The article concludes by stating the following:
"Put simply, if television does not cover the genocide in Sudan, it does not exist in the minds of many Americans. If it does not exist in the public’s mind, there is no sense of urgency and no public pressure on world leaders to do anything to stop the killing.What do you think is television's justification in dedicating an overwhelming amount of space to fluff pseudo news? Do they think that we and our short attention spans care more about and are more affected by local news and celebrity current events than global events, even if the local news pales in urgency to what's going on globally? Or, do the networks shamelessly focus on the cheap sensational stories because that's what brings the most ratings?
The public grants the media the right to use its airwaves for commerce and profit. The public should expect at least moderate attention to consequential world developments in return."
I'd like to see a news network make a conscious effort to broadcast world news in a more balanced fashion, not U.S. news with a splash of "And now for our thirty second 'Across the Globe' segment..." Do you think that a shift in what news stations are focusing on will create a shift in what we think is important and newsworthy?
I actually get most of my global news online, mostly because I can't stomach Fox News and watching CNN makes me wonder if they think I have Alzheimer's, what with their repeating their segments every ten minutes. Reading about breaking stories online is much faster than waiting for it to air on television, and you can find multiple angles of the same story.
So, what makes the Internet so different? Is it the lack of emotional restraint? The availability of more than six news mediums? The diversity of viewpoints? Are there any other bloggers out there who get the majority of their news off the Internet? Should we be thought of as some hybrid form of journalist with an obligation to pick up television's slack?
P.S. To our non-American readers, how does your television news coverage compare to ours? Do you notice a disparity in the quality of news coverage between the Internet and television?
Ok, I'm spelling this out for everyone. Despite all the hype about journalistic integrity and serving the most important news, it all comes down to ratings, viewship and advertising dollars. The USA is capitalist country, meaning the news wouldn't even exist if the company couldn't make a profit, so more viewers = more advetising dollars = more news programs.
That's how it's designed the reason why things int he past like the OJ Simpson trial and the runaway bride get so much attention is because LIKE IT OR NOT they attract more views and thus create more advertising dollars. If you don't like it stop watching it and support other media that delivers more "news." Although I'd warn you,I believe the average american actually cares more about sensationalism and off beat stories then hard political news, meaning to them the mix is correct.
Stop forgeting that the purpose of all the media networks is TO MAKE MONEY!!! They're not doing it to provide a service to the american people or make you feel better, they're trying to maximize their bottom line. I like capitolism myself, it enables me to work from my house and set my own hours, that would be hard to do in other systems, but you have to understand the motivation of companies. They may have side motivations, passions, whatever, bottom line = they need to make more money and maximize profits. If they have data that says people want to see more of "runaway bride" stories and less "sudan crisis" then that's exactly what they're going to do. Get off your soap box.
Sorry for the rant. I actually do have an idealist side too, I just see so much blind idealism online that occationally I want to go off about it. The term news is subjective, I would replace it with "stories of most interest to me." With the me being the collective demographic of the particular news channel that will maximize viewship and advertising dollars. If you think about it that way all the network slants (fox news) make a lot more sense. They're just playing to their demographic in order to continue to survive. If you haven't noticed television advertising dollars are decreasing as more and more money is spent online.
Please click the thumbs up on this comment - even if you disagree with me counterarguements provide for a more interesting discussion.
I'm new to posting here, though have been reading for quite some time (great info!). I think what it comes down to is advertising dollars. The news needs to sell - and unfortunately, what most Americans buy into are sensationalist news stories and celebrity gossip.
In getting news from the Internet, you at least have the option of cutting through a lot of the garbage news to get to the real stories and you also have the option of going to news sources outside of the US. I also think it's important to always have to have a critical eye in regards to the news as there is always potential for biased reporting anywhere you go.
I spent 5 weeks in Thailand recently. I watched Fox News a few times and have to say it actually frightened me.
It wasn't news at all, but mainly propaganda. Most stories seemed to contain 'commentary' rather than facts, and I saw quite a lot of really aggressive interviewing.
I know Fox News isn't the be-all and end-all, and that there are many news sources in the US, but my anger was only overcome by my fear after watching that channel.
Even watching CNN my feeling was that international news was merely an afterthought. This is a shame in my view. Having an introverted perspective only breeds ignorance and fear, leads to misunderstanding, and perpetuates many of the problems we have in the world today.
Another good example is Google News. Check out the what comes to the top in the US section and then check out some other editions. It seems that US media is far more concerned about what goes on inside their borders than outside.
(I saw an incredible clip on YouTube showing an Australian interviewer in the States asking the public some loaded questions. Hearing them backing the President regardless of the question was just plain scary. And as for their geography knowledge... Pity I cant find the link.)
