[Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
Corporate Influence in the Media by Anup Shah Advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it. - Chuck Blore, a partner in the advertising firm Chuck Blore Don Ruchman, Inc., quoted by Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p.185. Ever since mass media became mass media, companies have naturally used this means of communications to let a large number of people know about their products. There is nothing wrong with that, as it allows innovative ideas and concepts to be shared with others. However, as the years have progressed, the sophistication of advertising methods and techniques has advanced, enticing and shaping and even creating consumerism and needs where there has been none before, or turning luxuries into necessities. This section introduces some of the issues and concerns this raises. Tableofcontentsforthispage This web page has the following sub-sections: * Free media channels have a cost * The Audience as the Product * The Audience also as the Consumer * Advertorials - Advertisements disguised as News! * Advertainment - Advertisements disguised as Entertainment! * Product Placement * Political influence * Globalization of consumers Free media channels have a cost Various public and free media such as the numerous channels available in America and other nations are naturally subsidized with advertising to help pay the costs. However, as corporate competition has increased, so too has the need for returns on massive expenditures on advertising. Industries spending from millions to billions to win our hearts and influence our choices towards their products and ideas. The sheer amounts of money this brings to media companies is significant and for many cases forms then main form of support for the media company. Hence if something is reported that the advertiser doesn't like, the media company risks losing much needed revenue to stay alive. As a result, the mainstream media is largely driven by the forces of the market. The Audience as the Product Additionally, as Noam Chomsky points out in his article, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream, for a company such as the New York Times, it too has to sell products to its customers. For the New York Times and other such companies, Chomsky points out that the product is the audience, and the customers are the corporate advertisers. This at first thought doesn't seem to make sense. It is not, as we would normally think, and it should be that the product is the newspaper, and the customers are the audience/readers. Sure, readers buy the paper, but as he further points out, readers fit a demography and it is this that is valuable information that can be used by advertisers. Hence, to the advertisers, the product that the New York Times and such companies bring to them, is the audience itself and it is the advertisers that bring the money to the media companies, not the audience. [T]he New York Times [is] a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don't make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. ... You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations. - Noam Chomsky, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream, Z Magazine, June 1997. The Audience also as the Consumer Ben Bagdikian, a prominent media critic, and author of the well-acclaimed book The Media Monopoly, provides more detail and examples. In Chapter 6 of his book, for example, Bagdikian describes in detail the pressure on media companies to change content (to dumb down) and to shape content based on the demographics of the audiences. Slowly then, the content of media isn't as important as the type of person being targeted by the ads. He also shows that the notion of giving the audience what they want is also a bit misleading because, if anything, it is more about targeting those readers that can afford the products that are advertised and so it is almost like giving the advertisers what they want! The dumbing down of the content also acts to promote a buying mood. Hence, as Bagdikian summarizes, programming is carefully noncontroversial, light, and nonpolitical (see p. 133). As he traces briefly the history of advertising in magazines he also hints that this has happened for a long time: The influence of advertising on magazines reached a point where editors began selecting articles not only on the basis of their expected interest for readers but for their influence on advertisements. Serious articles were not always the best support for ads. An article that put the reader in an
Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
- Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] By the way, Joanne asked you this: Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne Please don't ignore people when they question you. I sent her a message addressing her quest for the links. I wasn't aware that I was required to spend additional bandwidth by sending my reply to the entire group. Here it is for anybody who cares. - Original Message - From: Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Joanne Olafson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Secret US plans for Iraq's oil http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21571/ http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:VYoW6FOhyLIJ:www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3087387+Sun+Hudsonhl=en http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3079622 Here are three links It's called the Texas Futile Care Law Google is your friend. http://www.google.com/search?q=Texas+Futile+Care+LawbtnG=Searchhl=enlr= PEACE Scott - Original Message - From: Joanne Olafson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 5:14 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Secret US plans for Iraq's oil Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
