From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.news-media,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Date: 13 Sep 92 13:55:45 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <BuBDF1.496@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.035421.24960@anasazi.com> john@anasazi.com writes:
>>Keywords: 
>>In article <Bu9LIw.Koq@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>]  I agree.  I don't understand why some people seem to have a problem
>>]  with journalists, editors, and newspapers and TV stations having
>>]  opinions which are expressed in their reporting.   The idea of 
>>]  "objective journalism" is naive nonsense anyway and we should all
>>]  grow up and stop demanding or expecting it.
>>
>>There are two problems with this viewpoint:
>>
>>  (1) The media themselves pretend to be objective, and in fact publicly
>>      pat themselves on back for it all the time.
>
>  This is just PR.  Companies, politicians, etc are always patting
>  themselves on the back for doing all kinds of "good deeds".  So what?
>  Only someone with a child's naivete about the world believes it.

As advertisers know, and Goebbels knew, if you repeat something often
enough from enough different sources, most people accept it as true,
at least partly. In television particularly, people believe what they
see without knowing that what they see may have been edited to show
only what the editors *want* them to see.

Images have powerful effects on people. The same techniques are used
to produce news images as are used to produce advertising images. In
many cases, the same *people* do the production. They often don't see
the ethical problem with using "creative" editing to make news stories
*persuade* instead of *inform*.

>>  (2) There is a serious lack of balance. All 3 of the major TV networks
>>      exhibit the SAME bias, which they loudly proclaim does not exist.
>
>   Again, *you* know they're biased, *I* know they're biased -- is there
>   anyone in this discussion who genuinely doubts that they're biased?
>   This seriously calls into question your idea that many people actually 
>   believe these guys are "objective".   I mean, I'm sure there's *someone*
>   out there who believe that if Dan Rather said it it must be the final 
>   word on the subject, but I think that most people are a little smarter
>   than you give them credit for.   I think especially the "movers and
>   shakers" (educated, powerful, or well-connected people) understand
>   this.  It's just that many of them share the essential bias of the
>   major networks and news magazines.

The problem with pervasive subtle lies is that people may suspect that
they are being misled, but have no comparable sources of information to
*confirm* that they are being misled and to tell them in exactly what
*direction* they are being steered. Unfortunately, something like 80%
of the US population gets all their "hard" news from television. Most
newspapers are scrambling to hold on to their readers by changing to
"soft" news, or becoming color cartoons like USA Today.

>   As to having the SAME bias -- no kidding: they're all going after
>   the SAME market, and with the SAME set of advertisers.   It's the
>   free market at work!    If people didn't like it they wouldn't watch
>   it.    Or is this another case of "You and I have free will but everyone
>   else is brainwashed"?    I used to be the world's biggest TV addict,
>   so if I could see through the B.S. and stop watching anybody can!

Our research department and our "consultants" tell us that style, not
substance, is what builds audience numbers. We're told to dump the
"talking head" stories in favor of quick sound bites and dramatic
images. So complex issues are ignored, or given extremely superficial
treatment. As long as there's no *alternative* to our editorial slant
in the market, that slant has no effect on ratings or advertising
revenue. By presenting a united front, news departments can lock out
viewpoints while competing for audience share on less threatening
grounds like the anchor's hairstyle or the weatherman's banter.
These "production values" are things TV production staffs inherently
understand. 

Only a handful of mega-media companies control the bulk of the broadcast 
and print news business, editorial content decisions are determined at 
the top without much regard for what the audience wants or needs. The 
only alternative for most Americans is to watch what's presented as news, 
or remain totally ignorant of world events. Few will take the time and
effort to research subjects or seek out independent views in books or
journals. They may take their news with a grain of salt, but take it
they do. They watch the news with all it's biases, unaware of many
of the slants to which they are exposed.

>>      I would be much happier if at least one of the networks had a
>>      conservative bias or a libertarian bias or anything other than
>>      the standard left-liberal, statist, anti-traditional bias that
>>      they have today.
>
>    So start one!   Jeesus, it's always a hoot to hear libertarians
>    complaining when the free market doesn't go their way!   Ted Turner
>    started a TV station in Atlanta which was such a success that he 
>    took it national (and international) and called it CNN.  In recent
>    years A&E, Discovery, MTV, Home Shopping Club, Fox, Nickelodeon, and
>    a bunch of others have proved that NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS don't have a lock
>    on TV viewers.

Turner is an interesting case. I put channel 17 on the air for the very
first time in 1967 and still know many of the behind the scenes people 
over there personally. A more conservative group would be hard to find,
it is the South after all. Yet, CNN hews the party line right along with 
ABC, CBS, and NBC. Editorial control belongs to people raided from the 
other news agencies. The old boy network is alive and well at the top 
levels of CNN just like it is at the other networks. These top people 
have an incestuous relationship that stretches back to school days. 
This small group, mostly interchangeable, are the ones who decide what 
you will see and hear. In 25 years in broadcasting, I've seen these 
people come and go. They all say and do virtually identical things as 
if they were reading out of the same book. In fact they usually are
since they come from the same schools and class.

>>      Anyone who watches all three networks should notice that they show
>>      a remarkably consistent view of everything, even though that view
>>      is not universal in the printed press.
>
>   I'm sure they do, and they watch anyway!   Doesn't this tell you
>   something, like maybe they like what they're getting?

More like their only other choice is to not watch news at all. Few people
like to be thought ignorant, yet even fewer are willing to spend the time
and effort to dig out facts on their own, independent of the news agencies.
This is a classic market failure driven by an almost undisplaceable
oligarchy at the top.

Gary