12-20-2012 03:45 PM
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070502_putting_virginia_tech.php
Read section The cost of doing business
Why would mainstream media choose to make a sensation over one tragedy and completely disregard another bigger one ?
In my opinion independent news media should not be allowed to present "comments" and "PR" as "news" and should not be allowed to make sensation out of tragedies. There should be other "non-news" media that would make full coverage to events selected at their own discretion but would not enjoy legal protection from lawsuits like real "journalists".
We are already regulating banks, because they have power over our money. But who is regulating media ? They have power over our thoughts and beliefs.
12-20-2012 04:48 PM
We have become desentitized to war zones with collateral damage in far away countries and so the media tends not to dwell on it.
Although I would have to say CNN, CBC etc are doing a credible compassionate reporting job in the case of Syrian genocide and atrocities.
12-20-2012 05:40 PM
The CRTC regulates some of the media.
This question came up early in 2011, coincidentally (?) with the pending arrival of Sun News on the scene, as there was a concerted effort by "someone" (hint hint PMSH) to have a law overturned that forbids the knowing broadcast of false or misleading news.
If they had such a law in the U.S. a guy like Hannity would never have even been seen on the airwaves.
Ultimately, a huge public uproar blocked the change, and our law remained status quo.
Surprise surprise, Sun News has been a total flop. The only thing on it I ever watched was Justin Trudeau's boxing match with the Conservative senator who once thought he was a tough dude.
The biggest problem with our media as far as I'm concerned is that such a large portion of it is controlled by a handful of huge corporations.
The CBC is more indispensable than ever in this environment. Frankly, we should also have a print equivalent.
But it should be taken farther than that. To provide true balance in the media, there needs to be greater representation of diverse points of view.
Since all the large news orgs except the CBC are corporately owned, the ultimate consideration in decision making (and by extension news values) is always the bottom line, therefore giving a far too important role to corporate advertisers, etc...
An honest excellent journalist such as Kai Nagata was forced to resign from CTV (Bell Media) because his conscience would not allow him to continue...
On the bright side, we do have bloggers, Youtube and a few independents online now, but I see these being snowed under by the big corporations. Either with their vastly superior resources or by unfairly manipulating the playing field...
At least we don't have a Fox News yet. I don't think they should even be allowed on the air here. There are blatant lies galore and they fail to properly identify and separate "news", "opinion" and "entertainment".
12-20-2012 05:56 PM
This is nothing new….the manipulation of the media by individuals, focus groups and in particular politicians. Can it be ‘regulated’? Well that would be regulating ‘free speech’ and that’s a slippery slope to go on. The media is regulated in China and other countries too numerous to mention, but do we want to start that? Again…….the slippery slope.
Media is especially used as a political and even military tool. Most ‘journalists’ (using the word very loosely) have sold off their souls and their integrity long ago. They’re in it now for the money and probably even more importantly the ‘prestige’. Truth, honesty, balance, equality, in reporting ……pfffffft ……..that’s so far gone you can’t see it anymore. I can see however the predicament they find themselves in. Human beings always aspire to be ‘more’, to be accepted by those in power, to have that same power and be idolized in their own little way. Those who do not go with the flow ….get ostracized and their future in the media is slim, because like many other things, the media is a club. My old Irish grandmother use to say “an honest man is a man with many troubles”…..because too many people do not want to hear the truth…..they want to hear what pleases them, that picture of what things should be which is etched in their minds.
I remember a documentary made by a woman in the southern US going back to New York (her home) after 9/11. On the way she interviewed ordinary people in restaurants and in mom and pop stores and people mowing their lawns and people just sitting on a bench watching the world go by. She interviewed two older men on a bench in Louisiana and she asked what they thought of 9/11 and their reply was…..”we asked for it”. She interviewed two Nam vets who gave her basically the same reply. Because of this and other comments her documentary was censored by the US government and was not broadcast anywhere but in Canada. Why? Because what was said, was not what the government or other media wanted told.
The media had it’s real first dose of truth during the Nam war and the fact that the average person at home for the first time seen the true horrors of war in Technicolor was also one of the reasons that people demanded the war end. The governments seen this and vowed never to have that happen again. The people…….should not know the truth!
The problem with media manipulation is it caters to the ignorant. I don’t mean that in a bad way, what I mean is the dictionary definition “Lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular”. It is people have to read all different views and then decide based on logic and their own research, what is right and what is wrong and how many shades of grey are in between. Most media aims at those who are just the opposite. But we live in an increasingly ‘instant gratification’ society and most people read the news or watch it and they believe the news is truth. In their minds, they now know….and that’s all they need to know.
