[Media-watch] Is partisan heat wilting media? - USAToday - 4/08/2004

[Sigi D]

 --- Julie-ann Davies <jadavies2004 at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote: 
> [4 August 2004]
> 
>
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040804/6422931s.htm
> Page 6D
> Is partisan heat wilting media? Web may help
> political activists influence
> the news even more
> By Peter Johnson
> 
> What happens inside the news media when a nation is
> polarized politically
> and partisans focus on every word they report?
> 
> Increasingly in this Internet age, it means editors
> and producers are
> flooded with e-mail and phone calls, often part of
> an organized campaign by
> activists and political operatives aimed at swaying
> coverage or killing a
> story.
> 
> Some journalists say it's having a chilling effect
> in newsrooms and leading
> some news executives to pull punches in a way they
> haven't done before.
> 
> Others say that such pressure is nothing new and
> that activist groups, aided
> by the Internet, simply have faster means of
> communicating their concerns to
> news organizations. They say it doesn't affect their
> news judgment.
> 
> ''We're in the business to be read and watched. It
> doesn't bother us at
> all,'' says Len Downie, executive editor of The
> Washington Post.
> 
> ''The scrutiny has been intense for more than a
> decade, on all sides,'' says
> Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA TODAY.
> ''It was relentless in
> 1992, when some Republicans complained that the news
> media were giving
> Clinton a free ride. Through the 1994 congressional
> elections, the
> impeachment battle, the 2000 campaign -- I don't
> think it has ever eased up,
> from activists on the right and left.
> 
> ''It's just a fact of life for reporters. You try to
> be fair, but if you
> want to be loved -- you know, get a dog.''
> 
> That said, increased media scrutiny was a main theme
> last week at a
> pre-Democratic convention seminar at Harvard
> featuring CBS' Dan Rather,
> NBC's Tom Brokaw, ABC's Peter Jennings, PBS' Jim
> Lehrer and CNN's Judy
> Woodruff.
> 
> Rather was first out of the gate. ''We get paid to
> catch hell. But (the
> number of) those who are prepared to pay the price
> for that has gotten
> fewer. And those few who are willing to do it do it
> less often than they
> once did.''
> 
> Rather didn't single out any group but said: ''If
> you touch one of the most
> explosive issues, they have instant response teams
> that will be all over
> you. This creates an undertow . . . in which
> sometimes your boss or somebody
> on your staff will say, 'You know what? We run this
> story and we're asking
> for trouble with a capital T. Why do it? Why not
> just pass on by?' That
> happens, I'm sorry to report.''
> 
> Jennings spoke of a ''wave of resentment,''
> particularly by ''conservative
> voices these days . . . that rushes at the
> advertiser, rushes at the
> corporate suites and gets under the news anchor's
> skin if not completely in
> the decision-making process to a greater degree than
> it has before.''
> 
> Said Brokaw: ''It's left to right across the
> spectrum. But these pressures .
> . . have always been there. It's just now that there
> are all these tools
> that make them kind of a tsunami.''
> 
> Brokaw said organized campaigns don't affect what
> airs on Nightly News. ''I
> can't remember a time in the newsroom in which we
> said we'd better back off
> because we don't want to trigger that.''
> 
> Lehrer and Woodruff agreed. ''People are really
> hating right now,'' Lehrer
> said. ''Our e-mail and our phone calls reflect not a
> lot of open minds out
> there. I wish they didn't hate each other, but
> that's not my problem.''
> 
> Said Woodruff: ''The decisions we make about what
> we're going to cover and
> how we're going to approach stories can't change
> because people are out
> there fighting each other.''
> 
> Priscilla Painton, executive editor of Time, said
> Tuesday that organized
> e-mail campaigns can backfire. ''There's so much of
> it, you become inured.
> You begin to ask yourself, 'Is this a genuine
> reaction or one that has been
> trumped up?' ''
> 
> And Harvard media analyst Alex Jones, who moderated
> last week's discussion,
> says having the media chill ''is not necessarily a
> bad thing if it gives you
> a cool head so that you don't act in haste. But it's
> a bad thing if it stops
> you cold.''
> 
> 
> 
> 
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>  Dear MW friends,
re:  article -  I think  that not too many people
complain or ring in here in Britain.

I always get through to BBC duty log 08700 100 222 and
it seems always the same two people who answer the
phone.

I remember seeing part of the duty log here on the
media watch web site - and not many people  complain
call in - 

Instead of shouting at our radios and television we
call in, we email and we express our feelings and
worries. Our media is essential for our democracy.

that's important to complain, and its good health
wise, too.

Someone from  media watch (was it our fabulous Ian 
brotherhood?) drew our attention to  fake grass root 
campaigns...a while ago.

Have journalists ways of distinguishing between fake
stuff and the real stuff?

Normally it's the right wing groups which are
extremely well organised.Though there are campaigns
from Move on etc. too were individuals get together
for one cause - contact their congressmen etc.

I don't like the vibes I get from the article - sounds
like
 journalist  knows best, lets ignore the public.

WHO are those journalists who were quoted anyway?
"'People are really hating right now"??
 - hang on - not in my book. 
Crocodile tears is the word which springs to mind.

And remember we had the 'embedded' journalists, who
couldn't report  objective news at all  due to the
situation they were in and the psychological impact of
actually being one of the soldiers
Complain, ring in, write letters, 
yes - we are changing the world!! 
And we have nice weather too.
Have a fab weekend
s
PS following article url not related to above topic -
abuot the insecurity of electronic voting. - hackers
are asked to show politicians that electronic voting
is unsafe. Undemocratic.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/20040805/tc_pcworld/117261






	
	
		
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