The Media Industry

[I35]

Did anybody else feel as proud as I with how the Super Dome cheered our President. That was people there to see a football game and not the deplorable people the media portrays showing up for his rallies.

 

[Horn6721]

I35
Yes exactly. I am glad for him and her to see there are many prople who appreciate what he has done good for our country and done good for so many minority and less advantaged groups. He sure isn't doing it for the money.
Honestly though I was concerned some crazed hater could take a shot at him.

 

[Joe Fan]

 

[Joe Fan]

 

[Monahorns]

 

[Garmel]

The Founding Fathers never intended for the American press to become an arm for one political party. We're in a dangerous situation and it doesn't seem to be a quick way out of it.

 

[Joe Fan]

Finally someone is trying to clean up journalism

 

[Joe Fan]

The Founding Fathers never intended for the American press to become an arm for one political party. We're in a dangerous situation and it doesn't seem to be a quick way out of it.

IMO, cleaning it up will come from the corporate side rather than the federal govt side. Maybe it will take a mound of lawsuits (Gawker, Sandman, etc) or maybe corporate boards will begin to smell the covfefe all on their own? We can hope, at least

I would add that the one area the federal govt can and probably will take action is in the area of the tech giants (rather than the media giants).

 

[I35]

IMO, cleaning it up will come from the corporate side rather than the federal govt side. Maybe it will take a mound of lawsuits (Gawker, Sandman, etc) or maybe corporate boards will begin to smell the covfefe all on their own?

I would add that the one area the federal govt can and probably will take action is in the area of the tech giants (rather than the media giants).

Trump was right when he said the fake news is the enemy of the people. They have by far the biggest influence on Americans and unfortunately it’s not for the good. Terrorist are the enemy as well, but the media had to one up them and recently have tried to give terrorist cover. Example Soleimani. They selectively choose who can go after terrorist as President and who can’t. Obama could and did and Orange man bad and can’t.

 

[Joe Fan]

Trump was right when he said the fake news is the enemy of the people. They have by far the biggest influence on Americans and unfortunately it’s not for the good. Terrorist are the enemy as well, but the media had to one up them and recently have tried to give terrorist cover. Example Soleimani. They selectively choose who can go after terrorist as President and who can’t. Obama could and did and Orange man bad and can’t.

With cable news at least, you would think they would chase ratings. This is the model for most television. Network shows get canceled when they dont achieve certain ratings metrics. Cable is slightly different because of the fee structure, but ratings still matter, especially with basic cable, which both CNN and MSNBC are a part of. If they did chase ratings, CNN in particular but MSNBC too, would make changes. But they havent. Over a long period of time now. How do we explain that? How does Jeff Zucker keep his job when he has led them into the ratings toilet?

 

[Joe Fan]

With cable news at least, you would think they would chase ratings. This is the model for most television. Network shows get canceled when they dont achieve certain ratings metrics. Cable is slightly different because of the fee structure, but ratings still matter, especially with basic cable, which both CNN and MSNBC are a part of. If they did chase ratings, CNN in particular but MSNBC too, would make changes. But they havent. Over a long period of time now. How do we explain that? How does Jeff Zucker keep his job when he has led them into the ratings toilet?

Sorry but one more thing occurred to me with regard to the free market and the media in the US.

The operation of the free market was working with regard to print media. In the area of newspapers, the people had rejected the big two -- the WAPO and the NYT. They were both failing and hemorrhaging money. A big part of this was digital competition. But another big part was the market's rejection of their inherent political biases. Yet they would never concede on this and were willing to literally drive themselves into bankruptcy rather than make the transition into fair, accurate and political neutral news services. It was incredible to watch.

The only reason both are still alive today is because each was saved by ridiculously wealthy capricious capitalists who could afford to lose giant chunks of cash flow to keep those papers afloat. (and, no doubt, massage their huge egos along the way). Pretty ironic how the papers can so suddenly and temporarily set aside their belief system to fall into bed with such capitalists. But these two cases were aberrations. I think we are going to see more and more media failures in the future and this wave will not have lonely, emotionally-sensitive billionaires waiting to save them.

As a timely example, just the other day, the Houston Chronicle was begging me to resubscribe. I talked at length to one of their better reporters. She said it was possible she was going to lose her job if more people did not subscribe. I like her as a writer/researcher but was honest and told I thought it was over and it was their own fault. The Chron invested much of their resources chasing locals who dont even read the Chron, never had and never will. And they certainly never subscribed and never would. While at the same time, they intentionally drove away their great bulk of actual subscribers. I am not sure what they expected. If I had seen this business model (which was from the home office in San Francisco) in advance, I would have told them, "this is going to fail." It was easy to see. And there is no way they are now going to get back those people they have been intentionally alienating for the last 20 years. All of them have already made the transition to better news services online and wont return.

