Angie Jones: This isn’t the only story here, Rex. The protesters…
Rex Brooks: Which I don’t give a shit about, and unless they set themselves on fire, they’re not our story.
During the movie, Vantage Point, Sigourney Weaver’s character, Rex Brooks, repeatedly points out, “We’re here for the summit, not the sideshow” when her cameraman and anchor try to stray from the approved upon script — a press release-type read on a summit between world leaders — ignoring the protesters who flank all sides of the podium.
As media corporations have continued to merge, forming expansive companies that span multiple media outlets. many have criticized the moves, saying that the combinations are lethal for the American public who are increasingly only seeing one view of the news — despite the multiple vantage points any story can take.
We’ve been discussing this a lot lately in one of my communications theory classes and, recently, we watched part of the documentary Orwell Rolls in His Grave, which spends a lot of time discussing what happens when news comes from only a few media sources.
In the class discussions that followed, the professor talked a lot about the issues mentioned in the film, but tended to emphasize how the creation of professional journalism has created an industry that relies on official sources who provide journalists with pre-written press releases. How non-partisan journalism was created out of a business model because it sells more papers, rather than in a strive to provide viewers and readers with both sides of a story. How budget cuts and decreases in staff size, which have run rampant in recent years, is merely a result of company ownership over media instead of single media enterprises. As a result, foreign bureaus have been cut completely, disallowing journalists from really investigating foreign issues and depriving Americans of knowledge of foreign countries.
From this vantage point, the media conglomerations are viewed as despicable corporations, whose only focus is on the business of making money.
Here’s my problem: There’s a specific reason why journalists rely on official sources. Why journalists try to report in a nonpartisan way. There’s a reason why newspapers have needed to cut back in recent years, including removing foreign bureaus.
To start, official sources are important in an article because they can provide insight into a situation that the ordinary person would otherwise not understand. And any good journalists knows not to rely on a press release, unless under dire circumstances. Indeed, I’ve had many a call where the spokesperson has said, “Well, did you see our press release?” … “Yes, I did, but we don’t go off releases and I have a couple questions that weren’t answered in the press release.” I’m not sure if experts fall into the official source category, but for me, at least, an official source is one that can provide knowledge to a given situation. Joe Schmo down the street, on the other hand, can only provide his musings on the world which are much more likely to be widely inaccurate, skewed, and left or right-leaning.
Which leads to the second point — nonpartisan journalism is utilized, I believe, not as a tool for selling more newspapers (just look at some of the obviously partisan media out there such as Huffington Post or the Daily Kos) but as a way to get both sides of the story. If someone were to read a completely skewed story either to the left or right, would they believe it if they knew nothing else about the situation? Does the credibility of newspapers (although it is waning) make people believe what they read?
Finally, I’m sad to report that, like most other businesses, newspapers and other media need money to stay in production. Sure, it’d be great if we could bypass that need, but unfortunately we can’t. Like any business, newspapers have budgets that rise and fall given supply and demand among other things. As advertising revenue has yet to catch up with print revenue, though, we are hurting. Once those advertising dollars catch up online, though (and they should, eventually), I’m sure we will see fewer layoffs and buyouts. Until then, we’ll just have to rely on The Associated Press for our foreign content.
Now, this isn’t to say that they’re aren’t problems with media conglomerations. I wholeheartedly agree that there are, but my point is that the problems aren’t those that were emphasized during the lecture. The problems aren’t those that were on the PowerPoint I wrote down.
The problems with media conglomerations has to do a lot with vantage points. Not so much when a newspaper company owns several different newspapers spread throughout the country, perhaps with a few television or radio stations thrown in, but when a company with vastly different interests, such as Walt Disney, or General Electric owns major news organizations. When we have to deal with media that has corporation interests to protect, which is why we may not see an indepth report done by NBC on any evils General Electric is hiding. Or why VH1 may stop broadcasting and refer to MTV when the music awards are on.
The companies have the power to shape not only our news, but, in turn, how we view the world.
