Recently, I’ve had an old Tennessee Ernie Ford song rattlin’ round in my head:
You load 16 tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
I think that pretty well describes working America – a country I often feel like the masters of the universe in Washington D.C. (and our state capital) have forgotten.
And then I live through periods like this first week in June and I have to wonder, “Do working Americans recognize themselves in Ford’s song?”
Of course I am referring to Wisconsin’s recall election, in which voters retained a governor who made it his mission to break state public employees’ unions.
Never mind these unions had already conceded to pay a larger share of benefit costs and to limit pay increases. Walker’s goal was not to ease Wisconsin taxpayers’ burden, but to do away with collective bargaining and worker protections for public employees, and thus for all workers.
Walker’s efforts were bankrolled by a handful of multi-billionaire business owners, led by the Koch brothers.
And they outspent Democrats by a ratio of 7-1 to retain Walker.
Their funds allowed saturation advertising and publicity designed to question the democratic nature of a recall election petitioned for by hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters.
Yet by the time the election rolled around, voters suddenly felt recalls should only be held in the case of criminal wrongdoing.
John Nichols outlines events in “Framed: How Redefining Direct Democracy as Anti-Democratic Won Wisconsin.” http://www.thenation.com/blog/168335/framed-how-redefining-direct-democracy-anti-democratic-won-wisconsin?rel=emailNation#
I’ve never been a big believer in advertising, but I’m disappointed to say it worked this time. Walker’s corporate funders managed to manipulate voters into keeping their man in office.
Why? Because big business profits when workers can’t organize. It is no coincidence that since President Reagan broken the air traffic controllers’ union, workers’ wages in this country have stagnated.
And it’s ironic for those Wisconsin voters who cast their vote for the principle that recalls be held only for criminal wrongdoing. They may get it yet because investigations of Walker continue.
But what capped a strange confluence of events was the death of Ray Bradbury the same week. Bradbury was the author of Fahrenheit 451. This prophetic science fiction novel tells the story of a future in which firemen no longer put out fires. Instead, they start them – to burn books.
In this futuristic America, people sit enthralled to their interactive television screens, now three full living room walls.
Meanwhile, the government sends firemen to destroy books and historic documents that would encourage free thinking.
But, one day the book’s main character opens a book perched on the pile for the next bonfire. And it changes his life.
He begins to read and discovers radical texts like the Bible and our founding documents, and he finally questions what he is doing.
He sees his wife mesmerized in front of her TV screen and walks away from his old life.
I keep wondering when we will. Americans must wake up to the fact that government is our responsibility.
Until then, the company store owned by the Koch brothers and their colleagues will continue to buy our government and own our souls.
As they did in Wisconsin and are already doing in the general election, they are flooding the airwaves with ads and appearances by paid representatives for their candidates (chiefly Republican) who will blindly push through policies to benefit them.
So unplug the TV and radio. And before it’s too late, start reading and asking questions. It’s our job, and if we don’t do it, that sixteen tons will never get any lighter.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
What matters more: Objectivity or transparency?
I write a lot about the media because I have some insight from my public relations experience.
And as an artist I’ve studied perception. So I’ll tell you what I recently told a group of pastors during a workshop on social advocacy: it is not “objectivity” that’s important. Honesty and transparency are.
Objectivity is an impossibility. Why? Because everyone has a perspective. And no matter how carefully you work, it affects what you produce.
Consider a still life set up in a drawing studio. Students come in and take their places around the still life. Yet with one still life, 20 students produce 20 different drawings – all true from their perspective, although not equally well done or accurate.
So with news and information, transparency or honesty about an outlet’s perspective is what’s important. Unfortunately, most broadcast media try to lay claim to the ideals of “objectivity” and “balance.”
Additionally, in an age when most media are profit-driven and owned by corporate conglomerates, newsrooms have cut researchers and reporters. So the remaining overworked staff often uses pre-packaged stories, photos and news videos delivered to them via the newswires and public relations people like me. And because they all use the same sources, you get the same stories from the same perspective repeated on all the channels.
It’s an echo chamber.
