"The Media"

With the recent passing of beloved journalist, Walter Cronkite, I felt there was no better time to discuss the current state of news media (often referred to as "The Media"). Well, to put it bluntly, things don't look good. Since the inception of "24-hour news" (starting with CNN), things have progressively gone downhill. The focus has shifted from things that matter to things that sell. No longer are there any journalistic watchdogs, but simply partisan pundits, some even actors

just saying things to "move print". You see, there's an inherent problem with devoting a channel entirely to news - who's going to watch it? Where does the money to keep the channel on the air come from? Well absent a benefactor whose only interest is informing people rather than making money, advertising is obviously the way to go, and advertisers will only buy time when they think someone is watching. So the bottom line is ratings. The reason why the only news is bad news and why "journalists" seem so concerned with celebrities and cults of personality is because that is what you, the viewer, is watching. This same rule not only applies to what the "journalists" are told to cover, but also how they cover it. It is why pundits resort to partisan talk and why they resort to rants, tear-filled whining, and other emotional appeals, because it is what people will watch. Compounding this issue is the fact the 24-hour news networks are all owned by large corporations, each with their own interests at heart. CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are owned by Time Warner, News Corporation, and General Electric, respectively. More accurately, MSNBC's majority owned by NBC Universal (the rest is owned by Microsoft) whose parent company is General Electric, pardon me if I'm not too fond of the fact that the corporation who owns the companies that I buy goods from and and also has a military contract also part-owns a news network. So we've entered a new era of television news and it seems as if there's no real turning back.

The internet seems as though it is the real salvation here, but that's hardly the case. While there is a vast network of knowledge available online, it's largely garbage. Bloggers who refer to themselves as this generation's journalists (which I would never do) are really just partisan laymen who go about googling and cherry-picking their facts. Still, there are those here who do have standards and scruples, not nearly as many as the buffoons, but at least it's something. So the internet is still a long way from becoming that "shining beacon of truth" that so many people claim it is, but at least it is here to in some way counterbalance all the misinformation being propagated by the "mainstream media".

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