Multi Medium

Media Nightmare Wrap-Up

6 comments March 6th, 2007at 06:22pm Posted by Eli

Since my epic FDL media post last Tuesday generated such a great discussion, I thought I would make an attempt to recap some of the highlights of the recommendations here, as a public service for those of you who might not have time to read the whole thing. Where possible, I will attempt to group them into the same categories outlined in the main post.

Reinstate restrictions on media ownership:

• Must include some sort of provision for ownership diversity, or else media will just be owned by slightly smaller clones of their current parent corporations. (Cujo359)

• Restrict campaign donations from media and their parent corporations. (Jake – but not the one)

• Use license challenges and eminent domain to break up media ownership and turn it over to community control; very steep ownership restrictions. (jim p) Sounds good, but would require heavy legislative lifting.

Spoonfeeding:

• Cultivate and team up with sympathetic journalists and media outlets, help them with analysis of their data. (portia.vz) I don’t think we need to stop at analysis. We have some pretty good data-gathering capabilities, too.

Pushback/Counterweight:

• Boycott/threaten to boycott the traditional media and their sponsors, and promote alternatives, i.e., blogs/streaming video/YouTube. (various) While this would be ideal in theory, I’m skeptical as to whether it can be achieved in practice. People like the ease and passivity of just turning on the TV and watching, or half-paying-attention while they do other stuff. I don’t see the internet being able to equal that experience any time soon, via computer, cellphone, or any other device short of… an actual television or set-top box that can somehow tune into channels on the internet.

• We need better, more centralized coordination of our responses to media lies. (Mommybrain) Somehow, I can’t help thinking this would steal our mojo…

• Watchdog wiki with information about past history, affiliations, possible conflicts of interest – would make it easier to determine reporters’ credibility on any given story. (Hugh)

• Subscriber-supported news, like HBO for news (economic viability?). (Rafael)

Word of mouth:

• The Whispering Campaign. Print out stories that have been unreported or underreported, and leave them lying around where people will read them (coffee shops, bus stops, any kind of waiting room). (KestrelBrighteyes)

• Graffiti/Freeway Blogger. (CancerCures)

Restructuring/Other:

• Decouple news and ratings. Report the news according to journalistic values rather than mass appeal. (Alicia) Assuming ratings are genuine driver and not excuse.

• Tax breaks for networks/stations that offer independent news. (Alicia)

• BBC model of government financing and non-interference. (Various) This would be great, but very difficult to enforce, as witness BushCo. efforts to pack CPB with wingnuts determined to push PBS & NPR to the right.

• Convert media to non-profits (tax code changes?) to eliminate profitability pressures. (Sara) Assuming profitability is genuine driver and not excuse.

• Laws to restrict/punish dishonest reporting. (Paul Wartenburg) Great in theory, but how to implement/enforce? Who decides?

• More restrictive laws and standards for national media than for local media. (pow wow) Local media outlets are just as influential within their sphere of influence, if not more.

• Allotment of free airtime for campaign commercials. (pow wow)

Entry Filed under: Media