge of sites from around the globe (140+ sites in 41 countries, attracting "92 million unique users per month"). Notable properties owned by Terra Lycos include Lycos.com, Terra.com, Angelfire.com, ATuHora.com, Gamesville.com, HotBot.com, Invertia.com, Lycos Zone, Matchmaker.com, Quote.com, Rumbo.com, Sonique, Tripod.com, RagingBull.com and Wired News (Wired.com).
According to a quick glance at Terra Lycos' financials, the company continues to hemorrhage cash at a large rate, attempting valiantly to keep itself afloat as a publicly-traded company by cutting costs over growing revenue. Methinks Terra Lycos was cobbled together by other new companies who realized they couldn't survive the downturn in online media on their own, so were either bought or voluntarily joined the new company at fire-sale prices.
More interestingly, Terra Lycos has been buoyed recently by a $1 billion investment from media behemoth Bertelsmann (to be spread over five years), allowing Bertelsmann to leverage the Terra Lycos properties as a "content distribution channel" for its other media interests.
Bertelsmann's interests include literary and scientific journals, book and music clubs, newspapers, general- and special-interest magazines, music and film companies, radio and television, print shops...and online service providers, including either 50% or near-50% financial interests in AOL properties outside the United States (aka "AOL International"). AOL is part of the AOL-Time Warner media conglomerate, and the parent company of CNN.
Also worthy of note: Wired magazine is owned by Conde Nast, who is in turned owned by Advance Publications, who is in a strategic partnership with Time Warner for the production and distribution of several cable television channels and shows.
It's kind of like playing the "six degrees of separation" game: sooner or later, the links all fit into place. Whether Farhad Manjoo realizes it or not, his superficial spin has deeper roots.
Someone else can take it from here...
-wxm
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See also:
http://madison.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1558&group=webcast
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Wired is... |
by Mulberry Sellers
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Nov 2001
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A few months ago I took a free subscription to Wired, thinking that perhaps it might be useful.
Fat chance. I think I have it placed in the "pathetic marketing scheme posing as a magazine" ecology.
Wired is basically Maxim for people with computers.
Maxim is basically Cosmopolitan for clueless twentysomethings with penises.
Now if only they'd print it on newsprint. Then it might be useful, since I live with cats. |
