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Morning Open Thread: More Media Consolidation |
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From the New York Times:
CBS, the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting, has been in discussions with Time Warner about a deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN, two executives briefed on the matter said Monday.
Over the last decade, CNN has held intermittent talks with both ABC News and CBS News about various joint ventures. But during the last several months, talks with CBS have been revived and lately intensified, according to the executives who asked for anonymity because of the confidential nature of the negotiations.
Broadly speaking, the executives described conversations about reducing CBS’s news-gathering capacity while keeping its frontline personalities, like Katie Couric, the CBS Evening News anchor, and paying a fee to CNN to buy the cable network’s news feeds.
Great. More media consolidation. Now, instead of getting original reporting from two sources, we’re going to get it from only one.
Despite the best efforts from folks like Free Press, media consolidation continues. It looks like before long, America will be getting most of its news and information from only one or two outlets, as opposed to the four or five it does now.
How can we stop this trend?
Watch the BBC. This is so god damn ridiculous. So it’s either here the news spin from Time-Warner, General Electric, or Murdoch. I might as well get my news from the homeless guy who somehow managed to master the art of talking like a medieval knight in everyday conversations. Actually, I hear Sinbad has all the facts. It’s the best of both worlds great comedy and truthful reporting!!!
We can stop this trend by turning off our televisions, radios, and computers; cancelling all subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, and blogs; resigning our desk jobs, manual labor, and technical analyst positions; permanently parking our SUVs, Hummers, mini-vans, and two-door coupes; closing out our credit, loan, and bank accounts; destroying every cellphone, iPod, and PDA; forsaking Mammon’s money; walking outside; breathing the fresh air; reading the tomes of the ancient poets; caring; sharing; living simply; knowing our neighbors; appreciating nature; and truly being each others brothers.
Like most addictions, quitting has to be all or nothing. At least, if you expect it to take. What do you really want out of life? Is your life an expression of your solutions to the world’s ills, or just another tribute to her problems?
Why isn’t “News” regulated by the FCC? Before you start screaming censorship or indoctrination, I don’t mean the content they are allowed to show but rather the facts. If any program who declares itself “news” fails to do research on facts presented by them, they can be fined. It would be overseen by a civilian organization. A simple FCC message presented at the beginning of every program stating such, much like the copyright notices. If at any point the program enters an “opinion” section, it would have to state so.
An informed populace is a healthy populace. Allowing the media to run things, as they are doing in this upcoming election (where news outlets are STILL making the claim that Hillary Clinton “won” Texas when the fact is Obama did) seems to me like an overt move by the elitist flexing their muscle to get what they want.
Don’t worry, the MSM is finished anyway.
Their war mongering, lying, state-loving attitude is NOT needed anymore.
All legitimate news comes from the web, and they know it. Don’t worry, news will still get out, because they cannot control the web, all they can do is monitor it.
The real news will get out. How else can you explain the fact that you are sitting here talking about what is going on right NOW in the boardrooms of MSM? I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the internet, that’s why.
Let the MSM die. THEY DESERVE TO DIE for being so corrupt.
While I agree newspapers and television will eventually go the way of the dinosaur, I’m not so sure about “the MSM” as a category. Most Internet news now is still based on MSM outlets, and I’m not sure how that’s going to change. Just because news moves online doesn’t mean it doesn’t still emanate from the MSM.
The MSM is finished… in about 10 to 20 years. If the web had such a great presence, how did John “100 years in Iraq” McCain win and Ron “Revolution” Paul lose? How does Hillary Clinton make outrageous claims and get away with it? Because the majority of people who vote are not, ding ding ding, tech savvy. They still rely on the MSM for news and information. They will outnumber the “web generation” for several decades and until they start replacing those who are currently in power, the MSM will still be a powerful force in the US…
The MSM will die in 50 years. That’s guaranteed. By then, every generation will have grown up using computers, and as long as the internet stays unrestricted, our government will be held more accountable.