How Ads Affect Our News
Jul. 25th, 2012 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorIn an out-of-town visitor induced haste, I briefly posted one of my pet peeves about what news has become, notably a race to the bottom of the attention span, constantly trying to keep the attention of the viewer despite a complete lack of engaging detail and even though there are a lot of stories they could be covering. Years ago, This Hour Has 22 Minutes did the best parody of this phenomenon, reporters blathering on about how a door will soon open and someone will say something important, complete with a crawl talking about "The Doors first album was released in 1969," just as a tangental observation. (One day more advanced online search will allow me to share gems like this.)
Today, though, I thought I would go over my observations about current news coverage and how they are hobbled by their chief reason for existence, their need to keep the commercials on the air.
Several years ago, in the wake of 9/11, someone intelligent noted that there was quite a bit of anti-Israel ranting on the news of just about every major Islamic state, far and away more than Israel deserves, this intelligent someone noted. Yes, Israel does plenty to deserve a scolding finger wag; that, though, is not my purpose here. The intelligent someone actually measured the time any given topic was mentioned on the news in these overtly anti-Israel states. Judging by time alone, Israel's policies caused just about all the woes of the world, something even the most ardent anti-Zionist would call suspect.
The intelligent someone then looked into the restrictions placed on media in most of these states and noted one big factor: In Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria and many others, it was illegal to "slander" the rulers (this is all pre-Arab Spring, of course). And since Islam is incorporated into just about every one of these regimes to varying degrees, the "rulers" are, by extension, the defenders of Islam, putting a very fine edge to any criticism. I'm willing to bet your complaints about your water bill will be more polite if there was any serious chance of being condemned in a fatwa.
Since one could not condemn the state, and further since many large corporations in (for example) Saudi Arabia are run by members of the Saud family, there's not much one can do in the way of investigative journalism. Solution? Fill the airwaves with disproportionate levels of anti-Israel stories, coupled with also disproportionate anti-Great Satan Israel enabler United States stories, just so you can actually fill the airwaves.
I've not been to any of these Arab countries, so I of course can neither confirm nor deny this intelligent someone's observations and speculation. Something of the same thing, though, happens here in the US, though in a very different direction. News agencies tend, it seems to me, to go soft on stories that involve their sponsors. Take Time magazine, for example. In 2000, Time ran a series called "Heroes for the Planet," documenting people "who are working to protect the natural world."
That is but one very small example. Extrapolate to the larger media. Think about how many times automobile dealers from Ford and everyone else run ads on the stations carrying the news. Is it any wonder very few stories about how the car is changing just about every aspect of our lives run? Sure, there are stories too egregious to not carry. Take the big story two years ago, about Toyota's acceleration and control problems, followed by their massive recall. That was covered, else how would any of us non-Toyota-owners know of it? Ah, but it seems ABC News particularly went too far, reporting the story "unfairly." What happened?
Here's a question: Was this reporting "biased and unfair"? I honestly don't know, but do know that it doesn't matter. This ploy by Toyota has been seen for decades. Ever wonder why news agencies don't do stories actually asking why we Americans haven't been able to buy an affordable electric vehicle for almost a hundred years? Really, I watched the events depicted in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car unfold on-line as it happened, read with horror the stories of leases pulled and cars crushed. And all of it went uncovered, or at least unchallenged, by the press. All of it.
To put a crude point on the issue, if the advertisers decide reporters must all acknowledge that Toyota has a huge penis (despite evidence that the penis is only average in size or, worse, minuscule), the first agency that doesn't gush with envy at the erect member's size and force its reporters to dream on-air about the joy of possibly suckling at that cock until their jaws ache and knees bleed will suffer the wrath of poverty and hear the bank vault slam shut. Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Okay, so media is hampered on which stories they can pursue. What is the current Israel of US press? That is to say, which stories can they pursue? Let's look at what entities don't advertise that much.
