Media Coverage - US vs Soviet Pravda

[Poiuyt]

I have a friend who's father grew up in the Soviet Union. He said that with today's press, you need to read the news the way they did with Pravda...between the lines.

He also noted that in the press in the Soviet Union was independent but not free, and here it is free but not independent. Interesting.

[FDRrocks]

1. It tougher here

At least the soviet people knew that Russian media was a mouthpiece for the government. That kind of realization doesn't seem close to happening around here.

[AP]

4. And at least in the USSR, they didn't make you pay for it.

They'd put it behind glass in a kiosk in the park or broadcast it for free on TV.

Here, you have to pay for the Pravda, which is the ultimate sign of our stupidity.

[Imperialism Inc.]

2. That's because the media IS the government in the sense that

they are part of the corporate-media complex that currently runs our country. You can't be independent from yourself.

[AP]

5. The media isn't part of the government.

Under Republicans, the government has become part of the private sector.

[drumwolf]

3. a somewhat more precise way of putting it...

Strictly speaking, our media isn't a mouthpiece for "the government" per se. It's a mouthpiece for the right-wing plutocrats who are currently occupying our government at the moment, and that's because it's OWNED by those plutocrats (like Rupert Murdoch or Conrad Black).

When Clinton was in office they played an active role in trying to sabotage his administration.

[davekriss]

6. Pravda, huh?

It took awhile to nurture our very own Pravda, but nuture we did. There's been a clear narrowing of the agenda over the last 30 years.

The FCC was given broad, elastic powers to protect the public trust in its administration of the airwaves, part of the "commons" that belong to all U.S. citizens. Over the years, several key regulations emerged, two of which were discussed (to death) on another board: The Fairness Doctrine and the Rule of Sevens.

The Fairness Doctrine says essentially that, in order to qualify for the privilege of broadcasting for profit over the common airwaves, the broadcaster had to agree, as part of (required) news, to present issues of controversy in their communities, and to present spokespeople on all sides of the issue. The belief was that this ensured that all voices would be heard, a healthy thing in a democracy, and no one voice would be able to drown out the others via advantages of ownership.

The Fairness Doctrine was challenged in court and overturned in (I think) 1987. So, instead, congress passed (in 1989) legislation that codified the FCC regulations, which George Herbert Walker Bush vetoed. There have been several attempts over the years to resurrect this legislation, but in every case it has been beaten down by various conservative lobbies.

The Rule of Sevens initially said that no single enterprise could own more than 7 television stations, 7 FM radio stations, and 7 AM radio stations. It was even more restrictive in any given market. This evolved over the years until the "Sevens" became 20. Then, with the Communications Act of 1996, the counts were (I think) removed and instead the limit became a market reach of no more than 35% (that's not market "share", just "reach" -- meaning the potential to reach 35% of the U.S. population). The FCC recently, under Colin Powell's son's direction, pursued dropping all ownership-share restrictions but met stiff resistance; instead, market reach was extended to 45%.

The result of this has been twofold: (1) massive media consolidation to the point where today 6 large corporations own almost all of the major media (29,000+ radio, TV, and press outlets), and (2), freed of the FCC mandate to "inform", news has been forced to compete for advertising dollars in the same fashion as the rest of a broadcaster's entertainment portfolio -- resulting in the devolution of news into the "infotainment" that we see today, which allowed a FOXNEWS to emerge:

36: The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.
---DeBord, Society of the Spectacle

To say, as some do, that Rebublicans did this to intentionally allow powerful interest to amass more power is flat out wrong (its not a conspiracy, however that can be the consequences). The march to deregulation is idealogically consistent with the conservative factions of the Republican party: The libertarian element would have "government off our backs" on principle, and the pro-business element would strip all rules out that might introduce economic inefficiencies. So a Republican President, and later a Republican congress, removed another brick from the edifice of the public trust (surely) in good albeit flawed faith that in so doing a greater good would emerge. But it hasn't.