I'm from Ireland, watch Irish, UK and global news channels, read on-line news media everyday, and consider myself well informed. I do fear that the most powerful nation on the Earth may also be the most (collectively) ignorant when it comes to knowledge of this planet. But I also hope that this fear is misplaced.
sign yourself up to www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight. UK news at it's best
Agree 100%.
Alongside Channel 4 news you cannot go wrong.
At home (New Zealand) I think they'd routinely include a global news section on the main nightly news shows. I also seem to remember that it was pretty good, as far as TV news goes.
Last week, I was shocked to discover that a friend of mine had rigged his entire sprinkler system to the roof of his house and was watching the enormous forest fires approach across the Australian countryside. I hadn't heard about the fires, which were international news, and I watch the TV news every morning. This said, it's partly my fault for not seeking out better news coverage than KING 5's local drivel.
Rebecca,
I suggest that you stream an hour or two of the BBC World Service each day and subscribe to either Jump TV or VDC. They enable you watch an international news channel like Al Jazeera English. Both Al Jazeera and the BBC provide an excellent perspective to world news that American broadcast news outfits do not provide.
Thanks for the recommendation!
wouldn't be caught watching US news(except 60 minutes) if it was the last news show on earth. The US news coverage is so biased I bet that I am better off listening to word of mouth. Even BBC news coverage isn't is approaching 50% junk, but I guess that isn't too bad.
Canadian news has somewhat better standards than American news, but we also get most American news channels.
Its not Television in general that avoids the real issues, it is mostly American media. The bottom dollar prevents news corporations from talking about issues that would reduce peoples interest in the news and encourage them to be active in the world.
MOst unfortunately, the current purpose of the news as we know it in North America is to provide a glimpse of selective information, not to inspire with an honest representaiton of reality.
The problem, in so much as it is (to my mind) boils down to two things:
First, the sheer size of your country. It's vast. Big enough that ninety percent of the time, most of it's residents forget that there's a world outside of it. I've yet to meet an American who could name the capitals of all four parts of the UK (Cardiff - Wales, Belfast - Northern Ireland (and Dublin for the Republic of Ireland), London for England, and Edinburgh - Scotland).
And second, the attitude of the people. Sadly, from what I've seen in the US, the prevailing attitude is one of arrogance, when looking at the rest of the world. Whilst there's been huge demonstrations over Iraq, few people realise that the base problem is that it's a theocracy. The people don't identify themselves as Iraqis in the way you see yourselves as Americans. They see themselves as Sunni, or Shia, or Shite, or any of the 148 other factions. They all just happen to live in Iraq. There will never be a democracy there, because the people don't want it.
And this I think is the main problem that outsiders (read: rest of the world) have with the current American administration and those who have supported it: America believes it's The Daddy. "We must police the world, kill the bad guys, bring democracy, motherhood and apple pie to the world. Everyone should get along and have a vote, and eat at McDonalds. And then the world will be fine."
Sadly, your presidents and their supporters have a problem. Naivety. They believe that the rest of the world is like them, and as such, they can sort it out. They fail to realise basic things like the theocratic basis for rule in Iraq, or the individual countries that make up the UK, or that Africa isn't a country, it's a collection of many countries.
Until the leaders realise that the rest of the world is different, and wants to be different, and that that's ok, there will be little progress.
N.B. This is not an attack on anyone on this blog, or any of its readers. Nor is it an attack on any individuals or groups. It's a rant against points of view and ways of thinking that are, in my opinion, short sighted and ignorant. If it offends anyone in any way, I appologise. It's not meant as an attack.
Well, here in South Africa we have 2 main TV news broadcasters - the SABC and E-TV News (nothing to do with that American entertainment channel). The SABC is slowly but surely becoming a propaganda tool for the government (and is even being accused of starting a purge against reporters and journalist within its ranks that critise the government) and E-TV News has a biased towards Muslims (though there isn't any extremism or anything like that - it's a very decent news broadcaster, that happens to put an often subtle pro-muslim slant on certain types of stories).
Ah oh, interesting. =P
Carry on...
This post is kind of political, is rand ok with it? ;)
He's the one who told me to write an entry!
I think that while it does touch on a political issue - the idea of censorship or news targeting, there's no "left" or "right" here, which is usually the big problem in political discussions.
To my mind, this is more of a topic about content responsibility and media tendencies in general.
That said, I recognize that it doesn't have too much of a search bent to it. Consider this our off-topic post for the week. :)
Nothing changes. I remember when I was a kid I was the only one, adults included, who seemed aware of what was going on in Cambodia (Then the People’s Republic of Kampuchea). Why did no one understand that a genocide was occurring? Because the US news services were not covering the story. Why did I know? BBC World Service on the shortwave radio.
I bet that if Courtney Love replaces Paula Abdul on American Idol there will be no end of coverage.
