Monday, July 16, 2007

Tragically True Comic

This cartoon would be a lot funnier if it wasn't so tragically true. *Sigh*
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5 comments:

armagh444 said...

I've spent pretty much the entire time since reading that comic wondering if the media really has always been this bad.

July 17, 2007 at 12:15 AM
DBB said...

I think to a certain degree it probably always has had problems, but lately, with reductions in news staff and the explosion of cable and the internet, I think it is turning completely into an entertainment business for profit instead of about news - and the media elite is in the back pocket of the power elite (mostly the GOP).

There are several reasons for this I may explore at some point, though Glenn Greenwald I'm sure does it much better. It used to be that news departments were money-losers, done for the utility of news, but now they are profit centers. And instead of doing real reporting, which is expensive, they basically act as propeganda readers for the government, uncritically printing every single thing some "anonymous" government official tells them as if gospel truth and leaving it at that. It is infuriating.

I have a small hope that the blog world, though people like Glenn Greenwald, can provide at least a partial check on that. He's gotten some of that started already, but it is an uphill battle.

July 17, 2007 at 9:48 AM
armagh444 said...

I know the period during which Murrow and his boys were dominating the airwaves is largely considered something of a golden age for broadcast journalism - with reason - and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing when people look back on that as "how things should be." That being said, I sometimes wonder if the eventual takeover by powerful interests isn't inevitable.

Gah, this is the sort of train of thought that makes me which I would have gone into academe as I am now jonesing for unlimited access to JSTOR, just so I can comb through some of the journals to see if anyone has done an analysis of media ownership and editorial trends throughout the nineteenth century. (Yes, I really am that big of a nerd.)

July 17, 2007 at 1:39 PM
DBB said...

The only history that comes to mind is that of 'yellow journalism' with the famous quote of 'you provide the pictures, I'll provide the war' - and also the notion that the press knew about President Kennedy's affairs but never reported about them because that wasn't considered news...

July 17, 2007 at 1:45 PM
DBB said...

But it would be interesting to see what historical trends actually were as opposed to what our vague notion of them is - I have a whole post on that general topic that I've been wanting to do for weeks now...

July 17, 2007 at 1:46 PM

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