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| MSNBC doesn't even pretend to be unbiased anymore.
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Several weeks ago, I was privileged to witness a commercial on MSNBC bragging about the channel's unparalleled quality in news reporting. The ad displayed a collage of anchors from its various programs uttering phrases like "Baghdad is now free from the sick and twisted regime of Saddam Hussein," “we refuse to live in fear,” and “God bless America!” Watching this, uh, propaganda, sort of made me wonder whether the folks behind television news are so out of touch with the basic tenets of news journalism that they make use of nakedly biased sound bites as illustrations of their network's reliability.
Realistically, I wouldn't take it that far; I'm sure journalists know enough about their trade to know what news reporting is supposed to be, but it's obvious that those founding ideals of objectivity and accuracy are not the principles behind what you’re seeing. In this politically inflammatory era, where one man’s free speech proponent is another man’s terrorist sympathizer, and Americans are pissing their pants over terrorism and find themselves willing to go to any lengths to protect themselves and their property, it’s becoming harder and harder for the networks to attain the fundamental goal of objectivity.
Like much of the modern world, MSNBC has simple a basic motivation for doing what they do: to keep their ass afloat. In this case, by backing the financial infrastructure that supports just about all of the for-profit mass media, including nearly all major television networks (non-profit PBS and pay-channels like HBO are notable exceptions), networks secure a place for themselves in the future of television and prevent any possible chance of going belly up like a flabby dot-com.
Inside the Industry…
But what pushes a seemingly respectable network to forfeit the most basic of the fabled journalistic underpinnings when it is these very philosophies that create value for them to begin with? Intuitively it might seem that, if anything, such myopic outlooks on news with regards to addressing short-term profit margins would do nothing so much as cause the loss of integrity, and following that, mass appeal.
It's a complicated process, but to boil it down to the essence, television programming is bait for the advertising, as media analyst Jean Retzinger likes to put it. What does that mean? Well, it means that all your favorite programs, South Park, Survivor, the Simpsons, the Anna Nicole Smith Show, are all there just so you can watch the ads that interrupt them. Stop and think about that for a moment. Just about everything you've ever enjoyed on television was only there because some guy at the top decided that he could use it as a tool to make money for the network. Now, I'm not criticizing that in itself; that's just how the media works. Nor am I convinced that it could work any other way. It's how profits are made, jobs are created, and how the scant creativity that actually make it on the air is nursed.
The Relationship between Advertising and Networks
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| Networks and advertisers depend on each other for sustenance.
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Few Americans seem to be consciously aware that advertising not only funds programming, but it dictates what's on. It's no secret among insiders that heavy advertisers have significant control over the content of television programming. And it's entirely sensible for them to exert that control as well. What car manufacturer, drug company, food producer, or beer corporation wants their ad associated with some piss-poor television program that could offend half the nation? Well, if it's on MTV, all of them; but if it's on mainstream, primetime television, no one. Doing so would ostensibly tarnish the name of the company. And a media giant can only assume such an outcome would in turn sour the relationship between itself and the advertiser.
From all this, we discover that the advertiser/medium relationship is a symbiotic one, and neither party has anything to gain from pissing the other off. However, it's not an entirely level playing field either. Media corporations are at the mercy of advertisers. The fact is, none of your favorite newspapers, magazines, or television programs could possibly come out without the advertising. As you might know, your morning paper didn’t actually cost 50 cents to produce. Without the tens of thousands of dollars raked in daily from the countless ads and classifieds, you can forget about the Times, it’s back to unscrambling letters on the activity panel on a Cap'n Crunch box to reveal the message, which when unscrambled, reveals the color of Crunch Berries (the answer is “red”). The same relationship is true with television. Take those ads away, and TV's on the next boat to Generra Hypercolor-ville.
So naturally, the guys on the TV end of things have to stay on their toes to make sure the ad guys' needs are adequately attended to, and make absolutely certain that nothing will come in the way of the money flow. As a result, two things happen:
1) TV networks avoid creating content that could either cause advertisers to pull their ads, or which might diminish demands for commercial time.
2) Networks create sensational and dramatic programming that addresses the public's need for constant entertainment, or at least constant suspense, which in turn drives the demand for advertising.
Thus, networks generate programming that is geared to satisfy the advertisers (“What could we put in this timeslot that would generate the most advertising money?”). And while it is somewhat important to tend to viewers' needs, since the number of viewers dictates the price of advertising, not all networks can afford to make, or have the intellectual abilities to create universally appealing programs. Yet, years of observation have convinced me that people will watch something even if “nothing’s” on.