Why did the Chron do this to itself? They wanted to turn Texas blue. The San Francisco home office wanted our House seats, the electoral votes and the redistricting. If they can turn Texas, they will have the whole US. The game is basically over at that point. But is that goal worth the total destruction of your business? I dont know the answer to that, but f-them anyway and goodbye to the Chron. The Post was always better anyway. Way better. Long live the Post.

 

[I35]

Sorry but one more thing occurred to me with regard to the free market and the media in the US.

The operation of the free market was working with regard to print media. In the area of newspapers, the people had rejected the big two -- the WAPO and the NYT. They were both failing and hemorrhaging money. A big part of this was digital competition. But another big part was the market's rejection of their inherent political biases. Yet they would never concede on this and were willing to literally drive themselves into bankruptcy rather than make the transition into fair, accurate and political neutral news services. It was incredible to watch.

The only reason both are still alive today is because each was saved by ridiculously wealthy capricious capitalists who could afford to lose giant chunks of cash flow to keep those papers afloat. (and, no doubt, massage their huge egos along the way). Pretty ironic how they can suddenly and temporarily set aside their belief system to fall into bed with such capitalists. But these were aberrations. I think we are going to see more and more media failures in the future and this wave will not have lonely, emotionally-sensitive billionaires waiting to save them.

As a timely example, just the other day, the Houston Chronicle was begging me to resubscribe. I talked at length to one of their better reporters. She said it was possible she was going to lose her job if more people did not subscribe. But I told I thought it was over and it was their own fault. The Chron invested much of their resources chasing locals who dont even read the Chron, never had and never will. And they certainly never subscribed and never would. While at the same time, they intentionally drove away their great bulk of actual subscribers. I am not sure what they expected. If I had seen this business model (which was from the home office in San Francisco) in advance, I would have told them, "this is going to fail." It was easy to see. And there is no way they are now going to get back those people they have been intentionally alienating for the last 20 years. All of them have already made the transition to better news services online and wont return.

Why did the Chron do it? They wanted to turn Texas blue. They wanted the House seats, the electoral votes and the redistricting. If they can turn Texas, they will have the whole US. The game is basically over at that point. But is that goal worth the total destruction of your business? I dont know the answer to that, but f-them anyway and goodbye to the Chron. The Post was always better anyway. Way better. Long live the Post.

What you just posted is an example that they want power more than anything at any cost. But like you said that cost would would have shut them down had they not been bailed out.

 

[Statalyzer]

Yet they would never concede on this and were willing to literally drive themselves into bankruptcy rather than make the transition into fair, accurate and political neutral news services

I think there is less money in "fair, accurate and political neutral news" today than in "tell people only what they want to hear news".

 

[Phil Elliott]

I dont know the answer to that, but f-them anyway and goodbye to the Chron. The Post was always better anyway. Way better. Long live the Post.

I remember my dad telling me in the 70s that The Post was the conservative paper and The Chronicle was the liberal paper. We took The Post even tho my dad was a reliable Dem voter due to his Union membership. The Texas Dem party was much different in those days.

 

[Joe Fan]

What you just posted is an example that they want power more than anything at any cost. But like you said that cost would would have shut them down had they not been bailed out.

The WAPO and NYT can be explained due to the two individuals involved - Bezos and Slim. But how do we explain the multinationals that own these other media giants? These are publicly traded corporations, they have boards and stockholders to answer to. I find it harder to explain in the latter case.

I do know one case -- the Roberts family controls Comcast which owns 51% of NBCUniversal, which is in New York City, of course. NBCU owns NBC, Universal Pictures, USA Network, SyFy, Bravo, Telemundo, Universal Kids, plus some amusement parks. The Roberts have long been involved in Dem politics and have been described as "near communists." To me at least, it is a pretty wild political/economic philosophy to arrive out given their family story. Which was fighting their way through the rough and tumble world of the cable-TV buildout across the US. But there you go. Maybe it is the son and not the dad? But it explains a lot of the politically-biased product you see coming out of this conglomerate.

Another, of course, is Disney which doesnt just own the parks and the movie studio but also now owns Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Searchlight, Disney Channel, ESPN, FX and Natl Geographic. There is probably not a more aggressive marketing company in the entire world. They are ruthlessly efficient and ruthlessly greedy. Yet so many of them are socialists. It's hard to reconcile.

With these two at least, I see no easy solution. Use federal anti-trust against them? That probably would not work. Wait until they die? Eh. So I dont know. Maybe if Bernie or Warren were to win, US economy would collapse and so they would break up on their own as a result. But pyrrhic victories have always seemed so aggy.

 

[Joe Fan]

I think there is less money in "fair, accurate and political neutral news" today than in "tell people only what they want to hear news".

But both papers were insolvent and heading into Chapter 11 at least, maybe Chapter 7.

 

[Monahorns]

One of the first actions of the Bolsheviks when they got power was to take over operation of all printing presses.

