Logic, meta-analysis, and the media

It's April 30. On this day in 1789, George Washington took the oath of office and became the first elected President of the United States.

In 1952, Mr Potato Head became the first toy to be advertised on television.

In 1973, President Nixon announced the resignation of several key White House aides, including H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, in the wake of the Watergate investigation.

We've come a long way.

Strange, but these days no one disputes that our political system is broken. We all agree, and shake our heads in dismay or disgust, and... life just goes on.

As a nation, we are faced with these hugely serious challenges: to our credit and credibility internationally, to our basic infrastructure, not to mention to the social safety net our ancestors built for our elderly and unfortunate, but the only change that occurs is further acceleration toward greater inequality (the very condition that brought us to the two previous Great Depressions: those of 1890's and the 1930's).

This congress now in session, whose majority rode in on a promise of more jobs, has yet to introduce a jobs-related bill. Instead, they've proposed more tax cuts for the very people who sent American jobs overseas, and proposed severe -no, draconian-- cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs to pay for those tax cuts (programs which in fact don't contribute a penny to the 'problem' that Congress is supposedly addressing: the deficit). As if that wasn't enough: a full year has passed since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the only policy change in regards to drilling in the Gulf has brought an increase in deepwater drilling permits.

But you've heard little about any of that in the news. And what little you may have heard, has likely been eclipsed by more exciting headlines about celebrities or "new" "doubts" about the President's country of birth, or what Newt Gingrich or Glenn Beck or some other washed-up loser has to say.

What the hell is going on?? You may well ask.

It is indeed a complicated mess. It's the economy, it's Congress, it's the Democrats, it's the Republicans, it's the lobbyists, it's Big Oil/Pharma/Agriculture... you name it, it's probably contributing to the problems we face as a country.

But there is a real elephant in the room, as the saying goes, and it's not the GOP.

Follow me here:
Businesses exist for one reason- to make money for their owners. These owners make decisions about their businesses on the basis of two things alone: profitability and personal preference.

Broadcast media companies are businesses. Their owners make decisions about who to hire as producers, editors, and directors, and often even which stories to run -or kill-- on the basis of two things: profitability, and personal preference. Not to demonize anyone, but for example: Rupert Murdoch started FOX News, and hired Roger Ailes to run it -not only because Murdoch felt that Ailes would run the company profitably, but also because Murdoch liked Ailes, and felt that Ailes would respond to Murdoch's direction.

Ailes in turn commissions shows, accepts or declines proposals for shows, and ultimately hires Producers, whom he trusts with the company brand, name, and reputation, to make those shows. As this brand is regarded as a key to profitability, anything that demeans it or detracts from it significantly is naturally discarded or ignored. This is business. No company will ever do anything (in this case, publish a story) which it feels might somehow ultimately damage, or lead to the demise of, the company.

Everyone has a point of view and an opinion, and all of that comes out -however subtly- every time we express ourselves. If you read it, hear it, or see it, it has a bias. Broadcast media companies are in business to do business. It is not good business to promote one's own faults or misdeeds. For this reason, broadcast media will not report on their own faults or misdeeds, or -excepting especially egregious cases-- the faults or misdeeds of their advertisers.

They are inherently, inevitably, biased.

Now.
Broadcast media, what people used to call 'the news,' is the ultimate in trendiness. Publishers and editors view the world as stories waiting to be told, and their job is to get the story first (or failing that, to get a unique-enough lead on the story that 'control' of said story is regained). If FOX runs a great story first, then everyone else has to follow, or be seen as unreliable or out of the loop: a death sentence for the trendy.

Even if it's not true.

That's right: For some people in media, the competitive urge is so great that, if no hot stories are to be found, they'll make one up so as to guarantee that they beat everyone else to the punch. Weapons of Mass Destruction, anyone?

Before 1996, it was not legal for one entity to own more than one 'voice' in any medium, in any market. In other words, if you owned a newspaper in Portland, you could not also own a radio or TV station in the area. Because, obviously, if you own all the media in a market, you are in complete -monopoly-- control of that market, and that is supposed to be fundamentally un-American. Erm, apparently unless you're rich.

Thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 though, there are now no limits to how many media outlets you can own, or where. And so now we have a grand total of six people -six! six Rupert Murdochs-- ultimately controlling everything we read, hear or see in the news.

This is precisely the reason that conservatives so vastly outnumber liberals (or progressives- do you even know there is such a thing?) on news programs and talk shows, and why AirAmerica failed as a network: these media conglomerates are all owned or controlled by wealthy Republicans, without exception, and it is simply bad business to publicize your opponent's views.

So.
Remember that people will always act in their own interests.
Remember that people start businesses to make money.
Remember that all media is business, and that that business is first advertising, and then sales.

Let that sink in a second.

Consider now that it is possible to publish any story you like, about any thing you like.
And that it doesn't have to be true, at all, even if you say it's true, or publish it as news. Remember that Americans have very short attention spans and memories for news.
And that if you're wealthy enough, that you can reach hundreds of millions of people with that .
That means hundreds of millions of eyes seeing your advertisers' products.
That means money for your company, and that's all that counts. It pays your bills.

So you publish what you need to publish, in order to keep your company going. That means, you publish stories that support your point of view.

And in a country such as ours, in which lobbyists daily dine with legislators, you hire lobbyists to influence said legislators to write bills in your favor. And then you decline advertising from your opponents (hey, it's bad business to promote your competition!), while hiring producers, directors, editors and writers who will produce, direct, edit and write the stories you want to see, in the way you want to see them.

My point here is that the media is calling all the shots.

And so ends the American dream of representative democracy. Good morning, America. Now get to work or you don't get your porridge.