During the Patricia Hearst kidnapping episode, the entire national media was on the lawn of the Hearst Mansion, playing touch football – which was OK since the Kennedys did it, and like activities.
While they gamboled on the Hearst Porch, a reporter from the National Inquirer, I believe it was, went out and found the Symbionese Liberation Army and Patricia and the whole story.
You have often heard of “leaking” a story. This is a very difficult process, because getting the media to even read what you have to say is an art in itself.
Totally contrary to popular belief, reporters do NOT go out and get stories. They have a grind that would put a professional bean counter to sleep.
Speaking as one who put so many stories into the press, I can state expertly that reporters are at the beck and call of whoever is in the establishment. In the 20s it was Henry Ford or some other tycoon. Today it is an approved Politically Correct Person.
About 1970 Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and some other PC Symbols decided to push the women’s Equal Rights Amendment.
So they picked up the phone an told the media that going to have a press conference announcing that they were now the Women’s Movement and they were going to announce the Agenda for American Women. The press showed up in hundreds and it has been THE Women’s Movement ever since.
The interesting statistical fact here is that, while other national movements had represented minorities, this one declared that it spoke for the majority of Americans. But the agenda they announced was accepted as “the women’s agenda.”
The membership of the Women’s Movement is miniscule. The largest women’s movement opposes it and the leader of that group says that the fact that it is the largest actual women’s movement is the media’s deepest secret.
We are back to the basic question: Why is this information produced? Reporters make their living by producing what their editors can use. Editors make their living by producing information which satisfies those with money.
A critical point is that this is a ruthlessly competitive market. A thousand newsmen are competing for the editor’s job. For every reporter, there are dozens who want his job. Someone who provides words from a Kennedy is on the fast track, and probably the ONLY track, that will finally single him out as the next editor.
The reporter who broke the Patricia Hearst story didn’t get much for it inside the press. He certainly was not accepted into the Big Leagues with the guys playing touch football at the Hearst Mansion.
The Reporter Industry is an Industry, putting out mass produced articles to those who want to keep up with the same things everybody wants to keep up with.
#1 by Dave on 07/25/2011 - 11:57 am
The mainstream media now is at the bottom end of a long decline in credibility.
To say they are running on fumes doesn’t even get at it. They whole thing has become an exercise in desperate ruin.
Even the emergent global media such as Al Jazeera are in peril right out the box because of the incredibility stupid move of permitting Mommy Professor to use the Al Jazeera platform for repeating Mommy Professor’s tiresome doggerel. It has now become the Arab PBS.
Google News ruined itself through violation of its basic premise, which is exactly replicated on Bing and Yahoo.
What a waste. USA Today is now a better read that mainstream Internet news.
But behind all the garbage, there are real minds out there reporting real information. If you work hard you can get it.
This is something new under the sun, whereas before the Internet this was impossible. And of course, this real information being reported is not “journalism” in the traditional sense.
It is a far better product. But it is only available to those who know how to think.