The news media is doing the reverse.

 

[Joe Fan]

I remember my dad telling me in the 70s that The Post was the conservative paper and The Chronicle was the liberal paper. We took The Post even tho my dad was a reliable Dem voter due to his Union membership. The Texas Dem party was much different in those days.

The Post also had the better sports page
I knew some of the old Post employees. They are still bitter to this day. They got shafted.

 

[Joe Fan]

One of the first actions of the Bolsheviks when they got power was to take over operation of all printing presses.
The news media is doing the reverse.

That's good.
Between their burning hate and that of Greta (who wants to line us up against the wall) and that of Bernie Bro Campaign Guy (who wants to send us to Gulags), I am not sure the Bolshevik reference is that far off. History tends to gloss over what Lenin did when he got control, but it was ruthless and brutal.

Has there ever been a better time to bitterly cling to your 2d Amendment?

 

[Monahorns]

Lenin was not a good guy by any measure. Lenin was a roving lunatic who would do anything to gain power.

 

[Sangre Naranjada]

Lenin was not a good guy by any measure. Lenin was a roving lunatic who would do anything to gain power.

So if I have this straight, you're saying that Lenin was Hillary before Hillary was Hillary.

 

[bystander]

A very interesting article calling out CNN for blatantly assuming that Sanders said a woman can't beat Trump:

The Dem debate's biggest loser — CNN

 

[Joe Fan]

Maria Bartiromo/Fox Business Channel has become the ratings king of the Sunday morning new shows

Sunday Morning Futures,” Fox News’ business- and policy-oriented Sunday morning show hosted by Maria Bartiromo, scored another ratings victory last year as the No. 1 weekend show in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic in all of cable news.
* * *

The show has also been the top show in all of cable Sunday at 10 a.m. ET for three consecutive years in total viewers. In 2019, it averaged 1.478 million viewers in the time slot — dwarfing rivals like MSNBC’s “AM Joy” (840,000 total viewers, 135,000 in the demo) and CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” (777,000 total viewers, 166,000 in the demo).

“The audience trusts the credibility of the program,” Bartiromo told TheWrap when discussing the ratings wins, noting she knows her audience demographics and has tried to create the show around that specific audience’s wants since she joined Fox’s networks in 2014."​

How Fox News' Maria Bartiromo Scored Another Ratings Win for 'Sunday Morning Futures'

 

[Joe Fan]

CNN's new WH reporter seems like he will be a fair and reasonable guy, someone who'll call it down the middle, a real straight-shooter

 

[Monahorns]

Media bias is when you let your narrative color the facts. Propaganda is when you choose facts to color your narrative.

 

[Mr. Deez]

CNN's new WH reporter seems like he will be a fair and reasonable guy, someone who'll call it down the middle, a real straight-shooter

At the end of the day these commentators who speak of "facts" or "lies" don't know what a fact or what a lie is.

 

[Joe Fan]

At the end of the day these commentators who speak of "facts" or "lies" don't know what a fact or what a lie is.

Their inability/unwillingness to distinguish fact from opinion is what has always driven me nuts. And this, in turn, makes it almost impossible to have any meaningful discussion with a "progressive" because they heard John Harwood state his opinion as if it were a fact and they believe it. What are you supposed to do in response to that? If you take it on yourself to explain the difference to them, it will cost you the rest of your life. It's impossible. It would be more time efficient to just blow up the entire media establishment and start over.

 

[UTChE96]

RIP Jim Lehrer. One of the few professionals that was left in journalism.

 

[TxnByBirth]

WATCH: Father Asks Elizabeth Warren If He’s Going To Get His Money Back After Paying For Daughter’s Education

It's going to take about -.025 seconds for the media to dig into this guy's life to find anything at all to destroy him for daring to talk to Chiefette Pocahontas in this manner.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Their inability/unwillingness to distinguish fact from opinion is what has always driven me nuts. And this, in turn, makes it almost impossible to have any meaningful discussion with a "progressive" because they heard John Harwood state his opinion as if it were a fact and they believe it. What are you supposed to do in response to that? If you take it on yourself to explain the difference to them, it will cost you the rest of your life. It's impossible. It would be more time efficient to just blow up the entire media establishment and start over.

My concern is with more hidden and passive assertions of alleged "facts." For example, I've read several news articles claiming that the House's evidence against Trump is "voluminous." It's stated as fact, but that is loaded with opinions and subjectivity. Can we even call it "evidence against Trump" if the testimony isn't based on personal knowledge? I think that's highly questionable. And is it "voluminous?" That's like saying that chocolate is the best ice cream flavor. It's entirely a matter of opinion.

And of course, the point of this is to keep people from challenging them and setting up false logics. If you vote to acquit, then you're ignoring "voluminous amounts of evidence against Trump." It doesn't permit someone to oppose impeachment based on lack of evidence.