I could also have replied: Thank you, Scott! I had actually thought of doing that, but decided not to because I had nothing more to add to my sincere thanks. I hadn't noticed that Scott hadn't replied to the list, and thought that people in the list might find that a redundant posting, even annoying. So I guess I hoped that Scott would read my mind! On further reflection, and a struggle to come up with words to express my feelings about these two actions of George W. Bush, I have come up with a phrase: What a tragic display of irony in such blatant hippocracy! Thank you, Joanne - Original Message - From: Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] By the way, Joanne asked you this: Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne Please don't ignore people when they question you. I sent her a message addressing her quest for the links. I wasn't aware that I was required to spend additional bandwidth by sending my reply to the entire group. Here it is for anybody who cares. - Original Message - From: Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Joanne Olafson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Secret US plans for Iraq's oil http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21571/ http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:VYoW6FOhyLIJ:www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3087387+Sun+Hudsonhl=en http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3079622 Here are three links It's called the Texas Futile Care Law Google is your friend. http://www.google.com/search?q=Texas+Futile+Care+LawbtnG=Searchhl=enlr= PEACE Scott ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] By the way, Joanne asked you this: Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne Please don't ignore people when they question you. I sent her a message addressing her quest for the links. I wasn't aware that I was required to spend additional bandwidth by sending my reply to the entire group. Here it is for anybody who cares. My apologies Scott. But yes, it's usually better onlist than off - the request was onlist so the response should be too, generally speaking. All best Keith - Original Message - From: Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Joanne Olafson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Secret US plans for Iraq's oil http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21571/ http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:VYoW6FOhyLIJ:www.chron.com/cs/CD A/ssistory.mpl/front/3087387+Sun+Hudsonhl=en http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3079622 Here are three links It's called the Texas Futile Care Law Google is your friend. http://www.google.com/search?q=Texas+Futile+Care+LawbtnG=Searchhl=enlr= PEACE Scott - Original Message - From: Joanne Olafson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 5:14 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Secret US plans for Iraq's oil Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
[Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
- Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] We rely on the 4th Estate (of which I'm a lifelong member) to do that for us, that's their role and essential function, but (though the exceptions are many and honorable) there's no need for me to say how derelict they've become in this duty, especially over the last few decades. It's always been a kept press, of course, owned by the very interests it's supposed to protect society against. ---end--- The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. - John Swinton, the Chief of Staff for the New York Times, 1953 ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
[Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
Let's put in some of the rest of it, because you've provided a good example of it. Joanne said: Thank you for your interest in my post. I like to find the stories behind societal beliefs like this that have so often been accepted without question. And I replied: It's MOST important to do that, IMO. We rely on the 4th Estate (of which I'm a lifelong member) to do that for us ... Okay? - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] We rely on the 4th Estate (of which I'm a lifelong member) to do that for us, that's their role and essential function, but (though the exceptions are many and honorable) there's no need for me to say how derelict they've become in this duty, especially over the last few decades. It's always been a kept press, of course, owned by the very interests it's supposed to protect society against. Though the exceptions are many and honorable, and indeed they are. It continued: So we have to find out for ourselves, or be at the mercy of inimical forces that are too often little short of sociopathic. Fortunately it's almost always possible to do that, with a bit of tenacity and scepticism, especially with the Internet - the Internet will save us all, the first true leveller. Truly something new under the sun. So, to your legendary and largely FICTITIOUS quote from John Swinton. Sorry Scott, it's an urban legend, one of these: ... societal beliefs like this that have so often been accepted without question. ---end--- The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. - John Swinton, the Chief of Staff for the New York Times, 1953 There are many debunkings of this myth. Here's one: ... One journalist there, Jeff McMahon, made this in response: Yeah, I'll take that bait. The last time I saw that phony quote Swinton was identified as the chief of staff of the New York SUN, the date was 1853, and where it now says I am paid weekly, it then said I am paid $150 a week. Which is, actually, about how much I made in journalism. Then some liar realized that newspapers don't have chiefs of staff, at least the editorial departments don't, and if you're going to lie you might as well do it big, so they made him the EDITOR IN CHIEF of the New York TIMES in NINETEEN53. Unfortunately, the editor of the New York Times in 1953 was Turner Catledge. So the quote itself betrays a need for journalists because otherwise people who spread such propaganda might go unchecked. That having been said, I will acknowledge that this cheap lie, like most cheap lies, has some truth to it. I think it is expressed rather bitterly, personally, but I'm sure every journalist with any history in the biz has had at least one day when they felt that way. It's the very reason that I gladly applied the word former to the word journalist when it is attached to my name. Indeed, New York Times executive editor Max Frankel said something very similar about the impact of profiteering on journalism after he retired in 1994. Frankel probably isn't quoted quite so widely because he doesn't use 21st century Neo_Old_Testament Naderite