Mainstream media or lamescream media?
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- p2pnet has for many moons been calling the mainstream media the lamescream media.
Once, in a galaxy far away, the corporate press reps could get away with anything because there was nothing and no one to effectively gainsay them.
All we saw was what they cared show us
But not any more. These days, the Net Rulz and we supply ourselves and each other with unspun news and information which isn’t only accurate and in depth, it’s also being delivered faster and more efficiently.
After all, we online reporters don’t have advertisers to please and ‘editors’ who have to prove their worth by by editing, whether the copy needs it or not, lurking over our shoulders.
The big international on- and offline story at the moment is that former US presidential candidate and former senator John Edwards admitted to an extramarital affair with film-maker Rielle Hunter.
According to reports, his wife, Elizabeth, is dying of cancer.
But, “The most bizarre thing about the John Edwards scandal may be that infamous tabloid The National Enquirer actually broke the news long ago and the mainstream media ignored the story until last week,” says Motley Fool, going on:
“Is it any wonder so many old-school media companies are in such a sorry state?
“To its credit, a New York Times article acknowledged that news agencies (including its own) lapsed, only picking up the story after Disney’s ABC got Edwards’ interview (and admission of the affair). The article also included what struck me as a litany of lame excuses from media companies including CBS, Washington Post , and The New York Times itself.”
Not only but also, “there’s major hypocrisy here,” Alyce Lomax, who wrote the story, says, going on:
“The antics of Paris, Britney, and Lindsay are often covered with far more depth than much more serious current events.”
Surely not! This must be incorrect!
More than once, however, p2pnet has run posts based on Google headlines, the point being to suggest ‘real’ news is always over-shadowed by totally unimportant advertiser-inspired media drivel dressed up as news.
Our most recent example of this was when Morgan Freeman’s release from hospital sparked far more stories than the opening of the Beijing Olympics.
As, “audiences flee to the Internet for more plentiful and diverse content and advertisers find Google an effective alternative,” media companies’ hard times seem to have, “led to a race to the bottom, which doesn’t exactly set the stage for growth or even survival,” says Motley Fool’s Lomax, adding:
“Speaking of the Internet’s influence, News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal admitted in an article that Internet sources The Drudge Report, Washington Post’s Slate, and the Huffington Post ‘recognized the possibility the [Edwards] story might be true and questioned the old guard’s inaction.’
“Uh-huh. The ‘old guard’ might want to open its eyes, or the future of news may be pretty bleak – probably mostly for its own industry, and of course, for these companies’ long-suffering shareholders.”
Meanwhile, online ………………..
JN
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.Stumble It!
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August 14th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Also see http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/08/in_light_of_edwards_journos_fa.html
There’s a lof of coverage on this and since you mention Google, as I write this there are 4,469 articles listed under the one above
Best …. CMR
August 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
The problem for the lamescream media is that fewer and fewer people get their news from them because now they have a choice and because as a sources of information they are unreliable.
They became obsolete! Sorry!
August 14th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Don’t be sorry, be glad.
The self interest of those media companies are part of why they are where they are. For instance, think about the amount of times the Bush/Cheney outfit has leaked insider info to the news as anonymous sources. Think about the times you have heard about this or that from the mega-media corps in the news. Crap think how many times you have heard about the pro side of file sharing in lamescream. All of this goes right back to a strong (inspite of claims to the contrary) bias and self-interest leading what will be put in the news and what is deemed not newsworthy. It is often in conflict and we as the public find that the news comes in second.
In the above mentions of article sources, you never hear that the news source was checked for validity. While there is supposed to be an office in the news sections that check this, it does not go deeper than seeing that notes and recordings match up with used statements enough so that it can be said to be the source. Not necessary an accurate representation for what the source was.
I don’t know about you, but when I’ve been the source for the few rare times that something I did or was involved with in my life was a news source, at no time did any (not once) item truly reflect the thought, actions, etc of what, why, how, when, or where, accurately. They were all slanted in some manner and made incorrect by that slant. It’s just gotten so bad lately, you can’t trust what you read to be remotely near the truth.
When the corporations put out a blurb or fluff piece, chances are good it will be swallowed whole, as if it came out of the news bible as the only truth, and repeated word for word.
The day of the investigative report is over. Used to be, news sources cared about exposing corruption and dirty dealings and would air that right out in public. You rarely hear of that anymore, not without them having some sort of hidden agenda they are pushing in the process.
It’s gotten so bad with layoffs, that they no longer do well at generating news content, but do excellently at parroting it. That’s what the TV news anchors are today, parrots. If they can read and speak authoritatively at the same time, then that is what the news media seeks to spread the word. Talking heads is what they are, not news reporters, not investigators.
Is it any wonder that the established media corps are going down the drain from readership hemorrhaging as those that in the past got their news from public news sources now go for somewhere else where they can get accurate, timely, news that is at the source, cutting out the middleman with other agendas beside the truth.