It may not be "conspiracy", but that's not to say there aren't conspiratorial elements that pounce on the opportunities created and lobby to keep the doors thereafter open for their personal gain. There are such elements, and they contribute mightily to the campaign coffers of those they believe will help them, but this is beside the point, just a background noise to the greater wail of a dying democracy.

My position -- critique, if you will -- is that democratically (small d) sanctioned laws and regulations can (and often do) serve as a brake on the advantaged position of power. Remove those brakes, and the system naturally rolls further to their advantage. The issue is concentration -- of monopoly approximated -- and its untoward impact on the society as a whole. The case of the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine and Rule of Sevens is illustrative.

Note, for example, how quickly in the summer of 2002 all the major broadcast and news media, ahead of the public, jumped to an agenda that included discussion of how to execute the war, not if we should go to war. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC all rose as if a choir singing praise for war. I believe this enabled the GWB cabal to advance on Iraq and could enable them to continue onward to Syria and Iran. Is this a good thing? No. Even if Iraq tomorrow emerges as a beacon of Jeffersonian Democracy, the fact that the U.S. skipped informed debate in favor of a Rovian imitation of Goebbels portends ill for the future of liberty.

Note also that, around the time of Bush's "mission accomplished" lies, there was almost zero coverage in the major media of the Anti-American uprisings in Iraq; instead we saw hours of coverage of the staged toppling of Saddam's statue in front of the Palestine Hotel. Even with careful cropping it was obvious that the crowd numbered in the dozens; this hardly looked like the celebratory toppling of the Berlin Wall. This banal propaganda was meant to keep us from raising a thoughtful eyebrow -- instead the vast "center" of the American public was rendered more likely to gladly ready itself for the next military adventure.

Note back in the nineties, when the Clintons were trying to reform health care, that there was almost zero discussion of a single-payer health plan in the major media even though several major polls demonstrated that a majority of citizens were interested in it. It was off agenda. Why?

Note also how vehemently the "free press" covered the various Clinton scandals, from whether or not Bill "inhaled", from Whitewater to Fostergate, from the various alleged affairs to Monicagate, enabling a biased Republican House to impeach a President for a minor lie arrived at, essentially, by entrapment. Then note the scant discussion in the majors about GWB's DUI and alleged abuse of cocaine; Harken Energy insider trading; his year spent AWOL from the National Guard. Why such an imbalance?

Now that 6 corporations own the majors, it does seem to me there has been selective rightward framing of the agenda. And the frame sure does seem to serve the interests of the few over the many. An American tragedy. Of course, by extension, that means a tragedy for the world.

I'm convinced there's much more "fun" to come; 9-11, Afganistan, and Iraq are just the beginning. Now one ideological party, controlled by its ideological fringe, controls the Presidency, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court (and the CJS in general), as well as, in my belief, the Press (via extension of the board rooms of those 6 massive corporations that essentially own the media lock, stock, and barrel). Conservative Republicans even control the 3 private companies now installing unauditable electronic voting machines around the country. In addition, this administration has put in place tools to suppress dissent (the PATRIOT Act, HSA, and soon to be introduced Patriot Act II) and has announced an agenda (my analysis of the NSS) to make the world over as some kind of vast protectorate of the United States serving the interests of our corporate masters.

Did I hear FASCISM anyone?

[papau]

7. Reagan forced "deregulation" end of Fairness and Veto Congress restoration

However, before the FCC deregulation ordered by Reagan in the spring of 1987, both houses of Congress voted to put the fairness doctrine into law--a statutory fairness doctrine which the FCC would have to enforce, like it or not.

Reagan vetoed the legislation. There were insufficient votes to override the veto.

Congressional efforts to make the doctrine into law surfaced again during the Bush administration. As before, the legislation was vetoed, this time by Bush.

[davekriss]

8. Thought it was a...

court case that struck down the FCC regulation in 1987, but the Senate and House didn't pass a legislative version until 1989 and GHWB vetoed it. But that was 15+ years ago, maybe I remember it wrong.

