Bill Moyer, in his 2003 keynote address to the National Conference on Media Reform points out today’s prevailing state of reporting and what a press is really meant to do.
Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the people’s need to know. When the journalist-historian Richard Reeves was once asked by a college student to define real news, he answered: The news you and I need to keep our freedoms. When journalism throws in with power that’s the first news marched by censors to the guillotine. The greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.
“The role of the press in a democracy: heterodox economics and the propaganda model” published in the Journal of Economic Issues, June 2004 analyzes today’s media and the charges of media complicity in promoting specialized interests.
The propaganda model starts from the premise that a critical political economy will “put front and center the analysis of the locus of media control and the mechanisms by which the powerful are able to dominate the flow of messages and limit dissenting voices” (Herman 1999, 267). It is rooted in the concept of manufacturing consent. By manufacturing consent, the news media help keep the populace in line in a capitalist democracy in much the same way military force or violence might in a totalitarian state. In the process, the news media serve the needs of those in power by being collective, though non-conspiratorial, propagandists. Dissident ideas are not legally banned; they are simply filtered out quietly and unobtrusively (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Herman 1999).
Concerned with this important issue, independent journalists have formed watchdog mechanisms to keep tabs of the press where once the press kept tabs over the government. Media Matters for America, News Hounds and MediaIte are just a few that attempt to disseminate the chatter emanating from corporate media and publish the other side of one sided reporting. While these groups may not have the same size megaphone, they have earned monumental credibility fact checking and correcting media errors.
Locally, I can give personal examples of how The World attempts to filter out or minimize dissenting voices while still giving the appearance of balance. Recently, I was quoted in an article relating to ORC and the enterprise zone tax abatement. My name was given and I was labeled an opponent of ORC not just a concerned citizen. For good measure they also labeled me as an opponent of LNG, though LNG had nothing to do with the article.
A recent letter to the editor attacking me personally is published by The World with a title ‘Playing Fast and Loose With the Facts”. This is especially ironic because the facts I used to criticize a decision by commissioners to extend tax abatement came from The World. Both of these examples are illustrative of how a newspaper can attempt to marginalize dissenting information.
The World revealed its contempt for dissenting viewpoints in a recent exchange with Julie Jones, representing Bandon Woodlands Community Association and editor, Clark Walworth. Judging from the number of page views and emails I have received Walworth’s rudeness and disdain for his readers didn’t do the paper any favors.
A functioning democracy is dependent upon an informed electorate. A newspaper, acting less as a stenographer and more as a watchdog can do more than influence elections and public opinion but also bring about significant change. The Coast Lake News in Lakeside, OR, despite taking a lot of heat from City Hall has managed to curtail the enactment of an ordinance that would run afoul of the US Constitution and bring curiously opaque public issues into the harsh light of day and even succeeded in initiating a government ethics investigation into the conduct of two Lakeside officials.
Recently, I unearthed audio of Nikki Whitty testifying April 30, 2007 before the Oregon House Revenue committee the $51M 12″ pipeline is not profitable and then argues in favor of legislation, House Bill 3046, that denies the pipeline any chance of ever earning a penny! That’s it. The multi million dollar pipeline paid for by taxpayers will never earn a dime.
Local media may have covered this issue but without some in depth analysis of the real consequences the electorate are left in the dark when it comes time to mark a ballot. For this reason, a handful of local Coos County citizens are working to produce a local print periodical, probably a quarterly at first, to provide a thoroughly researched, in depth analysis and detailed history of some of the most expensive and divisive issues in recent Coos County history.
We don’t know what we are going to call it yet. We do know we will include video, podcasts and audio with links from the print publication when appropriate and support our assertions with publicly available facts that enable you, the voter, to make up your own mind. Coos County has become a funnel through which millions of taxpayer dollars flow but do not land. Unless the public understands how this works, they cannot rise up against it.
This is a people powered effort. Please consider supporting this effort by contributing to the maintenance of this site and development of alternative media.
One of my issues with The World has been the willingness to allow and engage in namecalling, particularly within their editorial content. It diminishes the whole level of discourse.
There is no point in communicating with the paper, they have shown little interest in responding to reader concerns with any obvious changes. Rather, it is worthwhile to ignore them and try to educate the public with essays on select subjects of present interest.
People tend to ignore the consequence of all the tax abatement and the corporate welfare. For example, it seems that Nikki argued in favor of legislation that forever prohibits the County from earning a penny off the pipeline. All to save NW Natural from paying a de minimis tax on the small amount of revenue they receive 800 customers.
A few of us are going to try and bring this story and a couple other recent events to light in an alternative format, print, web, audio and video. Probably just once a quarter to begin.
It is well documented in the newspaper that last employed the recently hired World paper editor Casey that he published an article referring to people in his former Washington state community as “idiots”. His leader, the paper publisher, wrote an article subsequently trying to undo the damage. Casey was gone shortly thereafter arriving here with much Walworth fanfare. Is it possibe that we now have a local publisher / editor and a managing editor who both believe that you and I are idiots.
And fellow idiots, while contemplating life, ask yourself why the silence from the publisher who is well aware that the anticipated ballot to recall Colby is based on articles by the World paper not on original thought by the petitioner. Fellow idiots, does the paper advocate Colby recall or not. Why do you support ORC tax relief Clarkie? Why do you fear the people so much? What three things have you done to make this a better community Clarkie? No weasel word answer Clarkie, please.