What the Media wants from the You
We can now see that, in a business sense, the advertising is just as integral to the functioning of the network as the programming, maybe even more. The average TV viewer is passively ignorant of this fact, and TV companies probably like it better that way. After all, why would they want to make it known that the show that reached millions of people across the nation was actually cooked up in some corporate boardroom, and carefully tweaked and focus tested for maximum impact? Okay, that may be a cynical way to look at it despite it being somewhat representative of the truth, but it’s not a stretch to say that execs aren't concerned about a show much beyond its utility as a money-making device (note the proliferation of "reality-based" television shows in the past three years). If a “bad” show does well, then who really cares if the content is insulting to the public’s intelligence? If no one’s insulted, then what does it matter?
For the media corporation to continue making money, you're supposed to watch the ads, just like you're supposed to click the banner ad when you go to your favorite websites. That's how they get paid. They have to show the advertiser that the ads are being watched; otherwise, who would bother shelling out the hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertising? Simply put, if the commercials are not hitting their targets it's not good thing for the networks or for advertisers. Nevertheless, many viewers idly channel surf during commercial breaks, which undoubtedly makes media moguls squirm in their executive leather chairs. Some television networks are so worried about commericals not reaching their demographic that they've taken to suing the company that produces Tivo, a recording device that can allow viewers to skip commericals on playback. If allowed sufficient opportunity for growth (say, getting as big as the VCR market), Tivo could threaten the very foundation of television’s profitability. (But then again, the VCR, too was seen as a similar threat in the early 1980s, and media producers unsuccessfully sued them. In the following years, the VCR’s effects on the viability of television programming has proven negligible.)
The Elusive Holy Grail and its Consequences
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| The Superbowl is the most expensive advertising spot on television. It's also the only time viewers tune in show to see ads.
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Notoriously cranky comedian Lewis Black has noted that the only TV show in history to actually achieve the Holy Grail of television programming-- to make people tune in
just for the advertisements-- is the Superbowl. In 2003, ABC charged $2.1 million for one 30-second ad during the Superbowl. That's $70,000 a
second. By comparison, a similar ad on network TV runs about $150,000 on average, but can be up to $600,000 for particularly popular programs. As you can imagine, it all depends on the number of viewers estimated in the audience and how many advertisers are vying for the same spot.
Unfortunately for the television industry, most of their programming
doesn't have hungry advertisers at the door. So what do they do? They create interest in their programs. How do they do that? They play up everything. More drama, more violence, more sex, more conflict.
So What?
When people hear me ranting about this, they invariably say, so what? Who cares? It's just entertainment. It’s not harming anyone. Let it go.
And I understand where they're coming from. Sure, I know the difference between reality and TV. I know when I play Grand Theft Auto that it's just a game, and that's not how I should behave in real life. But that doesn't mean that playing it doesn't affect me in some way. As a society, we really try to argue our way out it, and deny what our scientists and media experts have observed for years, but when it comes down to it, how the hell could our media not affect our thinking? The average person my age has likely spent more time immersed in his choice of media than with his parents-- the people our society credit with instilling our value systems. Joe Average has gotten his perspective of the world on TV before he even made it into real society. He’s learned how to react in certain situations via the media. The media’s taught him much of what he knows (or thinks he knows) about the world.
I know people whose conversational skills, and hell, entire dialogues come from television shows and movies! To think that none of the cumulative years we spend playing video games and watching TV doesn’t affect us in some way seems foolishly naive at best, and downright delusionary at worst.
It's not pleasant knowing that I have even in a small way aligned myself with some of my most bitter political enemies on this matter—like Tipper Gore and Pat Buchanan— but my opinion comes after years of studying media academically and observing the behavior of myself and others in relation to the media we surround ourselves with. I’ve noticed it on a personal level, I’ve noticed at a third person level. I noticed the subtle effects long-term exposure to certain types of media have had on behavior, attitude, and mindset. In my own life, I can tell you that I noticed the changes I underwent after cutting out TV from my life for several years (less attention deficit, more patience, lower tolerance for shitty media). I noticed the changes I underwent after making a large cut to the amount of violent rap music I listened to (less negativity, less violence in my speech, less aggressive thoughts). I noticed the changes I had in attitude after prolonged periods of listening to more positive music and radio programming (hope, empathy, perspective). Now, before this turns into a promotion for the latest installment in Oprah Winfrey's line of “self-empowerment” tools, I'll just say that although I am aware of how spacey this all sounds, I'm speaking in earnest, and these are my candid observations over the past 5 or 6 years.
