My post of April 26th sited a Mother Jones Magazine article "Fact-Free Nation." The article discussed the transition of news of the past where journalists called out people when they lied to news today that is "balanced" where no one verifies the difference between truth and untruth. Also, shrinking journalism departments at universities are merging with public relations (PR) departments.
Propublica posted a news article May 2nd titled "PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms." It documents the growth of PR and the shrinking of journalism. PR is a growing and booming business. What if all "news" became PR? What could we count on? Would our lives be better, calm, happy, or fearful in a truly a fact-free nation? I don't know, we could find out.
In the former Soviet Union the people knew they were hearing propaganda from their government. In the U.S. people less aware of propaganda. We are busy trying to make a living and raising our kids. Many people I know don't pay attention beyond the network news programs they watch and hear.to know what is news or propaganda.
My direct experience comes from a Kiwanis Convention training I attended on how to get news on our club activities into the newspaper. The best way was to write the article and send it to the paper. The articles are printed with almost no editing. The explanation was the newspapers with fewer and fewer reporters still want items to report for local news. But, do you think we are going to tell the community that we sell beer to raise money for kids? No. We tell them what we want them to hear about all of the good projects we do for kids.
Back to the article. The following portions of the article stood out for me. However, please realize these are my preferences that verify my beliefs, my spin or propaganda to convince others of my truth. If you read the whole article, you can tell me how I did.
"The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. "What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda," McChesney said. "We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country.""
What's wrong with PR? Here is a pro statement.
"Gary McCormick, former chairman of the Public Relations Society of America, said that was unfair. McCormick acknowledged that there have been PR abuses, but he said most public relations people try to steer clear of falsehood. And he makes a pretty logical argument: lying does not work, because you are almost always going to get caught. And when you do, it makes it worse for your client.
"If I burn you, I am out of business," said McCormick, whose organization has a membership of 21,000. He concedes that can be a tough message to relay to a client facing bad press. "The problem is when you get caught up with a client, and the business drives you to tell a message differently than you would advise," McCormick said.
McCormick is right: lies are not ubiquitous, and they are not the heart of the matter. The problem is that there is a large gray zone between the truth and a lie."
This sounds fine for PR firms competing in an honest, competitive business world. However, we don't have that. The major voices are from a corporate world dominated by monopolies. PR people work within those monopolies and voice the words that they are paid to say. In politics the PR firms specialize for an ideology viewpoint and clients choose them to spread their biased messages. They don't worry about those with different beliefs.
Another quote from the article carries their study to this caution.
"In a vacuum, none of this is bad. Schools need to publicize their research, corporations defend their products, and political groups stake their positions. But without the filter provided by journalists, it is hard to divide facts from slant."
And more.
"It's also getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story ... evidence that it has not stopped. James Rainey, the Los Angeles Times media columnist, recently won Penn State's Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism for columns last year that showed how local television stations were running paid content in their news programs."
"New York Times...series of stories ... showed how the Pentagon was using retired military officers to deliver the military's message on the war in Iraq and its counterterrorism efforts...the officers' appearances on television were not happenstance, but a carefully coordinated effort of what the Pentagon called "message force multipliers." ...struck by the sophistication of the operation. "In a world saturated with spin, viewers tend to tune out official spokespeople and journalists," he said. "Where they are influenced is when they see people who are perceived to be experts in the subject matter but independent of the government and the media."
Watch and listen to your news to see what you think. Here is the link for the whole article.
http://www.propublica.org/article/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-by-shrinking-newsrooms