In the local area, there are small contractors and shady operations that don't pay for ads, at least not on the telly. Too expensive. Hence, entire local outlets have their "problem solver" teams dedicated to sifting through viewer letters, following up on the more promising ones by simply pointing a camera at a business owner and often getting results. No honest owner can afford such negative press, and the ones that cover their faces and attempt to run are reporter gold. To date, I have not seen that camera pointed at a major local business. Interesting.
We also get quite a bit of crime news. Go figure. Criminals can be businessmen. Those, though, only get mikes and cameras pointed at them when the story is too large to ignore. In the meantime, there are plenty of stories that simply don't matter as much as they seem to matter. Yes, the Colorado shooting was important and worth some coverage; but the fact that the shooter can't call out his PR team to squash the story, coupled with his body count, means it becomes The story. For far, far too long. Same goes for missing children, for they are cute (especially the blond ones). (Sadly, stories that deserve coverage are often quashed because. . . . There was a local little girl snatched from a bowling alley, her little African-American face splashed on every screen. That ended three days later when they aired a plea from her very Caucasian mother. There is still enough inter-racial mating hatred around here to kill a story, and in this case, sadly, the hopes for finding a little girl as well.
(Which has nothing to do with ad pressure, I know. It just still pisses me off.)
And finally, there's the government. Yes, they do post ads; but many of those fall under the category of public service spots. A certain number of minutes per hour each day must air these spots gratis, unless. . . . I do remember a bit of a scandal involving the silly show 90120, in which the producers ran plots echoing anti-drug-"abuse" ads in return for the network being able to convert the public service spots to paid commercials. So much for honesty in drama.
But a government agency wielding the threat of ad pulls to stop reporting? That would be scandalous in the extreme. As a result, the agencies large and small tend to be under the media microscope, each reporter hoping the break that next big story that won't be quashed by the commercial Sugar Daddies. As a further result, with few exceptions the American public is subjected to government scrutiny far and away more severe than is actually warranted by actual government misdeeds. As a further consequence of this further result, Americans have a pretty dim view of government competence, extending the over-reported minor glitches inevitable in large organizations and occasional corruption brought to the surface by a klieg light of coverage to a dim future for any government agency's chance of ever doing anything right, ever.
When corporate interests capitalize on this dim public appraisal through their unofficial mouthpieces like the very-well-funded Limbaughs or Becks, said interests can both insulate themselves from criticism with the attentions focused elsewhere, and develop future business when the word "privatization" is raised, transforming what were non-profit government services into lucrative revenue streams.
It's a win-win . . . unless one considers the public in the equation.
I'm quite sure some of you out there will point to "public" outlets and claim their contribution to the news balances the corporate-funded voices. Yes, some will claim this despite the fact that almost no one watches PBS and the fact that NPR has been running blatant ads for years. In a speech Bill Moyers gave years ago, he noted that private contributors would often give large checks to PBS station directors with a warning that such checks would dry up if the station didn't do something about their "liberal bias." (Sorry, I've searched but have not found that speech.) So yes, there are stations that claim to be "public" here in the US, but there are precious few outlets that actually are, since most all of them carry ads.
(How many ads does a show or station have to air to be considered "commerical?" One. I look at it philosophically. Be they man or woman, it doesn't matter; from acts as small as a little kiss to those as major as a long sloppy fuck, someone who trades physical intimacy directly for money is a whore.)
True story: I wrote my local NPR station a few years ago with my concerns about these ads. I got a response . . . wait for it . . . from the Director of Corporate Sponsorship. If you have a problem with predation in the hen house, Farmer John, we'll send a fox to investigate.
Even with the rise of the internet and the supposed press freedom from ads that should bring, I've noticed the old model of paid sponsorship running wild. I'm beginning to suspect (albeit without much smoking gun evidence) that this might be deliberate. After all, what would happen to shows if people stopped simply accepting that they were sponsored? This can be examined by looking at our past, a past that did not necessarily have ads simply because the technology was too nascent.
