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Larsen: You want it, you'll get it
But the Tribune strategy will leave you starving
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At first glance, the photograph looks like a pile of trash burning in the middle of the street. A car in the background has its hood up. Next to the flames sits a gasoline container. People in monk's robes stand around the periphery of the scene, watching.
But look closer and the image of a person emerges. Flames stream off him like silver ribbons in the black-and-white photograph.
Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, had set himself on fire at a busy intersection in Saigon on June 11, 1963, to protest the South Vietnamese government's treatment of Buddhists. His self-immolation, to many, became the turning point in the Buddhist crisis — a six-month period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam ending with the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem and his government.
Photographs of such horrific events do two things — they capture a key episode in ongoing turmoil and they elicit an outcry from readers angered that newspapers would dare publish something so gruesome.
Horrific, yes, like the photograph of the South Vietnamese general summarily executing a Viet Cong prisoner during the 1968 Tet Offensive and like the photos of National Guardsmen abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But each had its importance in helping understand conditions in a nation where U.S. troops fight and die.
The news media would be remiss if they didn't reveal the horrific, for besides giving people a roundup of the day's events — good or bad — news outlets must give people information they don't want but need to know. If such information routinely got tossed aside merely because people didn't want to know it, there wouldn't have been an investigation into the massacre at My Lai, into the burglary at the Watergate hotel complex, into the Iran-Contra arms deal, into the use or misuse of intelligence that took this nation to war in Iraq.
Readers often don't like being told what they don't want to know and complain vociferously: How dare the news media force this on the public. Why can't the news media present the good side of things and give the readers what they want?
Readers just might get their wish if a strategy being undertaken by the Tribune Co. becomes a model for the newspaper industry. But that would come at the detriment of the knowledge people need to understand the world around them and how a singular event can radically change their lives.
The strategy, revealed last week by the Tribune's Samuel Zell, chairman and chief executive, and Randy Michaels, chief operating officer, boils down to this — by printing fewer pages and employing fewer journalists, costs can be cut and the readers can still be given the same amount of news.
The corporate mentality knows well how to cut costs to increase the bottom line, but, to make the kind of cuts Zell and Michaels have in mind — up to 500 fewer pages a week at the 12 Tribune-owned newspapers and an unspecified number of journalists to be let go — they had to redefine "news" as a commodity, like laundry soap or toothpaste or potato chips.
Once reduced to a commodity, news could be quantified, which the Tribune Co. did by looking at the output of reporters and deciding how much news a reporter should produce. Those who don't produce the accepted number would be considered almost as slackers, not pulling their weight and ripe for dismissal.
The corporate mentality fails to understand that reporters can't churn out stories the way Dell can churn out computers or Oscar Mayer can churn out cold cuts. You don't uncover corruption at City Hall in an afternoon. You can't prepare an in-depth look at the housing crisis over morning coffee. You can't analyze the intricacies of the county budget between lunch and an afternoon break.
But then perhaps these kinds of stories won't matter much because the future of news reporting, at least in the Tribune strategy, will be driven by readers. A Friday New York Times article referenced a note Zell sent to employees, in which the Tribune executive wrote that surveys indicate people want "maps, graphics, lists, rankings and stats. We're in the business of satisfying customers, and we will respond to what they say they want."
In short: You want it, you got it.
Call it Journalism Lite, less filling, less satisfying, less informative — not the fault of readers who want their news sanitized, but of the corporate mentality that considers those readers gullible enough to swallow whatever comes their way.
— Richard Larsen is a deputy opinion page editor at The Star. His e-mail address is rlarsen@VenturaCountyStar.com.
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 12:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Richard -- as usual your memory seems to be highly selective, if not biased? Are the events cited above the only things you can remember? What I hate about much of the media is the one sided, politically biased news coverage.
Maybe old hippies don't remember things real good, huh?
Posted by keepermel on June 10, 2008 at 4:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Would this also be like telling only one side of the story and lengthy opinion pieces that try to sway the uneducated reader towards one's own ideals. Sounds like they may have based their new plan on the Star's way of doing things. Are they going to start leaving out facts on criminals as part of this new plan....that would shorten up a story also.. we don't want the public to be of any assistance in capturing any wanted outlaws....This is nothing new. It is just upsetting to Larsen because it treatens jobs for writers. How about the threat to citizens safety when we only know half or even madeup facts. I would be more concerned with that.
