JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE ROLE OF CORPORATE NEWS MEDIA IN GREAT EVENTS LIKE AMERICA’S RIOTS AND DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY – THE LIMITS TO PUBLISHED TRUTH ABOUT DEADLY SERIOUS MATTERS – CORPORATE JOURNALISM FOR THE MOST PART IS NOT JOURNALISM – IT HAS OTHER JOBS - WRITERS AND EDITORS AND PRODUCERS HAVE LITTLE CHOICE OR DISCRETION IN WHAT EVENTS THEY COVER AND HOW THEY COVER THEM – IN REAL-LIFE EVENTS, PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING, BUT WHEN DEALING WITH CORPORATE REPORTING OF EVENTS, PERSPECTIVE IS ALMOST AN UNACCEPTABLE WORD

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIELLE K. KILGO IN CONSORTIUM NEWS


“UPRISING: Riot or Resistance: Media Framing Shapes Public View

“The role journalists play can be indispensable if movements are to gain legitimacy and make progress”


I'm not sure that I accept the idea of "media framing."

Too many think of the major media as separate actors who may choose to wrongly influence the public or not, who may shade or distort events or not, who may honestly report or not.

America's major media are just tools of the power establishment, themselves a set of corporations in a corporate/wealth-directed state.

They couldn't do anything differently if they somehow wanted to.

They are as dependent as that young man in the street was with the policeman’s knee on his neck.

Few recognize the way corporate media are indistinguishable from old state media, such as those of the USSR.

A newspaper publisher or a broadcaster who suddenly decided to be as scrupulously honest as possible about important matters would quickly suffer dire consequences.

Advertising revenue cut off. Access in Congress and the White House cut off. Cut off from any important leaks or other information. Access to federal agencies cut off. Licence renewals endangered. Merger or other business requests denied on trumped-up excuses.

In other words, a great wave of severe pressure from powerful actors, the kind of activity America regularly engages in against governments it does not like, as we see with Venezuela or Bolivia or Cuba.

It would be a journalistic death sentence. Indeed, a corporate death sentence.American journalism cannot possibly reform itself. Or do anything much differently than what it does. It is as free as a fly trapped in amber.

Until the very way America is governed changes - and what are the chances of that? - American journalism will remain just what it is, an elaborate outlet for official views, propaganda, and disinformation.

At least that’s what it is when it comes to vital topics, like war and political corruption. All the other stuff published or broadcast – from sports scores or stock prices to election results or travel information – are authentic, their authenticity only helping the other stuff “go down,” like fruit flavoring for a pill.