This cartoon ran with this article 90 years ago. The article was a serious probing of radio ads and their appropriateness entitled, "Advertising by Radio. Can It and Should It Be Done?" The thrust of the article (which I summed here) was a resounding No. Yet today things are quite different.
And I think this is so simply because people have become over the decades so inured to ads. They fail to recognize them simply because they have become like a single smell in an active atmosphere alive with foul smells. Rather than react angrily like the 1922 card party, we are like those living next to the cow compound calling the smell of shit just part of life. ("Come on over and smell our dairy air!")
There is hope. The internet may have created an inadvertant monster. For years, I have been getting so much content without ads that I now (contrary to my past) recognize ads as an intrusion. I can no longer just sit by and let such intrusions, well, intrude into my life without comment. What would happen if newspapers and other investigative outlets found some means of monetizing non-commercial content using this internet? Though it might be beyond the scope of this post, I whole heartedly believe this would change all media. Like the standard network television news of our past did when their rivals at 24/7 cable rose to prominence, a public outcry at ad intrusion–born, once again, by viable and alternatively-funded competition from the internet–might just force the networks to reassess their business model.
And that is something I doubt will be passively allowed. Simply put, those that advertise receive far too many advantages from those ads to let a non-commercial alternative flourish enough to gain traction. Their future existence as non-democratic autonomous powers will undoubtedly prove too important to let go unchallenged. Thus, expect active, aggressive and yet almost un-discussed activity, with more and more outlets running ads and fewer and fewer people publicly questioning whether or not this is appropriate and/or beneficial.
Now that the public accepts ads, the rest is simply a matter of spending money and gaining power. Their media must toe their companies' lines.
X-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
talk_politics.
Today, though, I thought I would go over my observations about current news coverage and how they are hobbled by their chief reason for existence, their need to keep the commercials on the air.
Several years ago, in the wake of 9/11, someone intelligent noted that there was quite a bit of anti-Israel ranting on the news of just about every major Islamic state, far and away more than Israel deserves, this intelligent someone noted. Yes, Israel does plenty to deserve a scolding finger wag; that, though, is not my purpose here. The intelligent someone actually measured the time any given topic was mentioned on the news in these overtly anti-Israel states. Judging by time alone, Israel's policies caused just about all the woes of the world, something even the most ardent anti-Zionist would call suspect.
The intelligent someone then looked into the restrictions placed on media in most of these states and noted one big factor: In Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria and many others, it was illegal to "slander" the rulers (this is all pre-Arab Spring, of course). And since Islam is incorporated into just about every one of these regimes to varying degrees, the "rulers" are, by extension, the defenders of Islam, putting a very fine edge to any criticism. I'm willing to bet your complaints about your water bill will be more polite if there was any serious chance of being condemned in a fatwa.
Since one could not condemn the state, and further since many large corporations in (for example) Saudi Arabia are run by members of the Saud family, there's not much one can do in the way of investigative journalism. Solution? Fill the airwaves with disproportionate levels of anti-Israel stories, coupled with also disproportionate anti-Great Satan Israel enabler United States stories, just so you can actually fill the airwaves.
I've not been to any of these Arab countries, so I of course can neither confirm nor deny this intelligent someone's observations and speculation. Something of the same thing, though, happens here in the US, though in a very different direction. News agencies tend, it seems to me, to go soft on stories that involve their sponsors. Take Time magazine, for example. In 2000, Time ran a series called "Heroes for the Planet," documenting people "who are working to protect the natural world."
But Time made clear from the outset that not all environmental issues would get equal treatment. That's because the "Heroes for the Planet" series has an exclusive sponsor: Ford Motor Co. Asked about the conflict of interest presumed by having an automobile company sponsor an environmental series, Time's international editor admitted to the Wall Street Journal (9/21/98) that, no, the series wasn't likely to profile environmentalists battling the polluting auto industry. After all, Alexander explained, "we don't run airline ads next to stories about airline crashes."
