Well, I would. You probably would.
But TV journalists are highly trained, and rigorously selected, to be able walk right through such a thing and be completely incurious and oblivious.
Hey, that’s why they make the big bucks.
Jack Mirkinson in Huffington Post:
The People’s Climate March on Sunday was perhaps the largest climate change protest in history. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of New York City. Celebrities and high-profile politicians were among the marchers. The protest was a huge topic on social media.
All in all, it was a perfect opportunity for some of America’s biggest news organizations to cover the topic of climate change, something that usually gets either ignored or badly handled. For Sunday talk show hosts, there was even a nice political hook, since the march was pegged to a UN summit that President Obama will be attending.
Well, so much for that idea. It seems climate change remains one potentially world-shattering issue that just can’t get any respect on television. No Sunday morning show except MSNBC’s “Up” so much as mentioned climate change, or the march, save for one stray reference on “This Week” by The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel. She pointed out that the march was actually gathering right outside the ABC studios in Lincoln Center where the show is taped.
“NBC Nightly News” was the only evening news show to do any segment on the march. (ABC devoted about 23 seconds to the topic in its evening show, and CBS spent exactly zero seconds on it.) Cable news, with the exception of Al Jazeera America, mostly looked the other way, besides a couple of segments on CNN and MSNBC.
A correspondent writes to me:
While the rally exceeded expectations in terms of turnout and energy. I have to say even I am floored by the abysmal coverage on the part of the networks.As far as I can tell — based on (a friend’s) vigilant monitoring and what I’ve seen – or not seen – this morning, it is truly appalling that CNN, and apparently ABC and CBS (one minute of random raw footage on cbsnews.com does not cut in my book) ignored what was happening in their own backyard, weekend or not.Good for NBC Nightly News for at least doing a story on it but cannot say the same for it’s Today Show which so far this morning — almost two hours in — hasnot so much as mention the historic rally. They have, of course, heavily covered the missing UVA student, sadly still missing with NOTHING NEW TO REPORT, and what Gwen Stefani “really” thinks about the judges on some stupid talent show. Ugh.
Ultimately this is a self-correcting problem.
For years now people have been leaving broadcast media news – moving toward the Internet delivered content.
Bad news coverage drives away smart viewers. They are left with dumb viewers, and advertisers may prefer the malleable audiences.
It is a blunder for major news outlets to ignore important stories, they lose trust — and recovering trust is 100 times more difficult than just doing the right thing from the start.
We are seeing a shift. And when 400,000 people look for honest coverage, that is a big change for mass media. A big loss for tee vee.
I have to disagree – ha ha.
“Bad news coverage drives away smart viewers. They are left with dumb viewers, and advertisers may prefer the malleable audiences.”
Media is a ratings game. They go for the numbers. They do this to provide value for their advertisers, which makes their own business profitable and competitive.
Giving “bad” news comes in two forms. The bad news of a murder or a terror plot is perfectly fine to air because someone else did it. Fear and anger also draws viewers. The second form of bad news is when the collective “we” is culpable, instead of just “them”. Examples of this would be: footage of civilian deaths from drone strikes, how U.S. farm subsidies drives immigration, and yes, climate change. We all know (even the deniers) either consciously or instinctively that we are all responsible for it.
This second form of bad news doesn’t lend itself well to a commercial and privatized media, because they know from long experience that giving this form of bad news doesn’t increase ratings. People want to feel good about themselves, and usually after working all day as wage slaves they’d rather be diverted and entertained than told how they’re just effing up the planet.
The media will cover this form of bad news only when absolutely necessary. They’ll avoid it as much as possible.
Tied with this trend, their advertisers bring their wishes to the table in what gets covered and what doesn’t. This takes place behind closed doors in the form of “advice” to editors, who learn over time to be more cautious about upsetting their revenue stream.
I agree that many people (including myself) have migrated to the internet to get their news. But if you’ve noticed, mass media on the internet has rapidly devolved the past few years. The media outlets used to use the internet as an auxiliary to their core business. As people have migrated more and more to the internet, these media outlets have prioritized gaining revenue from the internet. It’s why we know see 25 ads per news article now, and why we see bogus articles and distracting Kardashian articles on every page. They’re there to get the clicks necessary to provide value to their advertisers.
These trends won’t go away, unfortunately.
Do you have any evidence that this kind of “bad news” doesn’t draw ratings? War protesters in the 1970s drew plenty of viewers, as did even crazy protests later on. How about those “New Black Panther” protests involving no more than a few people? Few loud mouths, lots of coverage.
The reason the protest wasn’t covered was because of the corporate nature of the MSM. I stopped watching network news long ago. This proves that it’s worthless.
In direct response, as far as I know, no one has made a study of the phenomenon. Out of curiosity, when Ann Curry had her special on global warming, I checked her ratings for that show. Here are the results:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/04/07/tv-ratings-sunday-once-upon-a-time-rises-believe-revenge-crisis-dip-academy-of-country-music-awards-down-from-last-year/251708/
‘Ann Curry Reports’ numbers were twice higher at its opening show (that show was about a man who gets a face transplant):
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/06/29/tv-ratings-friday-cult-returns-low-ann-curry-reports-wins-night-dateline-up-2020-down/189625/
Besides that, the media of the 1960s and 1970s existed in a different universe than the one we currently occupy. The Powell Memo goes a long way in showing how the media that existed then is as extinct as the dinosaurs.
