| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 8:03:02 AM | I was just reading the Thread on President Obama swatting a fly and PETA and how it was the media who 'invented' the story. I think that many of the 'news events' we hear about are either 'invented' or blown out of all proportion by a bored media. I think the present 'swineflu' pandemic is one of those where a flu less dangerous than a normal seasonal flu has been blown up to be a world event. It was a slow news week. I think the Globel Economic situation is being blown, twisted and worked by a hungry media trying to sqeeze every last headline out of it. I love Media Watch on the ABC where bogus stories are exposed and where they show how media outlets, whether print or electronic, copy from each other and build in the fantasy.
I'm reminded of the Mark Latham "Bucks Party Video" story. It came about in a Canberra Press Gallery where he was delivering a routine speech. He was seen as Mr Squeaky clean and one journo commented to another "what we need on this guy is to find some secret bucks party video or something from his past." This exchange was overheard by another reported who ran off to tell his editor he had heard there was a secret bucks party video with Mark Latham which his paper printed. The next day it was news on radio, tv and print all over the country and went for nearly two weeks.
I worked in one career where I was a Media Liaison Officer for 4 years and then in the CFA where I was MLO in a Volunteer capacity for 10 years so I know how it ticks. People tend to forget that the news is a TV show with sponsors like any other program and that the PRIMARY role of a newspaper editor is not to report the news, but to SELL newspapers for the advertisers.
How can we hold them accountable when we rely on them for reporting on world events? When so much of our lives is governed by what we see, hear and read just how much trust can we put in the media? Do we treat the news like reality television, manufactured for ratings? | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 12:55:51 PM | The media is definately creating their own news instead of reporting it. However I wouldn't limit the reasons to advertising revenue, supporting and refuting polarizing viewpoints and ideology may be a more prominant motivation.
I haven’t bought more than three newspapers in the last year and those were for reasons other than to read news. This is a great question and problem. Not to buy or watch is the best remedy. Certain networks are slipping in US media so letting them cook their own goose may be one way. I don’t practice boycotting but to do that to sponsors would be effective but if the reasons were widely known to the sources involved.
The controversial subject of climate change is turning tides recently, some scientists in Australia and Europe not buying into it is a sound bite just today. May take me awhile for me to find the full stories since it's not being reported in mainland news for obvious reasons, and how poignant to the op. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 2:23:16 PM | | Whilst in another country checking my mail watching the news on TV and listing to the radio on the net they are very different one or both are not true. I cant under stand the medias need to promote this constant state of panic especially the ABC. But at least we know most of the news is manipulated and because they all have the same line there all not true. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 3:48:03 PM | Yes, as with every endevour, the media has it's share of unethical people. But would you have them regulated? Might that regulation not lead to media over-control?
The media has been controlled for some time with the major players being in the hands of a very rich few. It could get worse.
I think that we, the public, have some responsibility to exercise a certain level of control. We exercise that by not buying or watching media that feed us rubbish. The media are very sensitive to ratings. When newspaper circulations or TV ratings are down editors and TV executives loose their jobs. Every dollar spent is a vote for the status quo. If you do't agree with them, spend your dollar elsewhere. And write letters to the editor. The newspapers still give that ability to give feedback. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 3:59:28 PM | | There is a definite trend to the use of more emotive reporting and overdramatisation of events and a need to "get the story first", it is a concern that there are those powerful enough to be able use this to their gain, I dont believe that the media are nieve, therefor they must be aware that they are driving not following events, the financial crisis shows many examples of this, another, the "racism" by australians against indian students. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 6:04:11 PM | Oh god dont even start me on one of my fav subjects...however I will just share this little story with you.
Back in Jan 1992 my then husband's little girl was killed in a accident...it was early in the year...news was quiet so her death and the unusual mode of death was fairly big news on the East Coast, so the media chased my husband and his former wife ( the littles one mother) relentlessly like you wouldnt believe. My husband was naturally a mess and refused all interviews including all those from so called "current affairs " programmes but after a couple of days of misrepresesentation, he relented and decided to be interviewed by a well known tv station..who is suppose to be somewhat "ethical" .........
