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 Media Savvy News Media for Democracy News Dissector Blog
BLOGGING MEDIA REFORM?
Will you be blogging this weekend's National Conference for Media Reform? Let us know: we'll feature your coverage. Write doug[at]mediachannel.org.
What does media democracy look like?
Monday, May 9 2005 Robert Jensen:J-schools are to blame for the corporatization of journalism. Mark Crispin Miller:J-students are insulated from the "sad reality" of journalism today. Also on MediaChannel: Danny Schechter:The time is now to bring media reform to the masses. David Shaw:Are journalists today more dishonest than earlier generations? Tuesday, May 10 2005
Jennifer Nix:Vote with your dollars. Stop feeding the corporate media beast!
Sonia Shah:Progressive publishing needs you. Also on MediaChannel: Rory O'Connor:Media reform in the midst of a radical takeover isn't enough, but one congressman has an idea. Cong. Bernie Sanders:President Bush and his right-wing colleagues are going after your computer, your radio and your remote control. Wednesday, May 11 2005
David Moberg:Reporters think they can beat the "free market."
Kari Lydersen:Immigrants are still "the other" to mainstream media.
Liza Featherstone:Today's elite press can't relate to working Americans.
Barbara Ehrenreich:The bulk of media cater to the affluent. Also on MediaChannel: John Atcheson:Why liberals are mad at the MSM. Thursday, May 12 2005
Josh MacPhee:Respect the power of imagery and culture. Corporations do.
Eric Galatas:Preserving public access TV is an epic, and crucial, struggle.
Howard Zinn:Know your history, and expose the failures of the media. Friday, May 13 2005
Ben Bagdikian:Don't believe the hype: newspapers are profitable. |
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 David Moberg: Although "big labor" was still being blamed (incorrectly) for inflation and stagnation in the 1970s, the political assaults and economic crises of the 1980s led to a dramatic decline in labor's numbers and influence. As a consequence, there was a dramatic shift in elite opinion – even to some extent among Democrats and liberals: labor unions were no longer very important, not even as bogeymen. Despite a brief, small flurry of press attention when John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO ten years ago, there is still a prevailing elite view that unions are largely irrelevant, with the possible exception of their role in elections (where they are seen as providing money and, more recently, grass-roots mobilization on behalf of Democrats). This shift in views of the saliency of unions to American society coincided with the rise of a new religious fervor for "free markets," including "free trade," even though both often effectively became platforms for pro-corporate policies, including celebration of the CEO as hero, as much as crusades for policies subservient to the dictates of the marketplace. In this context, unions were seen as anachronisms, irrelevancies or obstacles to prevailing wisdom. Within the media, there was also a long-emerging shift towards journalists who were products of university education, often from elite schools, and who were either upper middle-class in origin or detached from any working class roots. At the same time, the print media in particular were shifting towards upscale and specialized audiences that were more attractive to advertisers, not mass, partly working-class audiences. Also, with some justification, aspiring journalists saw the labor beat, where it still existed, as a low-prestige diversion from a successful career path. It's also probably likely that the more corporate, concentrated media were more disconnected from local working-class audiences than locally owned media, even though many local media barons were intensely anti-union. Why hasn't the labor movement been willing to support independent media which present an alternative to corporate-dominated news? Most union leaders want a media voice that they can control. This can be seen as simply the typically conservative tendencies of most organizational leaders, who are interested in projecting and protecting themselves. Corporations, in general, have no great love for an independent media either. More charitably, union leaders see themselves as under siege and in constant battle for survival, and they see media as a weapon in that war. It is easy – and quite correct – to argue that in the long run they would benefit from the existence of a more powerful independent media that was at least generally sympathetic to labor's aims, but their focus is often short-term, and there are many legitimate competing demands on union funds, such as increasing spending on organizing. Surveys of journalists have found that although media workers tend to be liberal on social issues, the biggest bias they have is their support for free trade agreements. Why are reporters' views so different from those of American workers? Most reporters occupy a slightly professionalized niche in the class structure, earning more than most other workers (especially if they are part of the opinion-making elite media), and having the illusion and, sometimes, the real experience of greater autonomy than most workers. They are less exposed – so far – to the global pressures bearing down on many workers who make goods that are traded in international markets, and they imagine that their education will give them the power to adapt to changing markets. They tend to have a slightly more cosmopolitan view of the world than the average American, and free trade gets associated with an openness to a wider world, even though there are progressive varieties of internationalism that are hostile to the typical free trade agreement. They are also susceptible to many of the free market arguments that have grown in influence, partly because the intellectual influence of the left has declined, and even liberal Democrats are deeply divided in many cases over trade and globalization. But the most pronounced free trade bias exists on editorial pages, where it is part of a general bias in favor of business and market-determined policies, even if it is shared to some degree by the average reporter. