American Media: Will We Get Fair Coverage This Year ?? [View All]

[welshTerrier2]

it's hard to predict just how much integrity, if any, remains in our mass media ... and there can be very little arguing with the statement that the press has been little more than a mouthpiece for the bush adminsitration for far too long ...

on the other hand, there can be no denying that the press has been fairly aggressive with the AWOL thing ... at least over the past couple of weeks ...

the key question is, will the media finally awaken and start doing their jobs during the general election ?? i see several factors at work regarding the media:

1. 9/11 gave bush a very long honeymoon with the press ... American corporate media are risk averse ... there is no way any loose-lipped talking head or columnist was going to be allowed to "take down the enterprise (i.e. their company)" with "un-American" rhetoric while bush enjoyed 90% popularity ratings ... even many of our own candidates felt more or less compelled to go along ...

2. the American mass media are a bunch of profit-seeking corporate whores ... they want nothing more than a really exciting horserace ... lots of people turn off the game when the score gets lopsided ... if bush still held a 90% popularity rating, not many Americans would be glued to their sets to watch the latest election news ...

3. many in the media are likely to resent the stiffling control of the press that had been present after 9/11 ... watching Helen Thomas get banished to the back of the room like a naughty child in a classroom must have had a chilling effect ... we can only hope that the media is now seeking to balance the scales from the free ride bush had ... perhaps it's time for some payback ... the punishing of Judith Miller at the NY Times for her bogus WMD reporting might be, you'll pardon the pun, a sign of the times ...

there is no question that the hideous trend toward centralized media control is bad for democracy ... and there's no question that those who control most media outlets have a right of center ideological bias ... websites like DU, MoveON and many others may be able to temper at least some of the damage ...

what's not as clear to me is whether the American mass media are as motivated by ideology as many on DU suggest ... while i have no strong basis for disbelieving this, I think the bias is far more towards profits than it is towards ideology ... and with this view, i hold out at least some optimism that democrats may be dealt a better hand this year than they have been dealt for some time now ...