That is but one very small example. Extrapolate to the larger media. Think about how many times automobile dealers from Ford and everyone else run ads on the stations carrying the news. Is it any wonder very few stories about how the car is changing just about every aspect of our lives run? Sure, there are stories too egregious to not carry. Take the big story two years ago, about Toyota's acceleration and control problems, followed by their massive recall. That was covered, else how would any of us non-Toyota-owners know of it? Ah, but it seems ABC News particularly went too far, reporting the story "unfairly." What happened?
Toyota dealers in New York state have severely restricted their advertising on ABC-affiliated TV stations throughout the state because of what they consider unfair coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News. . . .
A station manager at a New York ABC affiliate said that a member of the dealers group told him they were "pressured" by the Toyota corporation to limit their commercial buys to no more than a 10 percent share in his market because of what the automaker perceived as "biased and unfair reporting by ABC'S Brian Ross related to the Toyota acceleration issues."
Here's a question: Was this reporting "biased and unfair"? I honestly don't know, but do know that it doesn't matter. This ploy by Toyota has been seen for decades. Ever wonder why news agencies don't do stories actually asking why we Americans haven't been able to buy an affordable electric vehicle for almost a hundred years? Really, I watched the events depicted in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car unfold on-line as it happened, read with horror the stories of leases pulled and cars crushed. And all of it went uncovered, or at least unchallenged, by the press. All of it.
To put a crude point on the issue, if the advertisers decide reporters must all acknowledge that Toyota has a huge penis (despite evidence that the penis is only average in size or, worse, minuscule), the first agency that doesn't gush with envy at the erect member's size and force its reporters to dream on-air about the joy of possibly suckling at that cock until their jaws ache and knees bleed will suffer the wrath of poverty and hear the bank vault slam shut. Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Okay, so media is hampered on which stories they can pursue. What is the current Israel of US press? That is to say, which stories can they pursue? Let's look at what entities don't advertise that much.
In the local area, there are small contractors and shady operations that don't pay for ads, at least not on the telly. Too expensive. Hence, entire local outlets have their "problem solver" teams dedicated to sifting through viewer letters, following up on the more promising ones by simply pointing a camera at a business owner and often getting results. No honest owner can afford such negative press, and the ones that cover their faces and attempt to run are reporter gold. To date, I have not seen that camera pointed at a major local business. Interesting.
We also get quite a bit of crime news. Go figure. Criminals can be businessmen. Those, though, only get mikes and cameras pointed at them when the story is too large to ignore. In the meantime, there are plenty of stories that simply don't matter as much as they seem to matter. Yes, the Colorado shooting was important and worth some coverage; but the fact that the shooter can't call out his PR team to squash the story, coupled with his body count, means it becomes The story. For far, far too long. Same goes for missing children, for they are cute (especially the blond ones). (Sadly, stories that deserve coverage are often quashed because. . . . There was a local little girl snatched from a bowling alley, her little African-American face splashed on every screen. That ended three days later when they aired a plea from her very Caucasian mother. There is still enough inter-racial mating hatred around here to kill a story, and in this case, sadly, the hopes for finding a little girl as well.
(Which has nothing to do with ad pressure, I know. It just still pisses me off.)
And finally, there's the government. Yes, they do post ads; but many of those fall under the category of public service spots. A certain number of minutes per hour each day must air these spots gratis, unless. . . . I do remember a bit of a scandal involving the silly show 90120, in which the producers ran plots echoing anti-drug-"abuse" ads in return for the network being able to convert the public service spots to paid commercials. So much for honesty in drama.