In this environment, advertisers also play an unhealthy role in determining program content. Owners don’t want to deliver content critical of the advertiser. Take for instance, Sunday morning news programs. First let’s look at ownership.
FOX News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, an international conglomerate that also includes The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others. (FYI, News Corporation is under investigation for illegal news-gathering tactics and bribery in Great Britain.)
NBC is owned by General Electric, hence all the energy company commercials during Meet the Press.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
CBS formerly owned by Viacom, is now owned by CBS Corporation.
And with regard to providing balance or a variety of viewpoints, a recent study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986) examined the content of ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press and FOX News Sunday. To quote study author Peter Hart, “Evaluating the guest lists for the eight months from June 2011 through February 2012, FAIR found a distinct conservative skew in both one-on-one interview segments and roundtable discussions.”
Other findings from the study included:
“In the eight-month study period, partisan-affiliated one-on-one interviews were 70 percent Republican—166 guests to Democrats’ 70.”
Guests were overwhelmingly male and homogenously white.
In roundtable discussions, Republicans and/or conservatives made 282 appearances to 164 by Democrats and progressives.
“Middle-of-the-road Beltway journalists made 201 appearances in roundtables, which serves to buttress the argument that corporate media’s idea of a debate is conservative ideologues matched by centrist-oriented journalists.”
Only 29 percent of roundtable guests were women, and only 15 percent were minorities. Read about the study here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514 So if these are your major news sources, you’re only getting one perspective. Consider yourself lucky this local paper you’re reading works to provide a variety.
And as an artist I’ve studied perception. So I’ll tell you what I recently told a group of pastors during a workshop on social advocacy: it is not “objectivity” that’s important. Honesty and transparency are.
Objectivity is an impossibility. Why? Because everyone has a perspective. And no matter how carefully you work, it affects what you produce.
Consider a still life set up in a drawing studio. Students come in and take their places around the still life. Yet with one still life, 20 students produce 20 different drawings – all true from their perspective, although not equally well done or accurate.
So with news and information, transparency or honesty about an outlet’s perspective is what’s important. Unfortunately, most broadcast media try to lay claim to the ideals of “objectivity” and “balance.”
Additionally, in an age when most media are profit-driven and owned by corporate conglomerates, newsrooms have cut researchers and reporters. So the remaining overworked staff often uses pre-packaged stories, photos and news videos delivered to them via the newswires and public relations people like me. And because they all use the same sources, you get the same stories from the same perspective repeated on all the channels.
It’s an echo chamber.
In this environment, advertisers also play an unhealthy role in determining program content. Owners don’t want to deliver content critical of the advertiser. Take for instance, Sunday morning news programs. First let’s look at ownership.
FOX News is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, an international conglomerate that also includes The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others. (FYI, News Corporation is under investigation for illegal news-gathering tactics and bribery in Great Britain.)
NBC is owned by General Electric, hence all the energy company commercials during Meet the Press.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
CBS formerly owned by Viacom, is now owned by CBS Corporation.
And with regard to providing balance or a variety of viewpoints, a recent study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (a non-profit organization challenging media bias and censorship since 1986) examined the content of ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press and FOX News Sunday. To quote study author Peter Hart, “Evaluating the guest lists for the eight months from June 2011 through February 2012, FAIR found a distinct conservative skew in both one-on-one interview segments and roundtable discussions.”
Other findings from the study included:
“In the eight-month study period, partisan-affiliated one-on-one interviews were 70 percent Republican—166 guests to Democrats’ 70.”
Guests were overwhelmingly male and homogenously white.
In roundtable discussions, Republicans and/or conservatives made 282 appearances to 164 by Democrats and progressives.
“Middle-of-the-road Beltway journalists made 201 appearances in roundtables, which serves to buttress the argument that corporate media’s idea of a debate is conservative ideologues matched by centrist-oriented journalists.”
Only 29 percent of roundtable guests were women, and only 15 percent were minorities. Read about the study here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514 So if these are your major news sources, you’re only getting one perspective. Consider yourself lucky this local paper you’re reading works to provide a variety.
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