The news team came to our home ...the interview we thought went well....only to watch it played back that nite to see it heavily edited and it cut together to suit the producer for maximum impact so to a point it almost look like my husband was responsbile for his daugthers death. We then noticed during the interview a photo of my husband daughter came up on the screen...we couldnt work out how this news crew got that particular picture. The photo was in a frame on a side table in our hallway..we went downstairs to investigate and sure enough the photo and frame was gone.......taken by this news crew...without even asking..and we would have given it to them had we been approached.
My husband flew into a rage and naturally went ballisitic at the head of the department who eventually relented once my husband threatened legal action... yes we got the photo and frame back approx 2 weeks after the funeral. and dont get me started on the reporting of the funeral..yes they turned up and trust me it was a fine line between being respectful and reporting a funeral...a bloody fine line.
So thats my only real experience with the media and for us and naturally my then husband it was beyond sickening...I always do feel for any person who has had loss or grief and having bloody cameras in your face....god it was awful what my husband went thru for a small story (but of course a life changing story for him)
I have no real time for the media..I no longer watch the news, current affairs etc and even investiagtive journalism is somewhat questionable nowadays (bring back Sunday) I dont buy the papers either..I get my news from the net and that is questionable as well... ...I always thought that "Frontline" nailed it completely..
Ive heard Michael Jackson died...............Im not even sure if that is true !!! | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 7:51:40 PM | Pookie, that is just horrible. I’m glad that your husband had you there to help him through something so horrific.
I too have a personal experience but nowhere near as bad as yours thankfully. I was the subject of a TV story and we initially taped an interview in my home. They then wired me up for sound and drove me to the location. The reporter was walking around with me and kept asking hurtful questions which was making it increasingly difficult for me to keep my emotions in check. After a while I got the feeling that they weren’t interested in my responses and this was confirmed about ten minutes into it when the reporter stopped the questions and in frustration asked if I would please cry for the tape.
I understand that they were trying to dramatise it more, and I can’t honestly say that it detracted from the focus of the story, but I felt like a piece of meat being used by them.
Since that time I have always viewed news reports and current affair stories with the eye of a skeptic wondering how much is true and how much has been contrived for drama. I’ve never forgotten seeing plane crash footage on the news (I think it was Lockerbie) and the image of a childs teddy bear being amongst the plane wreckage. It turned out later that the toy had been placed there by one of the reporters. When this fact came out people were angry that their emotions had been manipulated. But of course children were killed in the crash so I guess you could also argue that the reporter who placed the toy was merely highlighting the tragedy of it all.
So, to answer the Ops question – I don’t think that the media can/do manufacture the news events but their presentation of them is definitely manipulated to influence our views. This of course puts them in a very powerful position which is why the government so tightly regulates ownership of TV, radio and newspapers.
Can we hold them accountable for it? I guess all we can do is vote with our feet by not watching those programs where we are skeptical of their credibility. I sure hope the channel I am currently boycotting notices that I’m not watching tonight! 8-) | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/26/2009 9:23:38 PM | *
I try not to watch the mainstraem news at all but strangely get drawn to wanting to know what everyone else does, so find myself watching from time to time. Can they be more obvious? The brainwashing has been happening for many years and we dont even realise the subtle changes that are made within our psychi. Just turn off the mainstream news and watch some of the many private news broadcasts available on the internet.
I could go on but enough said.
