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richardhutnik on 03 November 2011
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badgenome said:
richardhutnik said:

The norm is to want to shape something to fit one's perspective on the world and sell it to your target audience in such a way that you end up maintaining your readership.  Currently, everything Newscorp is an all out media war against everything Occupy.  On page one of the NY Post was a link to an editorial that was entitled "Enough".  A day or two before, front page, they ran an article on how Occupy is costing jobs in NYC.

The entire thing is an attempt to sway opinion.  Newscorp is Rupert Murdock's mouthpiece used to sway public opinion.  That is what happens.  And then one can say, "go to new media" which ends up being blogosphere rumor mongering, taking one point, playing the telephone game and having it morph into some zero-point "truth".

The problem is that Newscorp and Fox News are pretty much shorthand for shitty advocacy journalism to the point that the very mention of the words "Fox News" is enough to inspire guffaws in a lot of circles. But at least Newcorp's outlets tend to wear their bias on their sleeves, whereas other outlets like the AP are supposed to represent SERIOUS JOURNALISM but are in reality no better than Fox or the New York Post. There are far too many SERIOUS JOURNALISTS like Dan Balz who play this silly little game where they insist that, while they do have opinions like any other person, they aren't being biased just so long as they don't come right out and tell you what those opinions are.

I remember seeing a Reuters article recently that said that Occupy Wall Street would cheer (pardon my condensing of memories here, and possible biased conculsions) that the Pope came out and advocated there be a global bank.  Really?

Anyhow, what happened with Fox News (my take here) is that it picked up that being partisan would draw a specific demographic and to keep feeding it a certain line would cater to a certain group.  With some success of that, MS's Need Barack Channel (MSNBC) ended up doing it from the left.  Running news 24/7 leads to a need to feed itself with eyeballs, or else it ends up not being able to keep itself afloat.   I think 24/7 anything is going to lead to this.  I have seen heavy BS in all-sports coverage also, where they make up stories, refute it, and generate a week's worth of news out of nothing before they opened up their mouths.

I think the business side is that you wear your bias on your sleeve to the extent it will get you sufficient readership or viewers.  If having the pretense of non-bias works best for most business that is done.  If being out there does it, you do that.  

And I say, ok if they want to do this.  I do say that more is needed.  Things like the federal debt of the United States should be some sort of common ground that shouldn't continue.  But, the common ground gets sold out in the name of getting more into your camp.