People are also herd animals and we always focus on our own ‘kind’. People of different colours or ethnicity are of some minor concern, and fleeting. Out of sight….out of mind….and people in other countries are very out of sight…….unless it’s good press and can bring in readers and up the income and the advertising revenues. Then if one media company makes a big thing of something, they all have to jump on the bandwagon because no one wants to be left behind.
Free speech, in many contexts, even the media, cannot be stopped and shouldn’t be. However it should be required for the media to be able to prove many of the so-called 'facts' they put out for consumption.
What needs to happen is from the day a child enters school they have to be taught to keep an open mind and use their intelligence to make a decision. I remember when I went to a Catholic highschool I was walking down a corridor carrying my books and passed Sister Augustine, and of all nuns she was one of the English teachers. She suddenly told me to STOP! and she said “what is that”!!!!! Amongst my books I was personally reading on my own time was a copy of Jean Paul Sarte, a controversial existentialist and atheist. Having a book like that in a Catholic school was unforgivable and at least worthy of a couple of million our fathers and equal amounts of hail Mary’s. She took it from underneath my arm, looked at it and I thought I was done for….but….instead she smiled and gave it back saying …”keep reading”. Then she walked away. She, understood.
12-20-2012 08:54 PM
Although I would have to say CNN, CBC etc are doing a credible compassionate reporting job in the case of Syrian genocide and atrocities.
Syria was a major news story up until last Friday. It all but disappeared from CNN's coverage after the school shooting. It is starting to show up a little more yesterday and today. CNN covers whatever they think will get the most viewers. I find it difficult to believe that they care seriously about anything they report.
12-20-2012 10:22 PM
News agencies are "for profit" entities and this may create conflict of interest.
How would anyone like if Canadian justice system, police force or prisons were profit seeking entities.
Freedom of speech is political right. It does not mean the employee can interrupt work to express his/her opinions and ideas during the worktime and be protected from getting fired. Freedom of expression does not mean engineer can become all artistic in his airplane design, he still has to follow the rules of aerodynamics or be fired. Just like engineer delivering his design, journalist is delivering the article. There should be code of conduct for news agencies and similarly as rules of aerodynamics were never challenged in court as obstacle to freedom of expression, the same standards must be applied to this code of conduct.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression protects us from political prosecution, but does not protect us from civil consequences or our "speech" or "expression".
12-21-2012 10:47 AM
There should be code of conduct for news agencies
All news agencies will tell you they have a code of conduct - although it was probably written by someone at the National Enquirer.
How would anyone like if Canadian justice system, police force or prisons were profit seeking entities.
Actually, the police should be a for-profit organization. Here in London, the police force (and police salaries) are a significant portion of the city's budget. Every year, they "need" a 4 or 5% increase just to maintain current services.
I think that fines should go directly to the police budget. If the cops had a certain performance level when it came to ticketing offenders, they might spend less time in parking lots and Starbucks. The way people drive today, the police would have a hard time keeping up with the offences. How many times do you see guys run red lights - or not fully stop at a stop sign? How many speeders and careless drivers do you see? How many distracted drivers on cell phones (including the cops)? An officer could do nothing but write tickets all day and earn a large sum of money for the coffers.
12-21-2012 02:15 PM
An officer could do nothing but write tickets all day and earn a large sum of money for the coffers.
And if he or she did, how many hours or days in their week would be spent in court?
12-21-2012 06:05 PM
And if he or she did, how many hours or days in their week would be spent in court?
Asked an officer friend. He said that only a small number of tickets make it to court. Most just pay the fine and move on.
Another bonus - you could have two levels of police officer. The first would be front line officers that deal with crime. The second (lower paid) level would do nothing but deal with traffic infractions.
12-21-2012 06:48 PM
I would also think that maybe this would be something that student lawyers could handle or articling law students. It would give them good court experience for the future. But most cases as you say are pretty cut and dry.
Another thing the cops could do is use more undercover cars. Several years ago my wife and I were in Nova Scotia and an old green Chrysler passed us going in the opposite direction. I said to me wife that if my eyes weren't deceiving me I seen a radar unit on the dashboard of the car. I never thought much of it for a few minutes until a sport car overtook us and went past at the speed of light! A few seconds later the old Chrysler passed us going after the sports car but now the Chrysler had a magnetic flashing light on the roof. Further down the road the cop had the other fellow pulled over and the cop was RCMP and you can bet it wasn't a stock motor under the hood of that old Chrysler.