(some things never change ….)

Is all food the same? Does some undergo more processing? Is there an analogy here to understand news media and our information diets, and their effects on our health or the health of the body politic?

• What are mass media (in the news:today: CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Democracy Now, CSM, RSN, Breitbart, Google News)?
• Journalistic standards
  • How is bias addressed?
    • A grid showing some differences in sources (slightly more recent)
    • Noam Chomsky and Justin Lewis on bias as a structure/agency phenomenon
    • The president and the press
    • Political “debate” as “entertainment” (O’Reilly and Geraldo, Cuomo and Giuliani)
    • Left/Right comparisons
      • red and blue states
      • the big sort)
      • Jon Stewart mortally wounds Crossfire
  • Another kind of bias? What makes for good ratings or audience ‘bait?’
  • Analogies: Coke and Pepsi (or disambiguation, removing uncertainty or at least creating that impression/illusion)
  • Fox vs CNN, republicans vs democrats, Coke vs Pepsi, Yankees vs Red Sox, left Twix vs right Twix, etc.
  • the ‘Culture wars‘ (abortion, same sex marriage and LGBTQ justice, immigration, DEI, police shootings and racism, voter fraud vs voter suppression ….)
  • Playing to consumers’ confirmation biases, using simple heuristics
    • Pepsi–Coke–Pepsi–Pepsi  (okay, but this??)
    • CNN vs Fox vs MSNBC? Apple vs Google vs Microsoft vs Android?
    • US vs Europe/Mexico/the world??
    • Republican vs Democrat? Versus, for instance, less partisan and more professional expertise
    • politicizing, ‘partisanizing’ (framing) issues:
      • Covid and the face mask; kneeling for the anthem
      • the Lorax, Secret World of Arietty (claims of indoctrination)
      • The Pope vs (Fox’s) Stuart Varney, Democracy Now
    • Other issues related to bias
      • So what, you ask? Possible consequences
      • A different question: Is the press free to report as it sees fit? Where’s the US ranked worldwide in press freedom?

News ‘filters’ (from Herman and Chomsky)

• 1. Ownership—
  • • corporate concentration, size, cost, pressure from the ‘top’
    • Noam Chomsky on ownership
  2. Advertising
  • • Ever heard of rBST?
  3. Source
  • • How many correspondents cover the White House, Pentagon, Capitol?? What happens if a reporter covers the crime ‘beat’ by simply reviewing the police blotter (that is, what perspectives are missing)?
    • ‘Message force multipliers’ (David Barstow’s NY Times story)
      • Role of leaking in source filtering
      • subsequent media coverage
    • Fake news videos, sometimes with attribution, sometimes not (and getting more sophisticated)
    • Corporate concentration of ownership as … source filtering?
  4. Flak
  • • Media Matters, PR firms, Wolf Blitzer and Michael Moore
    • Social media and the blogosphere–immediate feedback
    • Fox’s Greg Gutfield on MSNBC
  5. Anti-communist/terrorism
  • • Bill Maher after 9/11 (anti-terrorism), Chomsky et al. on East Timor (anti-communism)
  6. Other filtering pressures
  • • Ratings bait (finding, maintaining audience)
    • ‘Beats‘ (routine reporting that may be source filtered, like police blotter, school board meetings)
    • Cost–investigative journalism is risky, expensive
    • Careerism–Do you want to keep your job?
      
    • News cycle and access–especially 24/7
      • without access to ‘news,’ what goes on the air?
      • How to cultivate access and confront power?

What do we end up with? What gets filtered? Commercial vs non-commercial pressures–are they different?

Where does the news ‘not fit to print‘ go (documentaries, independent news sites …)?

So . . . News media as social problem?