So sure, we all want to think that we're above all being brainwashed by our media. We all want to believe that there's no way our media could be turning our mind in directions we don’t necessarily want it to. But accept it; you are shaped by your environment. There is no denying this. Look at the Palestinian who hates Jews, the guy who listens to Rush Limbaugh and becomes more and more right-wing, ask Mark David Chapman who obsessed over Catcher in the Rye just before shooting John Lennon to death.
But hold on, I’m not saying we should hold the media responsible. Not at all, in fact.
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| Chris Rock rails against our tendency to blame the media for society's ills in his 1999 stand-up routine Bigger and Blacker.
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Chris Rock has a thought-provoking dialogue in his 1999 stand-up routine
Bigger and Blacker where he rails against the way our society tends to blame everything but the actual people responsible: “Everybody wanna know what the [the Columbine shooters were] listening to, or what kind of movies [they were] watching. Who gives a fuck what they [were] watching? What ever happened to ‘crazy’?”
Likewise, I’m not saying we should censor anything. In fact, I am pretty die-hard about free speech rights. I don’t think it’s appropriate to attack Judas Priest for provoking two kids to blow their brains out (not that I believe they provoked them to begin with). I’m not saying we should blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine. I don’t think it’s MTV’s fault that some idiot kids burned themselves badly imitating stunts they saw on Jackass. All I’m saying is, we should spend a bit more time evaluating our media, understanding it in a broader context, and seeing it for exactly what it is, and not what we want it to be or hope it can be. Perhaps another way to look at it is: what is this programming contributing to our lives, and the world at large? And in that context, it’s a lot easier to be critical of what you see. But most of the viewing public doesn’t want to be critical. They want to be entertained. But to understand the news, to understand our surroundings, to understand our world will require that we be more aware of the motives that drive what we see, read, and hear, and be more conscious of the contributions our environments have in sculpting our reality.
A lot of us go through our lives watching, reading, and hearing things without really evaluating what we’re hearing, and where we’re hearing it from. If I had a pint of beer for every time I’ve heard someone recite stories from Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Matt Drudge, and Alternet as gospel, I’d be qualified to host my own radio talk show. It just goes to show you that as a society, and probably as a race, we tend to believe what we want to believe, rather than forming synthesized opinions based on evidence from multiple accounts, and from a variety of sources.
Be Careful about the News
“Independent, aggressive and critical media are essential to an informed democracy. But mainstream media are increasingly cozy with the economic and political powers they should be watchdogging. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints that have access to mass media. With U.S. media outlets overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, independent journalism is compromised.” –FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
There’s a term in the music industry called “overproduction.” It refers to music that’s been so manipulated that it belies the original sounds and content. The producer messes around with the bare elements until he’s gotten a slick, commercialized sheen, or a heavily make-upped fascade, and he ends up with a final product that is completely inappropriate for the raw ingredients. Instead of bringing the material to life, it either annihilates its intrinsic character or doesn’t elicit its positive qualities from beneath the surface. News reporting sort of reminds me of this. It’s not really the news. It’s an attempt to appease audience. It’s an attempt to appease advertisters. It’s an attempt to keep viewer interest rather than to inform. It’s playing to the Neilsen ratings. It’s everything but what it should be for our society. At almost every turn, the highest intentions are rejected in favor of the basest. Ultimately, it’s this sort of calculated approach with polling, appealing to demographics, watering down content to placate easily offended factions of the population, and general overprocessing that renders a patchwork product haphazardly thrown together, leaving our information machine with gaping holes, excessive coverage on nonevents, and inadequate coverage everywhere where it really matters.
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| Dan Rather hosts one of the most popular nightly news programs in America.
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The news is supposed to be a 30 minute condensation of the world's events for the day. So why does it seem that there just isn’t enough time for comprehensive coverage of real news—news that is relevant to both the fate of the world and the nation, but there’s always time for the amazing tale of how some retired army colonel in Tiny Town, USA found a giant Cheeto in his potato chip bag and sold it on EBay for $500? And they always have that story, don't they? –That inconsequential story of how some schmuck in Tempe, Arizona received a $1 million tax refund when he was really supposed to get $75, and goshdarn it, he did the right thing by returning it. Or how a small community outside Macon, Georgia really came together to rescue a horse stuck in a well. It's a bit of a sad commentary on this society that this is the kind of stuff that we feel we need in our news, but it's proven itself over time; human interest stories elicit better response than stories about important things we can’t immediately relate to on an emotional level.