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published.  Kari Lydersen: Overall I feel like there's been a lot of good media coverage of immigrant issues recently, with various daily papers doing series on deaths and vigilante activity at the border, connections between Latin American hometowns and communities in the U.S., unjust deportations and even labor abuses against workers. However there could be a lot more integration of covering immigration and the effects of free trade policies that drive immigration in everyday coverage of all issues – with such a high population of immigrants, any story about education, labor, homeland security, housing, etc can't really be complete without specifically mentioning immigrant communities. Also I think the "push" factor – global economic policies and the other reasons that immigrants end up coming here – are not covered enough. What causes the media's indifference to the mistreatment of Spanish-speaking immigrants in America? Is it their lack of economic power, or the difficulty of journalists in communicating with their communities? Probably both – I don't know if Spanish-speaking immigrant communities are any more ignored than low-income African-American communities – I think obviously in general mainstream media is geared toward middle/upper-income, college-educated, often suburban readerships whose editors seem to think want to read largely about their own communities and issues that affect them directly. Like I said before I think there is a lot of decent and sometimes outstanding coverage of immigrant issues, but it's usually written as if the immigrants are the "other," not the actual community the paper is or should be speaking to. Recently, the Florida tomato farmworkers won their campaign to pressure Taco Bell to help improve their wages. Do you think that campaign represents a model for combining media, campus activism, and the labor movement? I think it's a great model, it harnessed the power of religious, labor and student communities and yet was mostly directed by the farmworkers themselves. Even to activists, marginalized communities like immigrant farmworkers are often "invisible" – it was a very powerful thing for people who might be used to being in charge themselves to work in a great solidarity role taking direction and inspiration from the workers themselves. The campaign was so full of energy and creativity and a variety of approaches that all added up to success. However I think the campaign needs to – and plans to – really keep the heat on Taco Bell (parent company YUM Brands), because I don't think any corporation will just become a "good guy" overnight. The media tend to report on the "acronyms" (WTO, GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA) in terms of abstract goals rather than the real-world destructive aspects of these institutions on the poorest people of the world. How can the media tell the stories of how international agreements affect people around the planet? Reporters need to do more reporting directly in the countries and communities that are affected. On paper a lot of these policies do sound like sensible things that would help everyone, so only by reporting on the ground in affected communities can the real story be told. This is especially important in the case of NAFTA, which has been around long enough to have shown concrete, mostly negative effects on lots of communities and populations. I'd also love to see more attention to some of the former World Bank officials and mainstream economists who are really critical of these policies. A movie like "Life and Debt," about the effect of free trade reforms on Jamaica, is an excellent example of combining analysis and on the ground reporting in a way people can really understand and relate to. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published.  Barbara Ehrenreich: Actually, I think there has been very little hostility from the right. The UNC situation was unique, except for a few Young Republicans leafletting my lectures at other places. One of the accusations made against you in North Carolina was that you are (gasp!) a socialist. Why do think "Socialist” has become a dirty word, and should progressives stop using that term because it alienates so many people? I generally don't use it because it requires so many modifiers (like "democratic" etc), but it doesn't apparently take much googling to find that I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (Michael Harrington's old organization.) In "Nickel and Dimed," you went "undercover” as a low-wage worker to show how difficult their lives are. Why are the media so reluctant to do similar investigations or even tell the stories of the working class in America? I don't know why they don't do more undercover stories, unless out of fear of law suits (check out the famed Food Lion vs. ABC case in the mid 90s.) As for the poor and the working class: media in general are interested only in readers who represent "good demographics" from an advertiser's point of view, meaning affluent. – John K. Wilson, coordinator of the Independent Press Association's Campus Journalism Project and founder of the Indy, where the interviews were published.
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