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/27/2009 8:05:32 AM | No doubt the media are shocking. Sometimes they are like dogs with a bone about something, but will ignore other important issues entirely. Most TV news is reported subjectively rather than objectively, but I do like SBS news. I have no idea what we can do, except not relying on one source of information...and making sure our kids are intelligent enough to think for themselves and not be afraid to question, research, theorise for themselves, debate ideas, consider alternatives, learn to read people and understand human motivations. Drone thinkers and an unreliable media is too scary a combination.
and one journo commented to another "what we need on this guy is to find some secret bucks party video or something from his past." This exchange was overheard by another reported who ran off to tell his editor he had heard there was a secret bucks party video with Mark Latham which his paper printed. The next day it was news on radio, tv and print all over the country and went for nearly two weeks.
That's a classic. 
My brother gets interviewed from time to time, and one time an interviewer twisted a comment he had made about how supportive our Grandfather had been of his art. In the article they worded it to sound like our Dad had not been supportive...which he didn't say. Obviously that's not anything world shattering, but we were really worried about Dad feeling hurt by it, so it's just a tiny personal example of misreporting.
I understand the scorn for current affairs shows, however I will say that they have come to perform a relevant social function, and that is of watchdog. Stories exposed via that medium often force a relevant person or entity to sit up and take notice with regards to something they were previously ignoring....councils who make stupid bylaws, businesses treating consumers unfairly, and so on. I heard a discussion on the radio some time back, where callers were giving examples where sometimes even the threat of calling a current affairs show can cause someone to suddenly do better, comply with the law, start talking common sense, etc.
In fact...back when my husband and I nearly got sucked in by a fake cancer scam, which was being administered by a guy with MD on his letterhead who turned out not to be a doctor at all...it was the current affairs media the police suggested we talk to because the whole matter fell between jurisdictional cracks. The police wanted it spotlighted that they are restricted from doing much about these fakes and actually called a reporter from one of the shows and had us talk to them, but they wanted to film us and in the end we decided we didn't want our lives on TV. ...Although my husband joked that he'd do the pitiful cancer patient crying on camera for them for $10,000...such a media whore. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/27/2009 8:21:51 AM | I've actually found SBS news to be the one with less 'fluff and drama'. I can never understand why commercial stations do a live cross to a reporter standing at the site of where something happened 6 hrs before with nothing there now, only to repeat what the guy in the studio just told us.
My gripe also extends to shows like Current Affair and Today Tonight. These shows were originally extensions of the news, to give more time and a more in depth report of topical items. Instead now they are advertising diets, celebrity shows, large lotto draws etc etc with the whole show being rubbish. Even the 'news' items that are on there are contrived.
If anybody, like the ladies above, have been part of a media story you will know how they get you to 'act out' parts. Often not anything to do with what really happened. I mean even in news stories you see people walking into shot with files in hand, picking up a phone, reading something at a desk and these are all set-up shots. Interviews are cut and edited, stories are slanted to suit the aim of the station. Somehow they think that the news has to be good television. I prefer the days of people like Brian Naylor and the like where the person sitting on the desk had presence and integrity and you could trust what they said. Now late news has become a fashion event with pretty dollies where they are as dressed up as the stories they present. It's becoming a fine line between the news and the reality TV shows. | |
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| The Media - Do they report the news or manufacture it? How do we hold them accountable?
Posted: 6/27/2009 9:03:50 AM | ^^^ That just reminded me... One of the commercial TV stations in London (can't remember which one) had this early morning report that was filmed live at their studio. A reporter read the breaking news headlines from an 'idiot card' while standing in front of what appeared to be a 'busy newsroom' at the station. In the background were all these busy people rushing about handing bits of paper to people sitting at desks, who were, in turn, talking on the phone and taking notes in a serious news-gatheringly important manner.
Through an actor mate of mine, I was offered the job of being one of the industrious news hounds in the busy studio 'newsroom'. I so wish I could have taken the job coz being paid to act intelligent would be so much more fun than pretending to be, which I regularly do for no financial gain whatsoever.
As far as the questions raised in the OP go... I have nothing to add due to lack of an informed opinion, but I do appreciate the contributions from clever people who know what they are talking about. Sometimes I nod my head, or incline it on one side and frown slightly to appear seriously concerned. Damn! I was so made for that job...  | |
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