US state media and hawkish propaganda

[Rabid]

So the only way to get to this only way may be for publicly-funded news media to take center stage, but I am not sufficiently learned or geniusitic (I am enough to neologize, though) to say how NPR or PBS could hope to do so.

Maybe the US could look at how the BBC function and inspire themselves from it ?

[Bakustra]

So the only way to get to this only way may be for publicly-funded news media to take center stage, but I am not sufficiently learned or geniusitic (I am enough to neologize, though) to say how NPR or PBS could hope to do so.

Maybe the US could look at how the BBC function and inspire themselves from it ?

Perhaps, but the BBC managed to establish itself early in the history of British broadcasting, and its primary method of funding itself would be difficult to get people to accept. I'm not sure that an American equivalent would be able to do as well, and, like the Post Office, it would become a target if it succeeded.

[Skywalker_T-65]

This is why I prefer my local news station. Not going to get much national/international news, but at least they aren't making stuff up or anything like that. Too bad local news has more or less died out in a lot of places.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Anyways blaming new journo grads is probably wrong.

This is entirely anecdotal, but when I was (briefly) enrolled in a journalism program (at American University, a relatively good program, though certainly not "elite" or whatever), it was the nature and personalities of the grads themselves that most turned me off about it, as opposed to my cynicism for the sensationalist 24-hour news cycle. To put it simply, most of the people that are going into journalism aren't going into it because they have any interest in fair and balanced reporting to begin with, but out of a desire to feel important by interacting with important people. Everyone wants to be the White House correspondent or something glamorous and on CNN, while nobody gives a flying fuck about, say, the court house beat, crawling through archives and public records, or any of the dirty investigative work required to actually find anything significant/interesting.

They don't want to investigate, or find the truth, or anything. They want to smile for a camera while standing next to Obama.

So, while the system is certainly to fault, I don't have any faith in the journo grads, either. Most of them are worthless sycophants.

[Rabid]

Is Transmetropolitan only born from an author's disillusionment and cynicism over the modern world, or is the portrayal it does of journalism and its role in a society a somewhat accurate caricature of modern journalism ?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Is Transmetropolitan only born from an author's disillusionment and cynicism over the modern world, or is the portrayal it does of journalism and its role in a society a somewhat accurate caricature of modern journalism ?

I'm not familiar with this, but it actually looks pretty cool.

Anyway, if you want a really accurate portrayal of city journalism with relation to the society it operates in, watch the fifth season of "The Wire". It definitely exaggerates things (sometimes to ludicrous proportions), but the general principle is very accurate, from my (admittedly very very brief) experiences in news rooms in Washington, D.C. and Providence, R.I.. However, this is focused mostly on newspaper reporting, which is a different paradigm than TV. It does a beautiful job, though, of showing the balance between honest professionalism, corporate/political interests, personal ambitions/vendettas, and practical factors (such as space and money ... it isn't cheap to add an extra page to a newspaper, for example) in determining how the news is reported and disseminated. TV news is pretty different, and there are huge differences between local and national scale organizations. Generally, local ones are more trustworthy, but not always.

I visited the FOX News headquarters in D.C. once, and just the general attitude of the people there I think speak volumes about the way the national TV media operates. It was populated almost exclusively by middle-aged men and extraordinarily attractive young women, plus all the starry-eyed interns who, instead of working in the editing rooms or anything practical, were essentially just going to press conferences so they can take pictures with politicians/celebrities/whatever.

EDIT: Disclaimer- my brush with journalism was very, very brief. I interned at the Washington Examiner newspaper for 3 months, ABC News for 1 month or 2 at most, and took a semester of classes at AU. This is only my personal experience from that time, which may or may not be truly representative. People like Dalton who have been more directly active over the long-term may dispute my observations, and I will gladly concede to them on this.

[Zaune]

Perhaps, but the BBC managed to establish itself early in the history of British broadcasting, and its primary method of funding itself would be difficult to get people to accept. I'm not sure that an American equivalent would be able to do as well, and, like the Post Office, it would become a target if it succeeded.

Maybe if they skipped a few stages of the BBC's evolution and focused on having an online presence? If nothing else it'd cut the infrastructure costs some.

And I agree that the funding model probably wouldn't work so well in the US, but not necessarily because it'd be a hard sell with the public; the original unique selling point of paid-for cable was no ads, and that worked well enough for a number of years. The problem nowadays is that video on-demand over the Internet is making owning a conventional cable box less attractive, though if my anecdotal experience with the US networks I could pick up in Canadian motel rooms is anything to go by this is far from the only reason.

The BBC's solution to that is to require a license fee to stream stuff live but allow older programming to be watched by anyone. Maybe that'd work?

[Stark]

If we're talking anecdotes, a high school friend works for the BBC and she's captain ethics. It goes without saying the culture is different.

[weemadando]

The radio station I was involved with for a long time had ties to Deutsche Welle and occasionally shipped people off as cadets to them. Again, ethics and standards were pretty big in their processes.

[Simon_Jester]

D-13, in that case, I have to ask...

What is your opinion of the Syrian government bombarding refugee camps in other countries with artillery?

Is there not room for more than one bunch of hateful government warmongers here?