One of the best laughs I have had during the month of March has been suggestions trickling out from behind the walls of the national media zoo that the dispensers of all manner of bafflegab could qualify for taxpayer bailout money along with the rest of the incompetent captains of industry whining for more bonus money.
As we hear of numerous newspaper mastheads falling off the planet, or about to, it occurred to me that bailout money might be a good idea if it had a few strings attached.
For example, bailout money could be paid to news organizations that promise to stop feeding their listeners the prevailing or popular party line in everything they foist upon us. Now I know that is asking a lot from the Barbiecasters at CNN, CBC, CTV and Global, but it would be a start.
In Canada they would be ordered to give their audience more real news rather than fundraising events and everyday hero schlock as if anybody cares.
In the U.S. they would have to show at least a little restraint on reporting every move of a moronic woman with artificially puffed up lips that had octuplets to get some attention….and money of course.
On both sides of the borders anything to do with media-created celebrities would have to go. Here’s the funny thing that no media type wants to talk about. That is if the media would quit hyping these characters, they wouldn’t be celebrities now would they? What came first, the celebrity or the hype? Unlike the chicken and egg question, this one is easy.
If the old print media and Barbiecasters want to be organs of entertainment, then force them to decide which. I don’t want to be sold news and get entertainment. I’ll make that choice myself.
As a side issue, in my business I talk to lots of business people, politicians and government folks. I did not realize how many of them believe the current recession started as figment in the imaginations of editors and reporters and grew from there. In other words, it was media driven. It is ironic that it was probably the media that took the first hit of the let’s-start-a-recession campaign when people decided to quit buying newspapers in order to save their money.
What got me thinking about all of this was a column by Barbara Yaffe in the March 7, 2009 edition of The Vancouver Sun. The subhead over her column read:
“The (newspaper) industry is on life support and a national discussion is vital to help a business that’s fundamental to democracy.”
My response to that is free speech is fundamental to democracy but newspapers are not.
Here are just a few points from Barbara’s column. She noted the downward spiral for newspapers began about three years ago. What really happened is that newspapers only noticed the problem about three years ago. The real problem started with the Internet and the Rise of the Blogs at which newspapers scoffed and ridiculed as not being professional or reliable. I have been making the same claims about newspapers for years.
Ms. Yaffe claims that new media feed off old media. Partly true, perhaps. But new media has developed its own coterie of sources and contributors from communities around the globe. The Citizen Reporter has come into being.
One reason the bloggers got a foothold is they were dissatisfied with old media that is seen as biased, overrun by special interest groups like the alarmist environmental protest business and others or those who have jumped in the sack with one political party or the other.
Does anyone out there not accept the fact that the media, in all its forms, were responsible for the election of Barack Obama? The debate is over. Just like the purveyors of global warming fantasies who declared Global Warming is an irrefutable fact, while arguing that anyone disputing it should be fed to the polar bears.
Ms. Yaffe also claimed that as long as people can get content on the Internet free, they will not buy it. What people will not buy are inferior products. If you are selling Lada cars can you force people to buy them just because you went to the expense of making them? No.
Perhaps the shills and Barbiecasters in media have to do something to seriously deal with the generally-held opinion that they rank somewhere below politicians and lawyers in terms of trustworthiness.
Quite frankly, I would rather see the existing media business model disappear instead of being bailed out. The media does not deserve it. If the industry fails it will be replaced by other players who might be more inclined to be less self-serving and more open to give their customers’ demands for real news, in real time with real facts. We don’t need more end-of-the-world puff pieces and items from Happytown, U.S.A.
The excesses of some media covering entertainers, killers, people charged in horrendous cases, producing obviously one-sided coverage of elections or just plain stupid people, are relentlessly dragging them down.
Near the end of her column Ms. Yaffe states the newspaper industry in Canada is “on a death watch.” That may be so. I must commend her for admitting it and for her editors for allowing it to be published. Somewhat contrary to what I have expressed above, I would hate to see the community press disappear.
I spent many years of my working in newspapers and other media. They were some of the best years of my life. I am not saying they were better newspapers or that reporters of my generation were better than today’s.
Now living along the periphery of media, I still meet and work with many newspaper and television people who do not deserve to go down with the industry. All I can say to them is when a door closes another invariably opens.