Posted by shaver_one on June 10, 2008 at 7:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Mike...Maybe old GOPers don't remember things too well, either.
Wanna-Be King Rihard Nixon tried to quash reporting of Watergate. Ronald Ray-gun tried to stop reporting of Iran-Contra.
Let us not forget Johnson trying to embed pro-war journalists into Vietnam.
As an old hippie, I remember these events all too well.
But, none of these ex-Presidents have gone so far as George 'Baby' Bush. Freedom of the press has been turned on its heals under the Bush/Cheney Regime.
Liberal media will never report on the positive aspects of the Bush administration...I'm sure there are some positive aspects. Conservative media will never report on the criminal aspects of this Administration...and there are many of these aspects.
If the Tribune-owned news media wish to sign their own death warrant, they couldn't find a better way to do it, than to limit the amount of news they report. Newspapers have never been regarded as a 'cash-cow', and owners should not consider success based upon profit. But, rather, how well the public is informed by their efforts.
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 8:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Among the reason for hard times and cost cutting in the corporate news media is that consumers have found more substantive stuff on-line.
The Star's headline about Iraqis balking at the agreement with the US that turns over a large dollop of their sovereignty and saddles them with a US presence indefinitely? I've been reading about that--and in some cases listening on-line--for days. But only now on these pages with any visibility.
Indeed, very little of the ongoing war in Iraq has made it up front into these pages. News of the violence has shrunk to a whisper somewhere in the back pages. Still our people die, one yesterday, along with if I remember right 16 civilians.
Another hot story that has had no play on these pages but got HEAVY coverage on-line is Kucinich's lengthy indictment of Bush on the House floor for overstepping executive powers and misleading us into war. Rep. K. called for impeachment. (Contact Rep. Conyers about moving forward with this.) Nada here.
Speaking of lying us to war, Scott McClellan just agreed to testify to Congress about his instructions from the president about what to say--all over the blogs, back pages here.
I could do a whole riff on the BS of the liberal media and Bernard Goldberg's instabook of whoa 238 pages! But the liberal media never existed and hardly does now except in the indies and alternatives.
And the 3500+ people who gathered for the 4th conference on media reform--I suspect Mr. Larsen is aware of it because his column reflects part of Bill Moyers inspiring and damning keynote speech. I heard the speech in its entirety on Democracy Now! on-line. I teared up when Moyers spoke of the freedom of the press (media in general) as the freedom that makes freedom possible.
We need media that is more than freedom of the press only for those who own it.
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 8:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why not post Moyers speech?
Okay, I will. If your computer is equipped with the right soft ware, you can listen and even see (not all that well) Moyers delivering it.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/9/...
Posted by Jacksprat on June 10, 2008 at 9:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Where does some one come up with the idea we don't want to see the gory stuff. watch the news on TV, the local news contains stories of car crashes, the closer the camera get the better, the stories of shooting, drowning, and all that stuff. The proble is that the new papers think they need to compete with that, so try to do stories. The papers don't report new any more, they report opinions. Look at most news stories in the new papers they have bylines,you then knew who wrote the story. Did not use to be that way the reporter called in his story and the copy writer wrote the story. He did not contain the reports opinion, just the news. When the paper want to go father with the story then they would give a by line and we could tell that this was news as that person saw it with thier opinion added.
So now if they papers want the reporters to provide so much to get paid they are no longer reporters but just story writers.
Bring us back to old time new paper were we got the news with nothing added no opinion or guess or what ever added. The TV is missing that now and give up what looks like the most entermentment. New should be news information not enterment.
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 9:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Shaver -- I agree with you. and my memory is pretty good....
Posted by nannyfo1 on June 10, 2008 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Casssandra is partially correct. Generally, corporate media outlets report news that supports there own political opinion. Intelligent people, regardless of political persuasion, get tired of hearing someone else's interpretation of the facts instead of the facts themselves. ABC did on piece on military suicides being up this last week. They did this because reporting that violence and deaths are way down right now does not fit their paradigm.
Cassandra just reported that 16 civilians died yesterday. She also reported last week that upwards of 1 million civilians have died thus far. We have been in Iraq for 5 1/2 years. That averages out to about 500 civilians everyday. Wouldn't 16 represent a significant improvement from 500? It's all in how you report it.