Also, the Vietnam protests would be an example of news that couldn’t be ignored. We’re talking Kent State and fire hoses with those. BTW, one of the BIG reasons why so many protested against the Vietnam War was the unflinching media coverage of the war. We didn’t have the sterilized and third-person view of war that we have now. We get views from the cameras in “smart bombs” now, and everyone oohs and ahhs and how amazing the technology is and how great we are for creating it.
It’s possible that climate protests could become as loud and as important as the protest movements of the 60s and 70s, but we’re not there yet. OWS dwarfed this recent climate protest in total scale, and the media studiously avoided that, too.
That’s no surprise. The sub-meme of Sunday was that our current path is unsustainable. MSM electronic Media grow fat on ad revenues from automakers and the people who produce auto-based products and services–and newspapers grew wealthy on real estate ads. To endorse or even accept the view that human extinction might be on the line if we don’t stop using cars to drive back and forth to our homes in the suburbs is not a winning strategy for them.
There was an interesting media workshop at the third anniversary of OWS last week–folks who cover protest events for alternate press or freelance were all given ‘press pass’ badges. The idea is that we’re doing the reporting that the mainstream will not do–and Americans in general don’t trust the MSM anymore.
My point is that the issue is gaining support in more and more countries, this is a global problem requiring action from many
countries and businesses.
Organisers say some 570,000 people took part in the rallies in 161 countries; far more exceeding the number of those who demonstated for climate action in Copenhagen in 2009.
Interesting reporting and discussion Al Jazeera:
Organisers say some 570,000 people took part in the rallies in 161 countries; far more exceeding the number of those who demonstated for climate action in Copenhagen in 2009.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/09/marching-climate-change-2014922115116442119.html
More on the march from Al Jazeera:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/09/massive-climate-march-puts-leaders-notice-201492283727702981.html
Motherboard have captured it …
“There’s been no single, major action that united protesters expressly around climate change itself, not nearly on this scale. The Cophenhagen climate march drew 80,000 people, and the Forward on Climate March in Washington DC drew over 35,000. The People’s Climate March was ten times that.”
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/the-largest-climate-march-in-history-matters-even-more-than-you-think
hmmmm….anybody willing to explore the situation beyond conspiracy theories about the MSM? anybody?
Go away
During my last trip to the USA (late 2008), the media was alive for four days reporting on the most important news of the time – something about a new Harry Potter movie. Or maybe a new Harry Potter book. I’m not sure, I tried to tune it out.
At the height of the Cold War, citizens of the USSR turned to Voice of America for news about their own country.
Fast forward to 2014, and citizens of the USA (at least those with an IQ over 40) are learning to turn to Russia Today to find news about their own country:
http://rt.com/usa/189760-flood-wall-street-protest/
Not that RT isn’t biased. But at least they aren’t giving saturation coverage of Harry Potter. Or Obama’s birth certificate. Or some other drivel that has nothing to do with reality.
It is not in corporate media’s interest to cover this.
That is all.
Best,
D
Same bbc silent yesterday, sported today back to back climate change pieces. One of them mentioned the demos.
so why not yesterday? And why only in passing?
Harrabin ended his bit agreeing with a Greenpeace spokesman that there is no point in hyping another Last Chance conference, and climate change negotiations are here to stay.. This is not how Avaaz works. They’re are only about acute crises and Last Chances.
Sunday’s people might have found themselves providing the wrong kind of message for the msm. Expect infighting.
Ah…. I see. It’s Avaaz that that is manipulating the media, because the idea that the American media is censoring news is crackpot conspiracy-mongering.
Got it.
Gbaker -you’ve misread me absolutely. I have provided additional evidence of an anti-march news blackout by otherwise very much warmist outlets. For example today on the International NYT climate change was on the front page and even one of the editorial cartoons.
I’m not suggesting any conspiracy by anybody. Avaaz is something the MSM have refused to handle. Who knows why.
There really are some strange goings on. The International NYT has two mentions of climate change in the first page, none of them about the demos. A large op-ed occupies page 8: it’s about the UN meeting on climate change, and there is not a peep about the demos.
The only way any pure-reader would know something happened on Sunday, is by looking at the upper left corner of page 2, where three minute readers’ letters have been printed.
Well there is an article about “tangle with the police” although not on the front page anymore (if it was there).
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/nyregion/climate-change-protesters-wall-street.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A12%22%7D&_r=0
I guess its better to show these demonstrators as being violent to get the “right angle”…
Different group, different day, different agenda—-although it may look to those in other parts of the world to be all the same thing (and even to many ignorant Americans).
This sub-group wanted a confrontation with police and behaved in such a way that they got it, although it wasn’t very “violent”. They knew it would get the attention of the media—-this kind of “theater” is big with the MSM here.
If one wants to be conspiracy-minded, one could even suggest that the Koch brothers and the other fossil fuel fat cats are behind Flood Wall Street, and have directed their wholly owned mass media to report on it rather than the Climate March. What better way to make the climate movement look bad (i.e., “get the RIGHT angle”) than to show grubby long-haired drug-crazed hippies fighting with cops? Much better for their evil purposes than showing suburban moms quietly marching with their kids in strollers.
Finally! Omno says something that I can agree with wholeheartedly!
“There really are some strange goings on”.
Yes indeed, quite strange—-and it’s so obvious that they may have overdone it. The question now will be whether or not folks hold their feet to the fire over it and demand some answers as to why the big silence. I don’t expect much—-a few petitions and letters to the editor, perhaps.
MSM appear enslaved by narrative. If it doesn’t fit, they can’t report it. This should be taught in schools.