Ever get the sense watching, say, Fox News or MSNBC that you were being fed a line. Travel outside the US for any length of time and the same sensation may occur but on a larger scale. I call it being “inside the bubble:” the belief we are getting accurate information about the world. The realization, once outside the country, that the range of information we get is radically constrained, and often presents a very distorted picture of reality, is a great argument for a visit to LastMinute.com. I think it is also one of the reasons that blogs have found such a huge, and growing, audience.
The Nation magazine helped explain part of the reason this might be in an interesting story earlier this month “The Media-Lobbying Complex:”
President Obama spent most of December 4 touring Allentown, Pennsylvania, meeting with local workers and discussing the economic crisis. A few hours later, the state’s former governor, Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews, offering up his own recovery plan. There were “modest things” the White House might try, like cutting taxes or opening up credit for small businesses, but the real answer was for the president to “take his green agenda and blow it out of the box.” The first step, Ridge explained, was to “create nuclear power plants.” Combined with some waste coal and natural gas extraction, you would have an “innovation setter” that would “create jobs, create exports.”As Ridge counseled the administration to “put that package together,” he sure seemed like an objective commentator. But what viewers weren’t told was that since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock, according to SEC filings.
Moments earlier, retired general and “NBC Military Analyst” Barry McCaffrey told viewers that the war in Afghanistan would require an additional “three- to ten-year effort” and “a lot of money.” Unmentioned was the fact that DynCorp paid McCaffrey $182,309 in 2009 alone. The government had just granted DynCorp a five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan. The first year is locked in at $644 million, but the additional four options are subject to renewal, contingent on military needs and political realities.
In a single hour, two men with blatant, undisclosed conflicts of interest had appeared on MSNBC. The question is, was this an isolated oversight or business as usual? Evidence points to the latter. In 2003 The Nation exposed McCaffrey’s financial ties to military contractors he had promoted on-air on several cable networks; in 2008 David Barstow wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for the New York Times about the Pentagon’s use of former military officers–many lobbying or consulting for military contractors–to get their talking points on television in exchange for access to decision-makers; and in 2009 bloggers uncovered how ex-Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe had guest-hosted Countdown With Keith Olbermann while working at a large PR firm specializing in “strategies for managing corporate reputation.”
These incidents represent only a fraction of the covert corporate influence peddling on cable news, a four-month investigation by The Nation has found. Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials–people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests–have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens–and in some cases hundreds–of appearances.
Democracy Now! interviews author of the piece Sebastian Jones after the flip. What do you think?
Discuss
10 Comments . Leave a comment below.If you want to have news credentials, you don't get to own other businesses.
GE owns NBC. GE also makes nuclear power equipment and military equipment, hospital equipment, etc. Would anyone be surprised if GE's news had shades of commentary which boosted their other businesses?
It's not hard, and not unreasonable: you either sell off your news broadcasting, or you don't get a press pass. That simple.
Yes? No?
And is awaiting regulatory approval.
More philosophically, however, it would be hard to square your proposed regulation with our freedom of speech laws. More practically, lack of press passes doesn't keep people from reporting news. In fact, I think that many blogs are becoming more trusted sources of information than many commercial media organizations, even though they don't have press passes ... perhaps because they don't have press passes.
A better role for government, I think, is to help ensure a level playing field to allow alternative sources of more credible information to make their way forward in the information market. In particular, Internet providers should not be allowed to favor their own content over that of rivals. Comcast, for example, should not be allowed to make NBC content available for free while forcing people to pay, for example, to access Red Mass Group.
I simply argue to take away any rules, regulations, access, etc. afforded to journalists. Laws which protect journalists wouldn't apply to employees there. Want to use the public spectrum? Too bad. Want press access to federal events? Nope. Does this mean you can't have a news hour? Of course not... knock yourself out. But, good luck covering a chunk of the news, and good luck doing it over the public airwaves.
The Feds have a history of applying some regulation to broadcasters, not least of all the Fairness Doctrine.
Bob, that doesn't make any sense. Everyone knows MSNBC is a mouthpiece for lefty propaganda. Just ask our resident differently-winged friends! MSNBC hates nuclear energy and the military, because they're a bunch of dirty-fucking-hippie environmentalist peaceniks!
These last two exchanges are the funniest thing I've seen on the web in years.
:eyesroll:
He is the only voice of reason on that network. The thing I like is he has guests on from all sides and not just "safe" ones.
Who was the last "tough" conservative guest you saw on Rachel Maddow's show? Likewise, who was the last lefty on Hannity?
But Joe has them all (although I think he has more Democrats on than Republicans). Ron Paul was on yesterday and I thought he was very credible.
If no news is good news, we have the goodest news. Buried somewhere in Tiger stories and Hollywood tales, you might find something that touches your life, but don't count on it. Smile, be happy. What you see is bought and paid for by people with a lot more money than you.
If you want to find out what's happening in the US of A, foreign news is the source. To think, we used to badmouth the controlled news in the USSR!
On another front, the ACORN "misconduct" story was repeated without question by mainstream outlets, including the NY Times.
The wide reporting about the "misconduct" contrasts with the much narrower reporting about former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's investigation that found no illegal conduct on the part of ACORN.
Here is a recent story by independent journalist Brad Friedman about how the NY Times refuses to retract their original story, and a detailed account of their many errors. The post includes the full email exchange between Friedman and the NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt. Link: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7715
One of Hoyt's defenses centers around the meaning of the word "and".
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