Critics: News media falling short in watchdog role

[maddezmom]

Critics: News media falling short in watchdog role
By Matt Stearns
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - It was a big week for accountability in Washington.

Military leaders had to explain to Congress how they let war veterans fester in moldy, roach-infested buildings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted on perjury and obstruction charges.

But there's another Washington institution that many say needs an accountability moment: the news media.

In both events, experts say, the country would have been better served if big news outlets had taken a more aggressive watchdog attitude. The Libby case especially illustrates that too many elite members of the media are more interested in cultivating Washington power brokers than in maintaining skeptical, independent and arms-length relationships with them, challenging their assertions and holding them to account for their failings.

The consequences can be enormous: The country went to war in Iraq on false or exaggerated evidence trumpeted by anonymous sources through compliant media. And U.S. forces have been at war since 2001, but only in 2007 did the Walter Reed abuses come to light, as the elite media ignored earlier reports from smaller outlets, such as the online magazine Salon, rather than credit and build on them.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media was not paying attention," Celia Viggo Wexler, the vice president of the civic-reform group Common Cause, wrote in an opinion article this week.

more:http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/16881342.htm?source=rss&channel=aberdeennews_news

[fasttense]

1. It seems to be a vicious cycle.

The corporate media buys up outlets and reduces staff. To compensate for their reduced staff, they only cover easy, feel-good news. They stick to stories already exposed so they don't have to do the leg work because their staffs are so small. Readers bored with the same news over and over again, drop the newspapers, magazines or stop watching the channels. The outlet losses readers or viewers and cuts or "outsources" staff. Now with even smaller audiences and staffs they stick to easy, feel-good news.

Reporters don't want to waste time doing real stories so they must cultivate relationships with power brokers. To keep those relationships going they must print what the power brokers want. If they print what the power brokers want, they don't have to do as much work and can do more stories. They lose readers and viewers because they are providing thinly veiled propaganda pieces. Now with even less resources, reporters desperately rely on power brokers for stories and those relationships are even more important.

If the corporate media would do some real news, real reporting and real leg work, then they wouldn't lose as many readers or viewers and they would have the staff to do better stories.

The conservative market is saturated because all or most of the power brokers were conservatives. Only the conservative opinion is allowed out of the corporate media. Readers and viewers are bored and look elsewhere for the news. Many of us turn to the internet and other sources of news not because we don't like reading or watching the news, but because they are showing the same thing over and over again until you want to scream.