On the flip side, Americans have to accept part of the blame. If we took more notice of world (and domestic) events and less time wondering about Wisteria Lane the news service would eventually give us more comprehensive coverage. Of course that would mean sticking our heads out from beneath the covers.
I had a similar revelation just this past week. In preparing to teach a homeschool high-school class about the 1994 Rwanda genocide(800,000 people butchered in a few weeks), I was astonished to find that in the Congo over the past 10 years, nearly FOUR MILLION people have been killed in what's called the First and Second Congo Wars (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/...
Has anyone reading this ever heard/seen the US media comment on the deaths of FOUR MILLION people in the heart of Africa? I'll bet that if anyone *has* heard of problems in Africa at all, it's because Bono has shrewdly exploited his celebrity and talked on Oprah about his DATA and ONE projects.
In the 90s, Neil Postman wrote an excellent book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, which deconstructed media/news culture and the cult of celebrity. I recommend it highly; it's very relevant today.
He made more useful comments in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. In discussing our current information overload (to which we can now add blogs and RSS feeds!), he comments:
>Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, we are awash in information....Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems....[T]he tie between information and human purpose has been severed, i.e., information appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning, or purpose. [He wrote this before regular folks had broadband!]<
This is why Darfur has hardly been reported: Darfur stories will not hold Americans' interest till the next commercial break, whereas runaway-bride stories will.
Sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for recommending it!
Hard to believe it's been 17? years, but back when the Giants and Bills met in the Super Bowl I happened to be a student at the University of Buffalo. A Giant's fan no less.
I don't remember, which network, but the local news the night before the game went something like this:
Preview of the game Preview of sports Preview of the weather (at the game, not in Buffalo) 1 1/2 minutes of actual news Talk of the game Sports Weather (again at the game and not in Buffalo)\
If anyone remembers that time there was some pretty big news going on. It was the same week the first time the US went into Iraq. So a few days after we became involved in a war there was next to no coverage in Buffalo.
I think the reason you see a lack of real news on tv is because sadly that's what most people want. The average person watching FOX news pays more attention to stories about the Runaway Bride. It's what sells.
It's the same reason there was yellow journalism at the turn of the century, the same reason all those newspapers and magazines are at the checkout at the supermarket and it's the same reason we all try to write the titles to a linkbait piece a certain way.
I'm like everyone else here in that I get my news online more than anywhere now, though I will watch some news related programming if not the actual 6:00 news.
As someone living outside America it saddens me to see how little most Americans know about what goes on outside your borders.
Late last year in Congress one of your representatives got up and declared that Australia was the enemy of the United States because we were fighting against you guys in Iraq.
The truth is that we have troops in Iraq fighting alongside you guys - there will even be Aussies serving on exchange fighting in American uniforms - but there are people in positions of power in America who don't have a clue about the real situation.
I find that frightening
Ugh...I hate TV news. It's pathetic what they try and "sell" you as news. It gives American's a very negative stigma as well. The main problem I see is that the 24-hour news channels try and fill all 24 hours. So they end up repeating the same, useless crap over and over again - and try and sell it to you repackaged as "new".
And the local news channels - "Baby killer lose in your neighborhood we know where he lives, tune in at 10 for more!"
I love the Daily Show clips where he shows us the new buzz word repeated over and over and over again by the "major" news anchors.
That is why the world hates Americans. The average joe lives in a microcosm and could care less what is happening in the rest of the world....If they reported on Darfur, people would have NO CLUE what continent it's even on.
I went to Europe for the world cup last year and every country I went to had a stereotypical doofus tourist american acting like a fool - I don't blame the world for hating on us at all.
I bet I saw more coverage on the Lebanon/Israel incident watching 10 minutes of the BBC out there than most Americans saw here. And the 24 hour BBC news channel over there doesn't try and fill all 24 hours. They have a block of news, and that news is rerun all day on a loop, so you tune in when you have time on that one day and you get some decent info on what is happening in the world. They don't try and sell you commercials.
I gotta stop or this will be a rant to end all rants....blah!
I get my news off of news sites-- television news is far too surface level and quick for my tastes. It also doesn't let me screen out the things I'm not interested in hearing about, like stock market news and the weather, and pay attention to the good stuff.
When I was living in Japan, I noticed a huge difference in news coverage. It dedicated more time and considerably greater depth to global news and censored fewer events. At the time, there had been US controversy about including news clips from Al Jazeera networks. Japanese news companies included Al Jazeera broadcasts fairly regularly in coverage of the Iraq war. I got the impression that local coverage was less important than big-picture stuff.
What really bothers me about TV news coverage is the unabashed sensationalism. The horror-movie music and headlines like "25 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT (insert completely harmless thing here) THAT COULD KILL YOU." So-called "investigational journalism" that's just an embarrassing ploy to bring in ratings. :(
Things are no better on the Net, where "25 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT..." is just the latest form of Digg linkbait!