phrasiology like fawn at the feet of mammon. What Swinton describes is not so easily described or it would have been dealt with. It is more like a constant, subtle pressure to bend to power. A pressure that can be defied and maybe even often, but that does not seem to ever go away. The strong spend a career tilting against it; the weak let it direct them, as you can see every day in this country's media. It certainly isn't true that you can never write your true opinion in the American press. I wrote my true opinion plenty of times, most recently when I wrote that commentary about Hearst Ranch. It managed to pass through two editors and a publisher without one word changed. However, no anti_Hearst commentary can run in this county without a Steve Hearst commentary on the very same page. And who is responsible for that? Is it the fault of the journalists? No, for that subversion of truth and integrity we can thank our county's professional greenwashers. Anyway, before posting such, we should consider how our brothers and sisters in the Newspaper Guild might feel about such a broadbrush defilement of a very diverse group of largely hard working and underpaid men and women. I propose the following bumper sticker: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FACT CHECKER In cheerful solidarity, Jeff McMahon That's here: http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/History/swinton.htm John Swinton:
Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
Dan Rather certainly made the same point on British TV when he talked about being necklaced if he reported the truth about the bogus rush to war in Iraq. It was a confession that Americans did not see on the corporate controlled TV stations here in the States. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2029634.stm PEACE Scott - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debunking the Swinton quote. ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Re: the 4th Estate
Dan Rather certainly made the same point on British TV when he talked about being necklaced if he reported the truth about the bogus rush to war in Iraq. It was a confession that Americans did not see on the corporate controlled TV stations here in the States. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2029634.stm PEACE Scott - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debunking the Swinton quote. Most journalists have made that point, though perhaps not quite so shrilly. I perhaps made it by spending most of my professional life as a freelancer, though I've also worked for a lot of newspapers, including quite a few of the grand ones. But it's simply no use (literally - it's not useful) to try to paint it with such a broad brush. It's simplistic, and perilous. For instance, you compare the BBC favourably with the corporate controlled TV stations in the US, but the BBC is far from perfect and has been heavily criticised for its coverage of the Iraq war. From a previous message: While I heartily agree the mainstream media give us a sugar-coated view and won't touch controversial stuff Well, they do, eventually, maybe, some of them, some of it, and journalists do - the media may be morally bankrupt, more or less, but journalism isn't, with many exceptions, but not as whole. That message also says this: What is in the archives is quite a few spin exposes, along with all the resources you need to do that. While the Internet has greatly added to the confusion, IMO that's more than outweighed by its providing a real alternative and antidote to the strictures of the kept press, and sufficient good resources to help you sort one from the other, with a bit of effort. Since you've just shown that you're yourself susceptible to unquestioned societal beliefs (John Swinton), and perhaps worse (Joseph Newman), perhaps you should take note. By the way, Joanne asked you this: Hello Scott, Can you provide a link or links for details on: snip while babies in Texas have their breathing tubes ripped from their bodies against their mother's wishes because the hospital can't extract enough money from them. Thank you, Joanne Please don't ignore people when they question you. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ Biofuel list owner Hello Scott Let's put in some of the rest of it, because you've provided a good example of it. Joanne said: Thank you for your interest in my post. I like to find the stories behind societal beliefs like this that have so often been accepted without question. And I replied: It's MOST important to do that, IMO. We rely on the 4th Estate (of which I'm a lifelong member) to do that for us ... Okay? - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] We rely on the 4th Estate (of which I'm a lifelong member) to do that for us, that's their role and essential function, but (though the exceptions are many and honorable) there's no need for me to say how derelict they've become in this duty, especially over the last few decades. It's always been a kept press, of course, owned by the very interests it's supposed to protect society against. Though the exceptions are many and honorable, and indeed they are. It continued: So we have to find out for ourselves, or be at the mercy of inimical forces that are too often little short of sociopathic. Fortunately it's almost always possible to do that, with a bit of tenacity and scepticism, especially with the Internet - the Internet will save us all, the first true leveller. Truly something new under the sun. So, to your legendary and largely FICTITIOUS quote from John Swinton. Sorry Scott, it's an urban legend, one of these: ... societal beliefs like this that have so often been accepted without question. ---end--- The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. - John Swinton, the Chief of Staff for the New York Times, 1953 There are many debunkings of this myth. Here's one: ... One journalist there, Jeff McMahon, made this in response: Yeah, I'll take that bait. The last time I saw that phony quote Swinton was identified as the chief of staff of the New York SUN, the date was 1853, and where it now says I am paid weekly, it then said I am paid $150 a week. Which is, actually, about how much I made in journalism. Then some liar realized that newspapers don't have chiefs of staff, at least the editorial departments don't, and if