Posted by lthrnek on June 10, 2008 at 11:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Propaganda and disinformation have always been significant weapons in wartime and will continue to be. Our problem today is we are a politically divided country with parties using gory sensationalism as a political weapon.
War is such a terrible thing that it should never be entered into without the full support of both houses of Congress and the complete support of the majority of our people. To do otherwise is to place our brave, dedicated military men and women in the middle of a deadly political squable.
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 11:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
cassandra -
what do you mean the liberial media does not exist? Of course it does. You say that because you are liberal yourself, so what is liberal to most is "normal" to you. One example is your often citations of MoveOn.org as objective and normal. Everything is relative...
Another example is Bill Moyers, I guess you find him objective. Many do not. His interview of Rev. Wright was nothing but a touchy/feely love fest and obsolutely not objective, digging into the facts journalism. No hard, difficult questions. How is that journalism. Journalists are suppose to make people uncomfortable with insightful questions.
Conservative media also exist, mostly on the AM radio. Ever heard of Rush?
To state that either color of media does not exist shows partisanship and dilution.
Media will always show some tinges of subjectivism because people have their own biases. That's why you get your news from different sources and DON'T hang out all day at MoveOn.org.
Break free of your bubble!
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 12:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If ONLY 16 people died in Ventura County from a bomb, I doubt one would have as sanguine a perspective.
The consequences of poor conditions and prior wounds are also causing mortality and morbidity belatedly among the Iraqi civilians as well as their fellow victims, our own military. PTSD recovery depends on perceived support from the environment--thus the suicides, which has been reported in the alternatives weeks ago but just now on ABC. One could argue that this was not news, but for an entirely different reason.
The estimates on Iraqi mortality were not mine, BTW, I didn't count bodies, but outside agencies trying to get a ball park under dangerous conditions.
The big problem is the consolidation of media by about 6 major corporate interest with subsequent homogeneity of perspective, choice of material covered or omitted, trivialization, shallowness and service to corporate interests rather than the public interests. While Murdoch's empire is the most egregious example, it is scarcely the only one.
Just a reminder of some of the bad things corporate media have blindsided you with but which consumers of the alternative have had notice--the overwhelming fraud and fakery leading to the war on Iraq, the nearness of peak oil and all of its dire consequences, food shortages and high prices of same, the collapse of the credit system and the dollar's decline, the consequences of industrial farming practices, loss of aquifers and water shortage, global warming and so on.
Even reporting the "facts" involves opinion by what is chosen and what omitted, by the headline given, the nouns used to define the event, the explanatory adjectives, the quotes chosen, the placement, and the tone. Objectivity does not really exist. Except in lthernek's flawed memory.
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 12:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yesterday I saw Bill Moyers (a total jerk as far as I'm concerned) being asked to appear on Fox News by one of their personnel. He repeatedly patted (or lightly slapped) the guy on the face when talking to him. He would have done that to me once.
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 12:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
mikeb6804 -
Bill Moyers is a coward and NOT a journalist. The venue or topic should not concern a journalist who has a story to uncover or a story to tell. The worst that can happen is that someone at Fox will disagree and they will have a cordial argument. It's not like their will be any violence (aside from Moyer's b---- slapping other men).
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 12:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Here is the clip from the event under discussion. You can read it or you can listen/watch if you have the equipment.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/9/...
Bill O'Reilly having a cordial argument? Sure. He's known for that isn't he? ("Shut up!" he argued, cordially.)
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 12:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BTW my remarks about Move/On was about its positions reflecting the majority of the American public as per poll results on various issues. Thus it was by definition "centrist" while the crypto Republicans promoting themselves as such were not.
I do get news from multiple sources, many foreign. That's why I'm in a position to criticize.
Posted by nannyfo1 on June 10, 2008 at 12:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It is not surprising that polls taken by liberal think tanks expose moveon.orgie as centrist.
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 1:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And even those not from liberal think tanks but ordinary pollsters utilized by ordinary news. I ran the stats down on Google and posted them once. I don't have time for this bleep today. You have your stories and you'll stick to it.
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 1:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"crypto Republicans" ----
Only people living in the virtual world of MoveOn.org use such phrases.