[papau]

9. My memory sucks - but on this one just google and Reagan Veto will

come up!

I do recall a Court case but I thought it was to prevent the dereg and end of Fairness - and Reagan won the right to end it.

[davekriss]

11. We were both right all around

It was as I suspected, a court case in 1987:

In a 1987 case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts declared that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress and the FCC did not have to continue to enforce it. The FCC dissolved the doctrine in August of that year.

But you were also right, Reagan vetoed the first attempt to codify it:

In the spring of 1987, both houses of Congress voted to put the fairness doctrine into law--a statutory fairness doctrine which the FCC would have to enforce, like it or not. But President Reagan, in keeping with his deregulatory efforts and his long-standing favor of keeping government out of the affairs of business, vetoed the legislation.

But I'm right again, too, Bush did veto it, but it was the second attempt to get the laws passed:

Congressional efforts to make the doctrine into law surfaced again during the Bush administration. As before, the legislation was vetoed, this time by Bush.

Source: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm

So there's enough "correct" to go around for both of us. :)

[JohnyCanuck]

10. You're absolutely right

Brainwashing America
by Dr. Norman Livergood (ex Dept. Head at the US Army War College)

The puppet Bush regime is using new, aggressive forms of brainwashing to change the very way Americans think and feel. This is the psychological dimension of the "High Cabal's" general onslaught against American workers, just as the "war on terrorism" is the military dimension and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich comprise the economic dimension.

We are living under the beginning stages of a military dictatorship in precisely the same way that 1930s Germans suffered under the Nazi regime.

As in the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored propaganda (brainwashing) is a vital part of the Bush regime's strategy.


New propaganda slogans are being overtly and subliminally implanted by Bush and his gang through their speeches and actions:

dissent is treason

Constitutional liberties are less important than security

the "war on terrorism" excuses any attack on civil liberties

the Bush administration has the right and the duty to bring
about "regime change" in any nation it chooses

the economy is basically sound

only a few bad apples are found in the corporate barrel, which requires no new oversight laws

if Bush and Cheney say they're not guilty of corporate crimes, then believe it and shut up.

http://www.hermes-press.com/brainwash1.htm


Another good read regarding how propaganda is spread in the US media is an article "Television and the Hive Mind" by Mack White.

Sixty-four years ago this month, six million Americans became unwitting subjects in an experiment in psychological warfare.

It was the night before Halloween, 1938. At 8 p.m. CST, the Mercury Radio on the Air began broadcasting Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. As is now well known, the story was presented as if it were breaking news, with bulletins so realistic that an estimated one million people believed the world was actually under attack by Martians. Of that number, thousands succumbed to outright panic, not waiting to hear Welles' explanation at the end of the program that it had all been a Halloween prank, but fleeing into the night to escape the alien invaders.

Later, psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear. Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University's Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing.

<snip>

Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, news programs subtly play on our emotions--chiefly fear. Network news divisions, for instance, frequently congratulate themselves on the great service they provide humanity by bringing such spectacles as the September 11 terror attacks into our living rooms. We have heard this falsehood so often, we have come to accept it as self-evident truth. However, the motivation for live coverage of traumatic news events is not altruistic, but rather to be found in the central focus of Cantril's War of the Worlds research--the manipulation of the public through fear. (my emphasis /jc)

www.mackwhite.com/tv.html

Although I had not yet read either of the two articles above, as I was watching the TV news coverage on Sep 11th and the days following with the repeated shots of the plane ramming the WTC tower and the collapsing WTC building interspersed with the talking heads yammering away at intervals about Osama and terrorist evildoers attacking America (bearing in mind how convenient it was that the day after the attack they could tell us so much about these evil doer terrorists but apparently didn't know enough the day before the attack to do anything to prevent their attack), I said to myself at the time this whole thing stinks of a psy-ops/propaganda/brainwashing exercise. In the time since then, I have only become more convinced my initial assessment was accurate.