Independent Media

We recently had a lecture by Jeff Cohen, director of the Park Center for Independent Media. I found his talk interesting- especially how he discussed his own experience working as a political pundit for MSNBC.

He told us the story of how he was working with the Phil Donahue show- which at the time, was the most watched show on MSNBC. At this time, 2002-2003, Bush's ratings were skyrocketing. It was seen as a "middle of the road" show politically, but because of the fear of being labeled a part of the liberal media, Cohen discussed how if the Phil Donahue show brought on one left wing guest, they had to bring on two right wing guests.

Although the Phil Donahue show had the highest ratings at the time, it was terminated 3 weeks prior to teh invasion of Iraq.

Cohen discussed how mainstream media is controlled by conglomerates and top executives, like Fox's Rupert Murdoch, who are just businessmen with no regard for the ethics and value of investigative and provocative reporting.

He stressed the importance of independent media- which can provide an alternate voice free from the financial conflicts of interests that many major media networks find themselves in.

Agenda Setting

Maxwell McCombs' discusses the idea of agenda setting in his article, "The Agenda Setting Role of the Mass Media in the Shaping of Public Opinion." Agenda-setting is when the media dictates the issues that are presented to the public- usually only a few, dominating issues. These issues may include the presidential election, and the war in Iraq. We then hold this idea that these are the two most important issues in the news. Perhaps they are, but many news stories get lost and unreported as a result of this agenda setting. "Bread and butter" issues such as the prices of gas, which the public is very interested in, often don't get much airtime. Important issues, such as education, don't get much coverage because there is rarely any "breaking news" about education- however, there are many policical, social, economic, and practical issues that arise from education that the media could be reporting on day to day.

Agenda setting not only dictates which issues are important- but also how we percieve those issues.

A Year in the News

“A Year in the News” looked at news in 2007- what issues were most discussed, and also what the public wanted to see/ didn’t want to see. The most interesting part of “A Year in the News” was the graph which showed public interest v. media coverage. The disconnect between what was most reported in the news in 2007, and what the public actually wanted to see- was startling. Gas prices rising was the largest issue the public wanted to see, but got less than 5% in news coverage.

Though there are more media outlets than ever, they seem to all be just relaying the same information over and over again. While this may have to do with funding, we need more progressive media organizations to broadcast issues that the public isn’t getting in mainstream news outlets.