Kind of like "neocon"
They have their own language
As for the MoveOn.org "poll" - people clicking on a website is hardly a poll.
Polls involve standards of deviation (sigmas), modes, curve shapes, sufficiency of the sample based on the size of the population ------
not "click here if you don't like high gas prices"
The way a question is asked can influence the answer as well ---------- another example of subjectiveness vs objectivness.....and most know that MoveOn.org is NOT objective but has an agenda.
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 3:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Veritas --- I'm with you. Good comments.
Cassie--there's no hope for you. Do us all a favor and don't take any more time for this bleep. You're so far out there, centrist to you is far left to everyone else.
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 3:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Arghh! Learn to read, Veritas. And get a dictionary while you're at it.
The polls didn't come from Move/On. They came from reputable pollsters. They matched Move/On's agenda however. That's why Move/on is the real center.
I never said I got the polls from Move/On. I never said I got them from Liberal think tanks. That was Nanny's fantasy.
I said that I got the poll results from regular pollsters. Clearly. Today on this very comment board.
As for crypto-whatever. I picked that up decades ago when Gore Vidal called William Buckley a crypto fascist. I personally felt Vidal was off, that Buckley was too fastidious to be a good fascist, but I liked the nice shorthand the term provided. The term pre-dated Move/On by decades.
Some days I can handle you folk's flawed logic and equally flawed memory. Some days I can handle your misstatement of facts and lack thereof. Some days I can handle you folks' misquoting and misstating my utterances.
Today is not the day. I will wait till there are some people responding.
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 4:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
cassandra -
I know what "crypto" means. Even stating "secret" or "undercover" Republicans sounds strange. And "neocons" - "new" conservatives? What is so new about a conservative point of view. Is there an "old" point of view?
Maybe we can classify them by ages! How about classify them by nomenclature and by age:
Conservatis Republicum Genesis Correctus Intelligensius Superbium thrived during the Age of Enlightenment. Since then the species has been under attack during the pessimistic Age of Liberalism (the "Neo" Dark Ages).
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 4:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Cassie--don't wait. Just leave. You wouldn't know logic if it slapped you in the face, a la your "ideel" Bill Moyers.
Posted by panchovilla on June 10, 2008 at 4:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Veritas, Dude, you're being a real horse's rearend. I looked up Neocon on google. You can too. Your crapium just exposes your dumbium.
I also think you should learn how to read before you write.
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 4:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hola Pancho -
Did you find Neoconservatism? Hope so!
Is it so new? There was no conservative idealogy before the 1960s counterculture movement. This was a counter to the counter culture (how many counters do we need ---- are you counting!!!!)
Don't confuse it with Neo in the Matrix!
So, Pancho, do you take the pill and chase the rabbit?
Posted by VeritasLuxMea on June 10, 2008 at 5:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If we have a counter to the counter to the counter culture movement do we get "neolib". hmmmmm. Throw in yet another counter and we are back to "neocon". Throw in a c--- roach and we have d-Con!
Basically, neocon is just another play on words brought to you by the political establishment. It does nothing but create more walls. The word has morphed in meaning and can be defined as anything from an insult to a common indentifier to a "movement" - -------- in short, it's meaning is useless.
By using absurdity you understand how absurd politics has become.
Go Lakers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by nannyfo1 on June 10, 2008 at 5:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Cass, the problem with polls is that there is no real way to verify them. If there is a way that is close it would be the preponderence of elections. The opinions that the voting public has expressed is not anywhere near moveon.
Posted by panchovilla on June 10, 2008 at 5:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
No, I read the posts and learn what's there. Without twisting it. And without posting stuff that's supposed to show how smart you are but shows what an idiot you are instead.
Don't know what pill. You talking about birth control? I don't use pills. Only pill I see here is you.
You didn't really read cassander's posts or you mixed it up. I read them. And what you said didn't make any sense. When you get stuck, maybe that's how you deal with it. You don't make any sense and hope nobody knows the difference.
I dn't know enough to get everything, but what i read is that you didn't like what she said. You didn't answer what she said. And you didn't make any sense. I don't want to be rude, but I think you may be on something right now.
And this Mike dude is just POd and not very smart. He maybe should be on something for his blood pressure.
