Censorship of Stories – It is impossible to measure the negative impact that the media has had on modern civilization because of a stiff upper lip from the press and journalists failing to warn about the link between smoking and cancer as early as 1938; the baby formula manufacturer’s greed causing thousands of Third World infant deaths; and the lack of car safety features.
Censorship of Sources -- The cycle between media owners and managers who are motivated to please advertisers and the journalists and editors who are not immune for management influence all say and report and slant for personal and corporate advantages. Media corporations have been undergoing a massive merging and buy-out process that is realigning sources of information. Values such as freedom of information and belief in the responsibility of keeping the public informed with clarity of vision to report from balanced sources rather than from a “dollar-line” mentality.
Censorship of The Media Elite -- So do the media elite directly sensor the news and if so who are they and what form of deity do to clothe themselves with? Michael Ellis, the founder and CEO of a company that markets a controversial weight-loss pill took the unedited transcript and video of the interview he had done [with a network program] and streamed it onto the World Wide Web [so that, if edited, the public would know the truth of what he’d said.]”
Careers and corporate agendas will create what direct censorship cannot—a compliance with the attitudes, wishes, and expectations of the media elite. The media elite are massive bureaucratic organizations that honed in on survival, profits, and ratings.
Media Control vs. Manipulation
Distortions or inaccuracies are caused by deadline pressures, human misjudgment, limited print space, scarce airtime, or budgetary restraints rather than a focus on the public audience manipulation, says the media masters. The most common form of manipulation is omission or suppression. Mute triggers are the truly sensational stories such as the CIA-overthrow of President Achmed Sukarno and the eradicated Indonesian Communist Party which story was released in abbreviated fashion finally after three or four months. Sensationalistic stories grab the microphone such as sex scandals, senator misconduct, or “maybe, possible” truths.
Engineering Opinions – Often the population is pacifist so the media attempts to whip up an “action-taking” spirit through frightening statistics, extensive propaganda, and loudness. Despite all the propaganda and despite all the efforts to control thought and to manufacture consent, the signs of civilizing effects are surfacing in people who are acquiring an ability and a willingness to think things through.
Controlling News Bias – The media industry says that news bias is unavoidable because distortions are a result of ineffectively reducing a complex story into a concise report. Then what communication system can report on everything? –selectivity is needed and it’s the general population’s weakness to be dissatisfied. Media bias does not occur in random fashion. It moves in the same direction repeatedly. The biases of the mainstream media faithfully reflect the dominant ideology rather than approaching issues that would cause discomfort to those in political power. The media need to be more introspective, to keep an open mind when critics point to specific examples of liberal bias, and to systematically work to end slanted reporting.
Face Value Transmission vs. False Balancing – “Face-value transmission has characterized the press’s performance in almost every area of domestic and foreign policy, so much so that journalists have been referred to as ‘stenographers of power.’” Face value transmission is simply transferring information even though it is known to be an official lie and passing them on without adequate confirmation. When journalist are challenged on this irresponsibility, their argument is that they are not to inject their personal ideology. But aren’t they already injecting personal ideology—that of deceiving others.
The canons of journalism report that responsible press personnel are supposed to tap competing sources in order to get a balanced point of view. Both sides of the story are seldom accorded equal prominence but even if they were that may not be ALL sides of the story. Often omitted are the left-progressive side and the radical side.
Media Control vs. Government
“Keeping democracy safe in America requires an informed electorate and a strong watchdog press.”6 But when the “strong watchdog press” becomes obsessed with sex scandals, celebrity events, and criminal activity there is no time for reporting on social issues that may be life and death for citizens in American and around the world.
Dictatorship & Censorship – When we think of censorship, it is generally in the context of dictator governments such as the Iranian people have. Most of the Iranian people only receive news and information related to Iran’s current serious problems, but censored out is the corruption and oppression within their own government. Censorship is considered to be a defensive phenomenon because it is a mechanism that deliberately prevents information from reaching the public – a function exercised by the dictator-government. Unfortunately, this overt form of censorship continues to occur in some modern-day democratic societies.
Democracy & Manipulation – A democracy has freedom of speech but that encompasses freedom of manipulation. However, is manipulation wrong? “In non-democratic societies those in power invariably dominate the communication systems to maintain their rule. In democratic societies the manner by which the media system is structured, controlled and subsidized is of central political importance.”7
Government & Freedom of Journalism – Political and economic power lies in the roots of control over the ways and means of communication. In many nations the media policy debates are important political issues. However, in the government of the United States, the private commercial control over communication is often considered to be democratic and benevolent rather than worthy of political discussion. Recently findings, show that “44% of journalists identified themselves as Democrats, compared to only 16% who tagged themselves as Republican. Journalists are 5 to 10 percentage points more likely to be Democrats than the general population and 10 to 15 points less likely to be Republicans.”
Media Control vs. Global Issues
Global journalism may be dominated by Western news services, which regard existing capitalism, the United States, its allies, in a charitable manner. But, with the changing global political economy, the notion that corporate media firms are merely purveyors of American culture is less plausible as the media system becomes more concentrated, commercialized, and globalized.
The Media and The Global Environment
Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity where every species have a vital role to play. Most scientists believe that the climate change along with global warming is here to stay and will lead to extreme weather patterns such as hurricanes and drought. So is it important for the media to be involved with global reporting or is it medaling and diverting attention away from “news-worthy politics?” The reason we know that humans have destroyed more than 30% of the natural world since 1970 is because journalist are networked throughout the globe and transferring findings.
As the human population continues to increase from 6 billion there is reason to fear of more strain on the structure of the environment, adequate food production, nations ability to provide, and economies ability to grow and flourish. Responsible reporting, as some call it, should be on the cutting edge of environmental events on the other side of the globe as it will affect all humanity, in every country.
The Media and Global Medicine – The Global Health Council has encouraged many organizations globally to develop an alliance that benefits, children, youth, and adults to share lessons learned in the medical field and showcasing outcomes. The media has been the connecting link to all facets of our survival and improvement of knowledge to continue the international dialogue and interchange on important health and medical issues. Within the past 10 years, 40 ambassadors from 23 nations assembled at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution to hear researchers and physicians discuss ways and methods of improving global health care.
The Media and The Global Business Economy – The contours of the emerging global media system shows the political economy understanding what socialists must do to organize effectively for social justice and democratic values. In the past, media systems were primarily national but slowly emerging is the global commercial-media market. The dual focus is that dominant United States-based firms are moving at sonic speeds across the globe and the convergence and consolidation are the order of today’s world. The important focal point is to capitalize on the potential for growth abroad and to avoid being outflanked by competitors.