But a government agency wielding the threat of ad pulls to stop reporting? That would be scandalous in the extreme. As a result, the agencies large and small tend to be under the media microscope, each reporter hoping the break that next big story that won't be quashed by the commercial Sugar Daddies. As a further result, with few exceptions the American public is subjected to government scrutiny far and away more severe than is actually warranted by actual government misdeeds. As a further consequence of this further result, Americans have a pretty dim view of government competence, extending the over-reported minor glitches inevitable in large organizations and occasional corruption brought to the surface by a klieg light of coverage to a dim future for any government agency's chance of ever doing anything right, ever.
When corporate interests capitalize on this dim public appraisal through their unofficial mouthpieces like the very-well-funded Limbaughs or Becks, said interests can both insulate themselves from criticism with the attentions focused elsewhere, and develop future business when the word "privatization" is raised, transforming what were non-profit government services into lucrative revenue streams.
It's a win-win . . . unless one considers the public in the equation.
I'm quite sure some of you out there will point to "public" outlets and claim their contribution to the news balances the corporate-funded voices. Yes, some will claim this despite the fact that almost no one watches PBS and the fact that NPR has been running blatant ads for years. In a speech Bill Moyers gave years ago, he noted that private contributors would often give large checks to PBS station directors with a warning that such checks would dry up if the station didn't do something about their "liberal bias." (Sorry, I've searched but have not found that speech.) So yes, there are stations that claim to be "public" here in the US, but there are precious few outlets that actually are, since most all of them carry ads.
(How many ads does a show or station have to air to be considered "commerical?" One. I look at it philosophically. Be they man or woman, it doesn't matter; from acts as small as a little kiss to those as major as a long sloppy fuck, someone who trades physical intimacy directly for money is a whore.)
True story: I wrote my local NPR station a few years ago with my concerns about these ads. I got a response . . . wait for it . . . from the Director of Corporate Sponsorship. If you have a problem with predation in the hen house, Farmer John, we'll send a fox to investigate.
Even with the rise of the internet and the supposed press freedom from ads that should bring, I've noticed the old model of paid sponsorship running wild. I'm beginning to suspect (albeit without much smoking gun evidence) that this might be deliberate. After all, what would happen to shows if people stopped simply accepting that they were sponsored? This can be examined by looking at our past, a past that did not necessarily have ads simply because the technology was too nascent.
This cartoon ran with this article 90 years ago. The article was a serious probing of radio ads and their appropriateness entitled, "Advertising by Radio. Can It and Should It Be Done?" The thrust of the article (which I summed here) was a resounding No. Yet today things are quite different.
And I think this is so simply because people have become over the decades so inured to ads. They fail to recognize them simply because they have become like a single smell in an active atmosphere alive with foul smells. Rather than react angrily like the 1922 card party, we are like those living next to the cow compound calling the smell of shit just part of life. ("Come on over and smell our dairy air!")
There is hope. The internet may have created an inadvertant monster. For years, I have been getting so much content without ads that I now (contrary to my past) recognize ads as an intrusion. I can no longer just sit by and let such intrusions, well, intrude into my life without comment. What would happen if newspapers and other investigative outlets found some means of monetizing non-commercial content using this internet? Though it might be beyond the scope of this post, I whole heartedly believe this would change all media. Like the standard network television news of our past did when their rivals at 24/7 cable rose to prominence, a public outcry at ad intrusion–born, once again, by viable and alternatively-funded competition from the internet–might just force the networks to reassess their business model.
And that is something I doubt will be passively allowed. Simply put, those that advertise receive far too many advantages from those ads to let a non-commercial alternative flourish enough to gain traction. Their future existence as non-democratic autonomous powers will undoubtedly prove too important to let go unchallenged. Thus, expect active, aggressive and yet almost un-discussed activity, with more and more outlets running ads and fewer and fewer people publicly questioning whether or not this is appropriate and/or beneficial.
Now that the public accepts ads, the rest is simply a matter of spending money and gaining power. Their media must toe their companies' lines.
X-posted to
talk_politics.