If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens?

[NickPapagiorjio]

I think free market capitalism, which has done much good else where, has rotted away our culture by selling our symbols, ideas and public discourse to the highest bidder. The stories of wisdom that are passed down from generation to generation and shared are a large part of what is unique about humanity, it's how we created civilization. Unfortunately, whatever it is, a short term focus, monopolies and anti competitive behavior, some sort of desperate race to the bottom has been incentivized. I'm afraid we are in a death spiral where thought provoking insights, educational content and legitimate journalistic news will always lose to celebrity butt news in a race to sell more antidepressant pills.

 

[Blue_State]

Re: If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens

I think free market capitalism, which has done much good else where, has rotted away our culture by selling our symbols, ideas and public discourse to the highest bidder. The stories of wisdom that are passed down from generation to generation and shared are a large part of what is unique about humanity, it's how we created civilization. Unfortunately, whatever it is, a short term focus, monopolies and anti competitive behavior, some sort of desperate race to the bottom has been incentivized. I'm afraid we are in a death spiral where thought provoking insights, educational content and legitimate journalistic news will always lose to celebrity butt news in a race to sell more antidepressant pills.

They are going to hit you on this from the forum rules.

II - All Opening Post threads posted in *BN* must have:

• Static link to an article from a bona-fide news organization.
• Dateline within the past 48 hours.
• Exact same title as the cited article.
• Quoted short excerpts from the article.
• Your own unique content to spur discussion.


This would have gone well under the Bias in the Media part of the forum.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Re: If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens

I think free market capitalism, which has done much good else where, has rotted away our culture by selling our symbols, ideas and public discourse to the highest bidder. The stories of wisdom that are passed down from generation to generation and shared are a large part of what is unique about humanity, it's how we created civilization. Unfortunately, whatever it is, a short term focus, monopolies and anti competitive behavior, some sort of desperate race to the bottom has been incentivized. I'm afraid we are in a death spiral where thought provoking insights, educational content and legitimate journalistic news will always lose to celebrity butt news in a race to sell more antidepressant pills.

Several flaws in your thinking, but worthy of additional discussion. In no particular order...

The status of journalism (for lack of a better phrase) in this nation has little to nothing to do with free market capitalism, or socialism, or some mixed model.

If anything, journalism today is suffering from a form of corporatization. I read somewhere that around 1980 roughly 50+ organizations controlled what we define as media in America, as of today roughly 90% of the same media in America is owned by 6 corporations. GE - Comcast & NBC, NewsCorp - Fox, Disney - ABC, Time Warner - CNN & HBO... think commentary, CBS - Showtime & 60 minutes, and Viacom - Paramount & BET & MTV & VH1. And we have not even begun to talk about what is left of the dying paper news industry. Now of course not every single one of those I've listed presents the "news" in the informational sense, but just about all of them have a vested interest in commentary of some flavor about the news or various programming that touches on economic and/or social matters. Even if passively, we know they all engage in this. The point is you have a significant amount of the networks under the umbrella of a few corporations driven by "coopetition" with each other and revenues from advertisements and/or programming distributions.

We cannot discount the association of corporatization in other areas at least influencing, if not outright demanding, that various network programming fit specifications on controlling message. FoxNews has their advertising revenue from usual suspects just as CNN does from other usual suspects. This inherently includes delivery of the news and commentary about the news where advertisement influence into delivery is foolish to dismiss. They all do it, they all engage in programming designed to ensure viewership in a manner that often is adversarial to "truth."

In other threads there is at least some consensus that a business model has developed in commentary specifically. Does not matter if we are talking about MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, ABCNews, or commentary showing up on HBO... they all have the same model even if revenue comes from different sources or means. Appealing to a demographic in a manner that makes them more angry and/or scared of opposition is so key that we see it in everything from mainstream news outlets to **** on entertainment networks to radio shows. It used to be heavy into paper news as well until that model became eliminated by the speed of internet sourced news.

What we cannot ignore is there is no such thing as "free market capitalism" in this nation in any area of our economic model. It always comes down to the same thing, as an economic model we have been mixed damn near going back to our nation's founding. So it is where we are on the scale as leaning towards market economics or planned economics that is most important to discuss. For you that means defining what would solve our dilemma with the state of journalism (or "news" or "commentary") based on corporatism of these business models. And make no mistake, news in any medium has always been a business model of some flavor. Or, something with market economic influences even if it ends up big business.

Lastly, this is not "breaking news." Expect this thread to end up moved or closed.

 

[NickPapagiorjio]

Re: If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens

Thanks, still learning, thought I'd dive in, but I'll be more mindful of the rules next time

 

[NickPapagiorjio]

Re: If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens

If anything, journalism today is suffering from a form of corporatization. I read somewhere that around 1980 roughly 50+ organizations controlled what we define as media in America, as of today roughly 90% of the same media in America is owned by 6 corporations. GE - Comcast & NBC, NewsCorp - Fox, Disney - ABC, Time Warner - CNN & HBO... think commentary, CBS - Showtime & 60 minutes, and Viacom - Paramount & BET & MTV & VH1. And we have not even begun to talk about what is left of the dying paper news industry. Now of course not every single one of those I've listed presents the "news" in the informational sense, but just about all of them have a vested interest in commentary of some flavor about the news or various programming that touches on economic and/or social matters. Even if passively, we know they all engage in this. The point is you have a significant amount of the networks under the umbrella of a few corporations driven by "coopetition" with each other and revenues from advertisements and/or programming distributions.

Thank you for the thoughtful comments. There are usually several flaws in my thinking, the complaining I do into the abyss of the internet is often not my most curated.

So where do you think these trends are headed? This oligarchical trend, consolidation and coopetition as you well put it, seem to be baked into late stage capitalism and only accelerating. I would say that dividing a consumer base against each other into flavors, is a direct result of market dynamics in an oligarchy controlled market. Where does it end?

 

[OrphanSlug]

Re: If advertising revenue is more important than journalistic integrity what happens

Thank you for the thoughtful comments. There are usually several flaws in my thinking, the complaining I do into the abyss of the internet is often not my most curated.

So where do you think these trends are headed? This oligarchical trend, consolidation and coopetition as you well put it, seem to be baked into late stage capitalism and only accelerating. I would say that dividing a consumer base against each other into flavors, is a direct result of market dynamics in an oligarchy controlled market. Where does it end?

It is about more than where these trends are headed but also why.

Delivery of all television programming by schedule is in competition with on demand sources, and it has more or less forced the corporatization of network programming to become more oligarchical. So I suspect more M&A activity by the big 6 that dominate scheduled media, "news," and commentary based programming. Especially NBC/Comcast, FoxNews Corp, Disney/ABC, and Time Warner. Those especially have a vested interest in controlling as much as possible as a means to influence their costs and how they distribute that programming. Each one, without exception, in recent memory has mentioned on an investment conference call (quarterly earnings calls) an interest in expanding their hold on the market of scheduled programming.

That is our answer, right from the horse's mouth. So the real question is what the future holds for "news," commentary, and various media programming that may be for social issues impact reasons once scheduled viewership declines enough where on-demand viewership increases enough to combat the big 6?

As in Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu, Facebook, and the like collide with NBC/Comcast, FoxNews Corp, Disney/ABC, and Time Warner (and that relationship is already in the "coopetition" mode for various content available on both.)