It also sort of says something about the state of news in America that the most balanced reporting comes from Comedy Central, and if you want real news, you’ll have to get it from another country. Watching network news and reading mainstream newspapers here, you sort of get the impression that it speaks to the suppressed desires of the populace. It is truly mind-boggling how oblivious the American public is to the conflicting desires of its own collective psyche; we don’t like violence yet violence is everywhere, especially in our entertainment and media, and graphic content on TV doesn’t even come with a warning message anymore ; casual sex and titillating media is considered immoral yet sex is very prevalent in our advertising, half our programming (particularly reality television), and always on our minds (witness the Clinton impeachment trial which was plastered all over all our media despite the fact that it had very little to do with legitimate politics); we’re staunchly opposed to drug use, yet my survey of network television suggests that between 50 and 60 percent of all television advertising during weekday news hours are for over-the-counter and prescription drugs.
It’s easy to all this blow off as a simple reflection of the market determining the content (which I don’t really believe anyway since the availability of certain programming dictates viewership, not the other way around, and again, I believe people will watch anything), but the problem is we're talking about information dispersed to generate public discussion about items that determine the very future of the nation. We're talking about the sector of America that the constitution of the United States charged with the crucial task of producing a well informed populace, quite possibly the single most important ingredient in a democracy.
You Can’t Say That on Television
Courtesy of our elaborate media structure, we have now produced an environment where it’s difficult to speak what you’re actually thinking without suffering the repercussions of a giant Rube-Goldberg device that will dictate what can and can’t be said on TV. There is little political silencing these days; if someone in a position of power doesn’t like what you’re saying, the means of silencing come through technological and/or economic means. Witness the disturbing tale of comedian Bill Maher, who in a brief moment of unflinching candidness described the September 11th hijackers as “brave” in comparison to a nation that fires missiles at targets from other continents.
The backlash on the host of Politically Incorrect was fierce and the crushing of his television program which had been on television since 1993 was quick and brutal. The White House screamed traitor and companies quickly backed out of the show’s ad spots. It was supposed to be self-evident that stating an opinion that could be construed as positive towards the enemy was sympathizing with terrorists, and the source of such comments should never be allowed to get away with it. There was no consideration that his statements might conceivably have been true (at the very least up to a debate), but on September 17th , 2001 it was treason, and the punishment was swift, severe and has permanently stained his career.
Thankfully, there was a degree of controversy in both directions regarding Maher’s treatment, and many launched objections to the way Maher was canned, but the story serves as a testament to the nature of free speech in America in relation to the media; there’s a bigger, more diffuse hand at play, and there’s any number of potential roadblocks.
The fact that you can’t exactly say what you want isn’t quite suppression of free speech by the strict definition, since there isn’t an autocratic dictator or political machine systematically terminating or incarcerating dissidents, but the process is definitely one that exhibits aspects of what the Supreme Court of the United States describes as a “chilling effect” on free speech; it truncates discourse on controversial topics— ironically, the topics most worthy of public discussion.
So if the media is supposed to be a motivator or catalyst for public discourse, we must ask ourselves why it is structured in a way that undermines the basic values that we claim as the founding principles upon which this country was built.
So Now What?
Now that you’ve been given some time to consider the fundamentals of the media you are continually exposed to, you might wonder what the point of all this information was. After all, what are you supposed to do to change the nature of this information/disinformation juggernaut that pummels the world with tainted information, sensationalized presentations, and emotionally charged programming tweaked to gain maximum response? Well, I suppose the first thing you want to do is decide whether there really is a problem from your point of view. This article might sound fine and dandy in print, but if you can’t, on your own justification, find a reason to disagree with the way the mainstream media presents information to you, then you might as well forget about it. If there are two things in this world that causes problems, it’s ignorance and blind allegiances. But if you feel that the world around you is being manipulated by the media in ways that you can’t even comprehend, you can do what I do: tell your annoyed friends and amused relatives your views on the media, and have them blow you off as some radical left-wing zealot with a propensity for anti-establishment politic. Hey, at least you tried. The next step is to change your own reaction to it. Don’t let the media feed you. Realize that you’re essentially watching propaganda. Understand the motivations for the ideas conveyed, the reasons behind the images and words, and the medias’ goals in having you as a viewer or listener. Be critical, be vigilant, and be aware. There’s a bigger picture.
