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easymoney101

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easymoney101

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Tuesday, 05/17/2005 11:06:57 AM

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 11:06:57 AM

Post# of 472939
Human vs. Psychopathic Media

Tuesday, May 17, 2005, 00:17

The mainstream media is beginning to feel the heat from the web. This is very much just the start of what they will come to face in the very near future.

In the article below (from today's Media Guardian), former Murdoch journalist Jonathan Miller writes:

"Newspapers must be prepared to take criticism and suggestions. A journalist who publishes a story should face the consequences... This is unsettling for journalists accustomed to controlling the agenda, but it is also sound commercial sense."

The "sound commercial sense" gives the game away, and gives the lie to Miller's later comment:

"Newspapers enter this combat with some natural advantages. A newspaper-sponsored blog or something akin to it is always going to do better than most of the independent efforts."

Not a chance! The point is that "independent efforts" are unconstrained by irrational and uncompassionate distortions rooted in the corporate media's legal obligation to maximise profits for shareholders. As Joel Bakan tells us in his book The Corporation, this obligation means that corporations are fundamentally psychopathic entities. People like Miller are powerless to do anything about this from within their own companies:

“The law forbids any motivation for their actions, whether to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money. They can do these things with their own money, as private citizen. As corporate officials, however, stewards of other people’s money, they have no legal authority to pursue such goals as ends in themselves - only as means to serve the corporations own interests, which generally means to maximise the wealth of its shareholders. Corporate social responsibility is thus illegal - at least when its genuine.” (Bakan, The Corporation, Constable, 2004, p.37)

The choice, in fact, is not merely between something called independent and something called mainstream media; it is between human and psychopathic media. As more people realise that this is indeed the choice - that corporate psychopathy, corporate media psychopathy very much included - the corporate media will be under more and more pressure to change or disappear.

DE

Webview

Why the press must wake up to the web

Jonathan Miller
Monday May 16, 2005

Guardian

When Rupert Murdoch declared recently in a speech to American newspaper editors that they were presiding over a decaying industry and must face up to the internet or perish, there were snorts from within News Corporation.

James Murdoch, currently favourite son and chief executive of BSkyB, blurted out that this is what some people (ie, himself) had been telling his dad for years. James is right. Rupert may be talking the talk but is not yet walking! the walk - as anyone looking at News Corporation's miserable website portfolio can tell.

In the Carnegie Foundation report that inspired Murdoch's speech, Merrill Brown says that 44% of US news consumers recently surveyed use a net portal at least once a day, compared to just 19% who use a print newspaper daily. Where broadband is available, the numbers are worse. Looking forward three years, the study found that 44% expected to use the internet more to find news, versus only 25% who expected to use newspapers more.

"And their attitudes towards newspapers are especially alarming," Murdoch said. "Only 9% describe us as trustworthy, a scant 8% find us useful, and only 4% of respondents think we're entertaining."

This makes frightening reading for those of us brought up with newspapers. The key threat is the rapid uptake of broadband, which changes media consumption dramatically, especially among the young. With thousands of choices available to broadband homes ! and with news portals such as Google organised much better than newspaper websites, the efforts of Britain's national papers look distinctly faded. In fairness, the Guardian site is the best, but I do not exempt it from the charge of timidity.

If newspapers are going to survive they need to confront their demons. As the public has lost confidence in government and public and private institutions, so it has become more sophisticated about its media - broadband makes this cynicism stronger.

Newspapers are remote, unaccountable and impersonal. This makes them vulnerable to competition from blogs and other digital media services that can be more frank, more responsive and more engaged with their readers.

So far, newspaper industry efforts have been mostly w! retched. Vast amounts of money are being spent by all newspaper publishers producing websites that are typically dire. The Times and Sunday Times websites are hopelessly confusing. The Telegraph's is little better. The Independent resembles a GCSE project. The Guardian has the best look and feel and the only decent navigation. But what they all lack is proper, embedded interaction.

I am not certain that blogging fully describes what newspapers must do, although to some extent, they must turn themselves partly into blogs. What I have in mind is more of a "glob" - by which I mean that newspapers must glob a genuinely interactive dimension onto the side of their print products. This involves putting journalists in front of readers. It means hosting credible, entertaining and intelligent discussions that open dimensions to more information and more authority. Newspapers that duck this responsibility are going to be rumbled by their readers.

Newspapers must be prepared to! take criticism and suggestions. A journalist who publishes a story should face the consequences. A reader who wishes to challenge the journalist should have the chance.This is more than letters to the editor. It is a readers' channel.

This is unsettling for journalists accustomed to controlling the agenda, but it is also sound commercial sense. If, every day, the best interaction from readers is fed back into the paper, sales will increase. This is because those whose contributions are printed will rush to buy a copy.

Newspapers enter this combat with some natural advantages. A newspaper-sponsored blog or something akin to it is always going to do better than most of the independent efforts. Newspapers' resources, cross-promotional ability and existing readers give them a head start.

What is certain is that if newspaper editors and executives keep their heads buried in the sand, as did Murdoch until 10 minutes ago, they are in big trouble.

· Jonath! an Miller, a recovering journalist, worked for Murdoch in London and New York from 1986 to 1996

http://www.medialens.org/cgi-bin/php-cgiwrap/medialens/weblog/david_edwards.php?id=4288af3a00b4d

posted Monday, 16 May 2005

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1284062.htm


"All truth passes through three states," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer. "First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
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