Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
theatlantic.com
Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#2"American Media" is only a label for the most prominent examples, I.E. the "Mainstream" we all keep hearing about. Elsewhere, many of these stories were picked up early, however these days, The Media has an "over-the-shoulder" syndrome in which they keep looking at what others are doing and try to beat them at the ratings.
There's also a prevailing trend to crowdsource journalism E.G. CNN's iReport. And we can see the results of the unfiltered variety with that Reddit misidentified bomber debacle. Lesser controversies easily slip through without much backlash.
This is nothing new, of course. The soapboxes are now digital and the speaking trumpets are in geosynchronous orbit.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#3[deleted]
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#4It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#5[deleted]
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#6It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.
I think the US faces some distinctive problems - in particular, the rest of the world has not seen the same kind of collapse of quality local reporting that lies behind the Bell, CA example he gives.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#7That headline makes me cringe. Media is the plural of medium, they do things, they don't does things.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#8It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.
I think the US faces some distinctive problems - in particular, the rest of the world has not seen the same kind of collapse of quality local reporting that lies behind the Bell, CA example he gives.
And incidentally, that's one of the primary findings of the FCC's Information Needs of Communities report: http://www.fcc.gov/info-needs-communities
National media is more or less fine. Local and state reporting has all but disappeared.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#9It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.
Quite right, it happens all around. It sometimes makes me think if the ultimate mission of media is disinformation.
Re: Why Does the American Media Get Big Stories Wrong?
#10It's not "American Media". It's "Media". The issue is worlwide.
I think the US faces some distinctive problems - in particular, the rest of the world has not seen the same kind of collapse of quality local reporting that lies behind the Bell, CA example he gives.
(citation needed)
Reporting is awful everywhere and at any scale.
Media's job is no longer to spread information, but to create opinion. They're not mass informative media, they're mass propaganda tools.
That's why they lack quality: their goal is fulfilled even if their quality as informative media is very low.