America prides itself on being the land of the free. Her Bill of Rights preserves many of our most beloved liberties and serves as a standard for a democratic society. The 1st Amendment protects the freedom of the press, along with many other things. But as Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda model asserts, the press is not entirely free as five filters shape and influence the news we receive. But as I read this excerpt I couldn't help but wonder about the relationship between flak and the media. The concept makes perfect sense to me. The media relies and depends so heavily on the government, big businesses, etc for steady news that they have to submit to authority and backlash. But this filter seems to contradict an ongoing story that I read about a few months back: the battle between Fox News and the Obama Administration.
Despite Fox News' popularity and its slogan "Fair and Balanced", it has come under a lot of criticism for its supposed political bias. In 2004, Robert Greenwald Productions released "Outfoxed", a documentary that asserts that Fox News distorts the media to push a conservative agenda. But recently Fox News has been involved in a series of volleys with the Obama Administration. In an October, 2009 New York Times article, the White House communications director Anita Dunn was quoted as saying, "We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent...As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave". And while the White House has boycotted Fox News for its criticism of his policies (primarily healthcare reform), Fox News has not responded to this flak in a typical, expected manner. Instead they seem to relish this tension, as they claim it boasts their ratings.
So why isn't Fox News responding to flak in a typical manner? It comes from one of the most powerful (if not the most) entities in the world. And by feuding with the White House, they are losing a major source of credible, steady news. So none of this really makes sense. Unless you consider one of the other media filters: advertisements. As newspapers and channels become increasingly more expensive to operate, advertisements have gained more power. Advertisements are the major source of revenue for news companies, and as such they carry a lot of power. A LOT OF POWER. As Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model reports, "An audience gain or loss of one percentage point in the Nielsen ratings translated into a change in advertising revenue of from $80 to $100 million a year". The more ratings, the more advertisements, the more revenue for the company. So maybe thats why Fox News is unafraid to argue with the White House. Maybe they aren't afraid of losing their fan base over bad publicity. But is this really responsible journalism? Has the objective of journalism changed from unbiasedly presenting the truth to gaining ratings at any cost, even at the expense of your credibility and reputation? I hope not.
Works Cited:
"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media". Herman, Edward S., Chomsky, Noam.
New York Times "Fox’s Volley With Obama Intensifying"
New York Times "How to Make a Guerrilla Documentary"
http://cdn.newsone.com/files/2009/07/bill-oreilly.jpg
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2009/01/20070309-BarackObama.jpg
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