I am posting this as a sort of sidebar to the other thread We Don't Report Because...
I think this piece gives us an historical perspective as to what has happened to our news broadcasts of today compared to what we used to have, 30+ years ago or so. I think the crux of the problem isn't a Right vs Left argument, but how consolidation of our news agencies have divided the market and the corporations have fallen in line as to who they want to recruit for their viewers. Sadly, news has evolved into a Ratings game, and the advertisers who pay the toll. We the viewing public, have become, just a number to the corporations.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson
It could have been a coincidence and nothing more.
On December 1, 2003 Louise and I were watching the Chris Matthews Show on MSNBC; Chris was interviewing Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who’d recently appeared on the front cover of Time magazine as the front-runner in the Democratic primary to take on George W. Bush in the next year’s election.
“There are so many things that have been deregulated,” Matthews told Dean, warming to Republicans’ favorite thing to do when they get political power. “Is that a wrong trend and would you reverse it?”
And that was when Howard Dean spoke an extraordinary and powerful truth that had not been heard on network news shows in decades.
“I would reverse it in some areas,” Dean replied. “First of all, eleven companies in this country control ninety percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That’s wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don’t have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do the FCC.”
Matthews appeared shocked: here was the leading Democratic presidential candidate, on his air, talking about breaking up or regulating Chris’ employer. He blinked, and said, “As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?…How about large media enterprises?”
No doubt Matthews thought he’d give Dean some space to back away, but instead Dean plowed right on.
“The answer to that is yes,” he said emphatically. “I would say there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.”
Matthews, now apparently figuring he’d give Dean all the rope he wanted, kept with the topic. “So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to be President of the United States, what are you going to do?”
Dean answered the question directly: “What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.”
“Are you going to break up the giant media enterprises in this country?” Matthews, whose MSNBC was then owned by GE, asked.
“Yes,” Dean answered directly, “we’re going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn’t mean we’re going to break up all of GE. What we’re going to say is that media enterprises can’t be as big as they are today…To the extent of even having two or three or four outlets in a single community, that kind of information control is not compatible with democracy.”
At that point, as I mentioned on the air the following day, I leaned over to Louise and said, “Dean is going down. I don’t know how, but the corporations that own the media won’t let this stand.”
It took about six weeks, a “decent interval” in television news.
Dean was giving a speech in the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa, a state he was heavily favored to win. He ended it by saying:
His entire riff sounded perfectly normal to the crowd in the room, but in the control rooms of the big networks his voice had gone up a half-octave and gotten louder. It just took a moment for them to isolate, clip, and push that “scream” out across the nation, proof positive that the country’s leading liberal had gone flat-out bonkers mad.
The “Dean Scream” was put on repeat across the corporate-owned media landscape that Dean had, just a month earlier, put in his own presidential cross-hairs. Over the next four days the “Dean Scream” was played 633 times on network and cable news programs; Dean’s campaign never recovered.
Contrast that with how the media treated Donald Trump, who definitely had no intention of breaking up media empires that were owned and controlled by non-media companies.
The former NBC “Apprentice” reality show star got so much coverage during the 2015/16 primary that then-CEO of CBS News Les Moonves told an investor call:
I think this piece gives us an historical perspective as to what has happened to our news broadcasts of today compared to what we used to have, 30+ years ago or so. I think the crux of the problem isn't a Right vs Left argument, but how consolidation of our news agencies have divided the market and the corporations have fallen in line as to who they want to recruit for their viewers. Sadly, news has evolved into a Ratings game, and the advertisers who pay the toll. We the viewing public, have become, just a number to the corporations.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson
It could have been a coincidence and nothing more.
On December 1, 2003 Louise and I were watching the Chris Matthews Show on MSNBC; Chris was interviewing Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who’d recently appeared on the front cover of Time magazine as the front-runner in the Democratic primary to take on George W. Bush in the next year’s election.
“There are so many things that have been deregulated,” Matthews told Dean, warming to Republicans’ favorite thing to do when they get political power. “Is that a wrong trend and would you reverse it?”
And that was when Howard Dean spoke an extraordinary and powerful truth that had not been heard on network news shows in decades.
“I would reverse it in some areas,” Dean replied. “First of all, eleven companies in this country control ninety percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That’s wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don’t have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do the FCC.”
Matthews appeared shocked: here was the leading Democratic presidential candidate, on his air, talking about breaking up or regulating Chris’ employer. He blinked, and said, “As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?…How about large media enterprises?”
No doubt Matthews thought he’d give Dean some space to back away, but instead Dean plowed right on.
“The answer to that is yes,” he said emphatically. “I would say there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.”
Matthews, now apparently figuring he’d give Dean all the rope he wanted, kept with the topic. “So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to be President of the United States, what are you going to do?”
Dean answered the question directly: “What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.”
“Are you going to break up the giant media enterprises in this country?” Matthews, whose MSNBC was then owned by GE, asked.
“Yes,” Dean answered directly, “we’re going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn’t mean we’re going to break up all of GE. What we’re going to say is that media enterprises can’t be as big as they are today…To the extent of even having two or three or four outlets in a single community, that kind of information control is not compatible with democracy.”
At that point, as I mentioned on the air the following day, I leaned over to Louise and said, “Dean is going down. I don’t know how, but the corporations that own the media won’t let this stand.”
It took about six weeks, a “decent interval” in television news.
Dean was giving a speech in the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa, a state he was heavily favored to win. He ended it by saying:
At that point, the crowd was yelling and applauding so wildly that Dean, to be heard over them, had raised his voice and put the unidirectional microphone (it only hears what’s a few inches in front of it, to prevent feedback in the room) hard up to his face.“Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we’re going to California and Texas and New York. And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we’re going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House. Yeah!”
His entire riff sounded perfectly normal to the crowd in the room, but in the control rooms of the big networks his voice had gone up a half-octave and gotten louder. It just took a moment for them to isolate, clip, and push that “scream” out across the nation, proof positive that the country’s leading liberal had gone flat-out bonkers mad.
The “Dean Scream” was put on repeat across the corporate-owned media landscape that Dean had, just a month earlier, put in his own presidential cross-hairs. Over the next four days the “Dean Scream” was played 633 times on network and cable news programs; Dean’s campaign never recovered.
Contrast that with how the media treated Donald Trump, who definitely had no intention of breaking up media empires that were owned and controlled by non-media companies.
The former NBC “Apprentice” reality show star got so much coverage during the 2015/16 primary that then-CEO of CBS News Les Moonves told an investor call:
As Emily Stewart wrote about Trump for The Street:“I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going. … It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
Moonves’ statement to his stockholders highlights the crisis of news in America: turn on any newscast on radio or TV and you’ll find the same five or six stories a day, recycled ad nauseum, usually with a complete lack of context, history or meaningful examination of their impact on our lives.“The real estate magnate got $4.96 billion in free earned media in the year leading up to the presidential election, according to data from tracking firm mediaQuant. He received $5.6 billion [in free media] throughout the entirety of his campaign, more than Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio combined.”