My Stance on News and Media

What is your stance on news and media?
I, as are many of you, am involved with journalism, although I do all my work right now as a freelance writer. While it is not my current vocation, I have been schooled in reporting techniques, etiquettes, etc. The most difficult area of reporting is remaining ‘objective’ to the germ of the story. As I read the Chomsky ‘Manufacturing Consent: A Propaganda Model’, and Romano’s ‘Grisly Truth about Facts’, I found myself nodding my head in so much agreement.
My stance centers along the difficult lines of a purists’ (naïve?) theory – simply write the truth, and you won’t have to worry about what lies you told. On the other hand, if that’s too harsh try this one, ‘…write the truth and you won’t have to worry about what propaganda spin you have had to manufacture.’ I know that that statement, in and of itself, will open its own can of controversial worms. Nevertheless, that’s what an on-line community can discuss for ages to come.
However, it was somewhere in the midst of ‘A Propaganda Model’ that the idea struck that challenged me into thinking, “just how much do I trust any news source?” Chomsky’s Challenge began early on when he opened my eyes to the ‘Filters’ to the Propaganda Model: 1. The Size of the publications firm. 2. The reliance on Advertisers. 3. The Reliance of the media on data being fed to it. 4. The resultant “Flak” if the media are not toeing the line, and 5. The level of ‘Anticommunism’… (Which I personally thought was a very interesting filter.)
It was a story that I likened greatly to the exercise we’ve done in the past regarding the PBS video by Bill Moyers – “Buying the War.” Wherein, for sixty minutes the viewer is being told that the Media – in general – all bought into the second Iraq war hook line and sinker, all as a result of a huge propaganda machine.
In my upcoming 3-page paper, I am going to weigh in very heavily on my reply to my perspective on the ‘Propaganda Model’ article, and the associated Romero piece ‘Grisly Truth about Facts’.
I particularly like the quote from Romano, under the ‘Cover Your Ass’ category, “10 percent of the story is for readers and 90 percent for lawyers”.
Chomsky, McKibben and Romero, all make salient points regarding media and ‘News’ spins (starting with what is news), and all are worthy of further discussion, and certainly points that have been discussed for years up to this point. Admittedly, there is far more going on behind the News scenes than this naïve writer ever knew!
- Marc -