TW: Another Economist interview, this one with Glenn Greenwald an author and journalist. He touches upon some themes we hit upon here often on media but provides new stuff related "reporting". Again media bias is not so much left/right but towards the pursuit of ratings/profits. Conflict builds ratings, simplicity builds ratings, media stars build ratings. These are realities none of which have much to do with actual reporting, unbiased or otherwise.
From Economist:
DIA: In your demolition of Jeffrey Rosen (at TNR), you made much of a phoney distinction that's often raised, between "reporting" and "blogging". Is there a better distinction, that might be used helpfully to distinguish between what reporters do and what bloggers do?
Mr Greenwald: I have genuine respect for real reporting—things like what Dana Priest did in exposing CIA black sites and conditions at Walter Reed, or what Charlie Savage did in exposing George Bush's abuse of signing statements to circumvent the law. That's real reporting—finding out the truth, documenting facts, exposing deceit and secrecy by government officials and others with power.
But what establishment journalists typically call "reporting" is nothing of the sort. Often—as was the case with Jeffrey Rosen—it's nothing more than rank gossip-mongering or worthless (or worse) stenography. They speak with politically powerful people and simply write down what they say, uncritically passing it on without bothering to scrutinise if it's true or not. That practice is far worse when the people whose comments they're uncritically amplifying are granted anonymity, because then there's no accountability. That's the Judy Miller practice of journalism which—despite her ignominious reputation—is still the predominant method of what they call "reporting". That's not blogging or reporting: it's just mindless servitude to those in power.
At this point, the distinction between "reporting" and "blogging" has eroded quite a bit. I think the one meaningful distinction is that bloggers are willing to engage in explicit activism—working to defeat certain policies or politicians, writing in pursuit of some political-value system—whereas reporters still maintain the pretense that they are pursuing facts without any bias or political agenda.
DIA: Do you see the media as being tilted towards the left or the right?
Mr Greenwald: The predominant bias of the media isn't really best understood as left or right as much as it is loyalty to power. Journalism ought to be the opposite: it ought to be adversarial to power. But for many reasons—the fact that media stars are now very highly-paid celebrities; they work for the largest corporations which rely on their relationship with the government; they are desperate for access to and favourable treatment from political figures; they see themselves as part of the New York/Washington power elite—they empathise with and are a part of the establishment far more than they are adverse to it.
In general, that translates into a right-wing bias, in that conservatives are generally more geared to serving and glorifying elite institutions and the power that inheres in them. And the alliance that formed in the 1990s between media stars and right-wing operatives, who single-handedly fed the Clinton/Lewinksy scandal, still persists. But I think the overwhelming media bias is far more about serving and revering political power than it is about liberalism or conservatism.
DIA: Do you think that the media markets will organise themselves in such a way as to support the kind of reporting that a self-respecting democracy needs? (It seems obvious that they won't support the kind we have now, but will they support something good enough—or better?)
Mr Greenwald: I'm actually rather optimistic about the potential of technologies—principally the internet and all of its accompanying features—to enable real reporting even as newspapers die. The ability to access information is so much greater now, the resources required to obtain that information and to build an audience are so much less, that everything really is rapidly democratising. Financial models are being developed to support new forms of journalism and I think that will continue."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/06/seven_questions_for_glenn_gree.cfm
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