The Media Drop

Bertrand Pecquerie at editorsweblog.org Bertrand Pecquerie leads us to a piece in Newsweek where Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! fame is talking about how while the news media was continuously promoting upcoming war coverage, more or less, the a large contingent American public was screaming a big “No!” to the activities to come. Check out the “disinformation two-step” portion of the article if you’re looking for some statistics.

“What is the drumbeat coverage? What is the headline coverage? Who’s being interviewed on the front pages of the newspapers of the day?”

To me, this is a solid point and can’t be ignored. If the bulk of media is saying point a, while some large portion of the public is “dissenting,” then shouldn’t the coverage seem to equal out? Shouldn’t just as many anti-war folks be interviewed on television as pro-war people?

This seems very similar to me as the FCC situation with regard to “cleaning up” the airwaves - the dissenting opinion is there, but the FCC and other groups claim that the morality they are pushing is what “the people” want. But which people? All people? Half the people? The people that happened to call and fax and email Michael Powell? People who happen to have AT&T Wireless and can vote on “American Idol”? It’s not a perfect science, and making vast generalizations on “the people” wanting something because the moral minority has a really shrill voice doesn’t mean those individuals are right. Nor does it mean they are wrong, either. The media covers this agenda of the FCC as it being done for “the people,” whoever they are. And it’s pushed - when it’s even mentioned on the television news, which is rare - as the FCC making rulings, or whatever. What about the other side of the coin? Or does that not get coverage until 10,000 of us are standing in front of the FCC’s offices with copies of The Nation emblazoned with Howard Stern’s face on them?