« "Deep Suckpact": Toby Is In It | Main | Calculus Equation #993 »
August 8, 2005
McChesney, Jennings, Uncle Walter... American Journalism b. 17??- d. 1996-2005
Fitting that on the night of Peter Jenning's passing, PBS's NOW ran a program with Robert McChesney. McChesney (who was a Seven Stories Press writer and whom I have met) is one of the foremost media critics in America. He has been forcasting the collapse of American journalism for some time. His foremost concern: the consolidation of media ownership, stemming from the 1996 telecommunications act.
The vultures have definetely gobbled up the entrails. We are stuck with six major media conglomerates holding the cards. There has been a marked increase in self censorship amongst the media. The low point: the refusal to question the reasons Bush gave for the Iraq war. The Fourth Estate couldn't muster even a low jab towards the President. A powerful, questioning media makes a full, true and rich democracy. It is their duty to investigate power. Now they are awash with power themselves, embedded in the Beltway, toasted at cocktail parties.
They didn't tell us FDR was in a wheelchair or that JFK was screwing Marilyn Monroe, but we did not need to know that. We needed to know that Vietnam was not going as well as Robert MacNamara was claiming. We needed to know that Howard Hunt was on the White House payroll. We still need to know so much. We are not being told anything.
After watching ABC's announcement of the death of Jennings last night, I flipped to the other news sources, to see what they were going to say about Jennings. On Fox, Geraldo was proving his worthlessness yet again (which seems impossible after Al Capone's vault and the nosejob and the airing of our troop movements.) The chick in Aruba, yet again. Some woman in Ohio going crazy on some cops. The hidden killer in your microwave. Your children will die tomorrow. We distract, your brain atrophies and dies.
Walter Cronkite, to me, is still the most respected newsman in America, due eulogies to Peter Jennings aside. Nobody beats Cronkite, although I have the utmost respect for Jim Leher, Bill Moyers, Morley Safer, the late David Brinkley, the (way) late Edward R. Morrow, Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, Christiane Amenpour, Ted Koppel, Daniel Schorr and, I hate to admit it, Sam Donaldson (just for the arrogance.) As the above (exception: Amenpour) age, so the standard lowers. "60 Minutes" is a shadow of it's former glory and CNN is absolutely laughable.
PBS is really the only place left that gives you more then two minutes a topic. Where they don't lead with the Aruba chick (I'm so sick of missing children stories. Children go missing every year at an alarming rate, most of them African-American. It's frankly disturbingly sexual that we focus on these blond girls. Some sociologist should really look at that. Of course, PBS will be the only one who would show such a report. AND, while mothers across the country are alarmed, they should remember that, although their kids may be snatched up at exotic locals, they don't have to work in factories anymore and they won't die of polio, TB or Spanish influenza.)
The media is decaying rapidly. So what, you say. We have the internet. Problem: a blog has no authority. I have no authority. You have no authority. We aren't in Baghdad, we aren't in Niger, we aren't in Iran. We can spout off anything but we actually know nothing. Plus, plurality does not equal consistancy or excellence. So many shouting mouths only drown out what needs to be said.
Jennings said something that I think is key. I will paraphrase: news is not there to comfort, to assure America that it is safe. Some nights it will do that, other nights it won't. News is there to inform.
I'm sure he would agree with the addedum that it is not there to titilate, obfuscate or pontificate, either. But that's what it does nowadays. Fox, yes, is the large elephant that we all throw arrows at. There is plenty to hate on Fox, including the recent Bill O'Reilly interview where the bastard actually had the temerity to question John McCain on torturing prisoners (and question McCain's AUTHORITY on such a subject) How many years did McCain spend in as a POW again?
The Right-wing media bonanza may eat itself. (Witness Novak's profane waltz off the stage, further cementing him as the nutcase du jour.) But that is not the true problem. NBC and CBS all opened tonight with Jennings. BBC did not. They commented on the high oil prices, on Iran's resuming uranium enrichment and on, natch, the health scare that will do you in. (Not smoking, though.) I didn't see any mention of the very bizarre political cockfight going on in Japan right now, nor did I see much on the Niger famine and the world's culpability. I don't even recall much on the oil-for-food debacale at the UN.
Oh, but two Jackson jurors now regret the acquittal. This is news.
I think that my generation may be the last to have grown-up with the "anchor." We didn't have the internet or cable news (except CNN, which was such a different animal in those days.) This may be the long end of American journalism. As I have the past six or so years, I will turn to the BBC, to NOW, to PBS, to NPR. (And to my many print sources.) I watched the nightly news of the Big Three tonight for the first time in years. Maybe I was hoping that the death of Jennings would herald a return to world news, which he, for all I question him on, so deeply loved. I was disappointed.
And that's the way it was on August 8, 2004.
Posted by emily at August 8, 2005 8:47 PM
Comments
This post regarding how to embed a YouTube video code is genuinely valuable in support of fresh internet access users. Nice job, keep it up.
Posted by: Keren Rimbach at November 26, 2011 8:59 PM