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njlauren -> RE: Just what is the Mainstream media...and why ? (7/16/2013 11:20:43 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr
Well, I believe that radio and TV certainly are not a free medium; that they are beholden to the government for their very ability to exist (FCC licensing). I believe that this makes them little more than glorified mouth-pieces for the government.
Oh, there's some negativity but when was the last time that a broadcast broke a huge story? They "pick up" on others' stories but they don't make their own.
The three biggest political messes that came to my mind were not broken by TV or radio; Watergate, Monica Lewinski, and the Dan Rather mess.
Watergate was the Washington Times. Lewinski was Drudge. Dan Rather was hoisted up by "the blogosphere". Even the Snowden affair was brought to us courtesy of a newspaper.
Now, some of you might say: "But, Michael, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, et al. all have websites, also". Yes, they do but if they really ruffled anyone's feathers on their website, might not the FCC decide to take retribution. Even if the FCC wasn't apt to do so, could the aforementioned entities have a fear that the FCC might do so?
I think that radio and TV have a vested interest in not making too many waves and as such they have just become propaganda outlets for the government.
To me, that is the very definition of "main stream"; never go so far as to really piss people off.
Peace and comfort,
Michael
CNN, Fox, MSNBC and other cable outlets are not regulated by the FCC, because they don't broadcast a signal over the public airwaves, and they don't have a federal license to broadcast. The FCC cannot crack down for political content, in theory broadcasters get their license because they serve 'the public interest', but in reality the FCC has limited jurisdiction, primarily in things like obscenity and inapporopriate material at certain times. On cable it generally is the advertiser supported shows that are limited, on pay cable channels like HBO the FCC has no sway at all.
What limits broadcasters is not the FCC, it is a combination of their advertisers and also their corporate owners. Once upon the TV networks were their own masters, today they are owned by huge conglomerates like Viacom, and corporations are not exactly happy about tv rocking the boat. TV once upon a time did break stories, people like Edward R Murrow taking down that bloated piece of shit McCarthy, Kronkite at Tet questioning the vietnam war (a lesson the military learned, tv coverage of wars these days is nothing more then pro military propoganda), shows like 60 minutes broke a lot of stories, investigative journalism once thrived...but these days, they are too fearful of advertisers and pissing off their corporate bosses.
I think mainstream media could be considered the things that most people are exposed to/use for information. What is very disconcerting is that legitimate journalism is dying, what we have today is a world of factoids, rather than news, we get crap like "Obama isn't a US citizen, his birth certificate isn't the right color" and the like. Newspapers, which once broke great stories like watergate and The Pentagon Papers, are dying, and what is replacing them is a wild, wild west of 'news sites', like NewsMax, that are nothing more then stuff someone made up, or some of the drivel on Fox News and MSNBC that I wonder what planet they are on (Fox News, for example, maintained for years that Saddam was behind 9/11, claiming there was proof, and that Iraq had WMD's, long after both were discredited; it is no wonder that people whose primary news source is Fox News when quizzed are often more ignorant of what is going on then people who claim to be total non news readers/watchers). The real problem is the concentrations of ownership, News Corp that owns papers and tv stations in the same market (it once was forbidden), fewer and fewer companies own radio stations (clear channel owns a large percentage), which means the diverse voices are getting squeezed out.
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