A vast group of mostly moderately left-wing, embattled (from both a sales and public perception viewpoint) industry veterans working in the same field, who went to the same schools, had the same teachers, seek the same accolades, etc.digster wrote:I agree with many things in this post, but having a background in journalism, the bolded is particularly irritating, because it's just simply not like that. When someone refers to "The Media," I never am really sure what they're defining that as, and I'm not sure they've sharply defined it either. Presumably, the anchor living in a multimillion Manhattan penthouse, but what about the editor of the community paper in the suburbs? What about the reporters for state and local papers throughout the country, which despite the downturn of the business model are still a primary source of news for many people? What about podcasters, blog writers? Are these individuals all part of the Big Bad Media conspiracy?McParadigm wrote: Now, there are a lot of overlapping types of coverage and forms of delivery that we treat as a singular entity called "the media," but they don't really share a lot of common ground. TV media has and responds to a very different kind of competition than print media. In many ways, it blurs the boundaries of what exactly constitutes journalism (vs, say, entertainment). It is also the most beholden to pundit-centric coverage, as it relies on dramatic debate as a delivery system for information and points of view. It requires a constant influx of fuel for this drama, and so it tends to overblow and over-repeat. Personally, I draw a huge line between TV news media and publications...particularly those that engage in investigative journalism.
The notion that such a diverse and diffuse type of profession is capable of even getting on the same page, much less conspiratorially collude, is a bit lazy. I think its more often a means to counter information that troubles the narrative someone has established. If the messenger is corrupt then one never has to consider the message, because it's by extension corrupt.
Like all industries, it's going to attract certain types of people and its going to have inherent biases. How many newspaper or non-FOXnews network employees do you think vote republican?
Maybe a community paper editor is a rightwinger, but his influence is nothing compared to the anchor in the penthouse, and the thinking becomes more lockstep with mainstream leftist politics the further up the food chain you go (outside of FOX, who are the only game in town for the right in the mainstream). The major outlets are almost exclusively in blue states, and the schools are as well.