Posted by mikeb6804 on June 10, 2008 at 6:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Pancho--you're right. I'm on something. If you had been reading Cassandra's drivel for as long as I have (my fault there), you'd be turned off on it too, assuming you can read -- and comprehend.
Posted by allblacks on June 10, 2008 at 6:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BILL MOYERS: The last time you ambushed me, I asked you when was Bill going to come and talk to us about his sex scandal.
Classy guy. I thought your boy was above this kind of thing Cassie.
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 6:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nanny, there's no way to verify votes either. And I'd trust a Harris poll over a Diebold voting machine any day of the week. The is ample evidence of tampering with the last few general presidential elections and none with the regular polls.
In both cases you get the immediate response of the existential moment so to speak--someone asks a question or an election rears--not necessarily the opinion next week or next month. But when several polls overlap, you kind of think they are on to something.
Obviously, on-line polls are pretty close to worthless for the same reason that the old telephone poll showing Dewey beating Truman. Affording the technology was a matter of economic class. But I think we can trust face to face or even telephone polls these day.
I can remember when exit polls were unfailingly accurate, so much so that elections could be called shortly after polls closed. Now the pundits scratch their head and create all kinds of elaborate theories as to why polls don't match the official results anymore. I think Ockam would pull out his razor about now and seriously question the official results.
Posted by MRSMYTH on June 10, 2008 at 7:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BLACK-you say the same thing in one line comment that cassandra takes a whole page to say.Amazing...
Posted by cassandra on June 10, 2008 at 8:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If you can catch the opening segment of the Daily Show on repeat, you have it. The corporate media shutting out mention of the long awaited Senate report on their investigation of the administration's misleading about the reasons for invading Iraq-- "knew or should have known." The media should have known too, probably did, but failed to clue in the public.
How many more times will we be blindsided by media that fail to do its job of timely warning? How many more disasters will we be railroaded into without a heads up from the press?
You get more real news on the Comedy Channel than any of the network channels.
Posted by del on June 10, 2008 at 10:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Given what I know of Ockham (as I learned the spelling), he would probably use his razor to slit his own throat at the stupidity of humanity today.
Posted by Face on June 11, 2008 at 10:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Media is anything but centralized today Cassandra. We have tons of choices and options thanks to the Internet. I can read Xiahua about the hegemonic Americans, I can read Al Jazeera about the satanic Americans, and I can read Democratic Underground or MoveOn or even FreeRepublic or the Ventura County Star. There are all kinds of perspectives, things are not run by Big News anymore. Gone are the days of being spoon fed our news via ABC at a certain time. A newspaper or news website that only publishes fantastic scare stories are doomed to fail, as eventually they are incorrect on a number of occasions and their potency is then diminished. Anybody who lived in the early 70's knows about being fed bs from the media and education system about oil (I was not going to be able to drive because there would be no more gas by '81), about the environment (We were going to be a very cold planet, and we would all be wearing gas masks by now), and similar tales sold as fact that did not come to pass. It is easy for the young to fall for the tripe, as they have not recognized the bs that taints their belief of fact.
Posted by marketrealist on June 12, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
True story - a good friend of mine was asked to cover the Iraq war for Time magazine. He was not too keen to go to a war zone but this was the start of the conflict and he knew he would get a lot of air time. Then he read the rules of reporting from Iraq that were given to all journalists. He declined due to professional integrity. Information on this invasion and occupation has been managed from the start. We are not shown civilian casualties. Its as if they did not exist. Do you think the American public would accept the war if they saw children dismembered by our cluster bombs? Journalism is down the toilet from the mainstream media. Its just plain junk. We have been led down this path by a war machine like sheep in a pasture. Mike, I do agree that this is not strictly a Republican issue. We need to hold Democrats accountable too.
Posted by marketrealist on June 12, 2008 at 11:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I hear a lot about liberal media... how liberal are: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, etc? Seems like right wing kooks dominate the airwaves.
Posted by marketrealist on June 12, 2008 at 11:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I hear a lot about liberal media... how liberal are: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, etc? Seems like right wing kooks dominate the airwaves.
Posted by jill on June 12, 2008 at 1:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight"
— Albert Schweitzer
Posted by Face on June 12, 2008 at 2:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Free market marketrealist, now that there are choices, people are making them. Free Market at work.
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