Is this censorship of the American media - self-censorship or otherwise?

[Sinti]

Newsweek's European, Asian, and Latin American editions all lead with "Losing Afghanistan". The US version leads with the nice and fluffy "My Life in Pictures" story. WTF? Am I reading too much into this?


Edited to add link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3037881/site/newsweek/

Sorry, this was already a topic - I'm behind the times :(

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2845158

[The Deacon]

1. In The Old Days We Called It 'Prostitution'

[RangerSmith]

2. I don't think it's anything other than knowing your audience

and what sells.

[Sinti]

4. Fair enough. Encouraging ignorance still seems abhorrent to me n/t

[RangerSmith]

6. Nonsense... It isn't about

encouraging anything, it's knowing what sells where.

They don't owe anybody anything especially an education... They aren't in the education business.

They aren't anything other than a for profit magazine interested only in selling more magazines. If their research says fluffy and nice sells here, than they aren't doing anything other than catering to exactly that.

If they were falsifying reports that would be much different, but again, they owe nobody anything other than a perceived cost/value exchange.

[Sinti]

15. Might I inquire, is there any time when a so-called "news" publication

should put informing the public ahead of the almighty dollar? Is there any source we should go to for information about the world we live in, in your personal opinion? And yes, they are encouraging people to "not think," because they don't challenge them to "think."

[RangerSmith]

17. I think the key

to your answer is in your own quote....

"so-called"...

If we were talking a big city newspaper where they report the news as delivered, yes, that would be an instance. And yes, we do see manipulation and opinion stream through that all the time.

This isn't the same thing. This is a magazine not unlike People magazine. They have the likes of Tom Cruise on the cover and all kinds of stupid entertainment shit running through it all the time.

What the hell do you think the Annie leibowitz piece is anyway? A hard hitting news expose? What the hell did she screw up?

Please...

[Sinti]

20. Okay, I can accept that.

I don't read Newsweek, because it's a trash rag. I've seen similar non-reporting happening in WaPo, which is damn disturbing. But, you make a very fair point. I still am not sure that the American public prefers a story about Annie Leibowitz (a photographer known by a few) over a story about Afghanistan (the country who supposedly attacked us - where we have American soldiers stationed) and hence will buy more of the magazine. I may well be overestimating their audience. It wouldn't be the first time.

I have no idea what your point was in the following statement:

What the hell do you think the Annie leibowitz piece is anyway? A hard hitting news expose? What the hell did she screw up?

Please...

I called this fluff (which we get) versus substance (which everybody else gets) in the OP. Can you enlighten me as to what you were trying to get at there?

[endarkenment]

21. Newsweek considers itself a serious news journal.

It actually thinks that it is possessed of a certain amount of gravitas. The fact that it saw fit to make a cover story for the rest of the planet about the disaster in afghanistan but not for us cannot honestly be dismissed as simply a marketing decision. Not when we are in crunch-time for the Nov elections.

[Sinti]

24. If it did consider itself a "serious news journal" I'm pretty sure they've

given up that right completely at this point.

I personally thank god for the Internet, and things like http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml"> Watching America, otherwise I don't know where I'd go for a nice broad swath of info with different points of view. I guess you could go to the airport, or a really upscale bookstore for foreign news. :eyes:

It's true, the vast majority of media (generally) is owned by a handful of very powerful conglomerates. They sell what makes them money, and they're probably not going to tell you about the poison in X-product if their parent company sells X-product, just to put it in another context. We don't stand a chance with it, IMO. This case appeared kind of blatant on the surface - but I don't won't argue over the finer business decision details. I don't sit on their board or editorial staff.

[RangerSmith]

22. Well, I missed

that you called it a fluff piece. lol Sorry.

I think as far as the cover goes, is it about which one will sell more, or which one will people not buy?

I know, spliiting hairs... but, we are still talking sales here and most Americans don't pay supermarket checkout stand impulse money to get bad news. Scan the selection next time, you'll see what I mean.

[endarkenment]

9. In this case I think you are simply wrong.

In some cases we get what we get because that is what sells. In other cases the media is serving its own self interest in other ways, in particular it is being used to drive a particular narrative, in order to keep the population of this country subservient to the corporate interests that control both the media and the government. In a sense that is also 'what sells' as the kleptocracy must prevent the population from acting in its own self interest if it is to continue the current system of pillage and profiteering. To do that we are fed a steady stream of total bullshit that is designed to confuse and befuddle us and keep us from acting on the obvious realities of our system.

[RangerSmith]

10. Take the tinfoil off

... Look, they are in the business to sell magazines, period ... and that is what serves their best interest first and foremost..

The corporate interest would be making a hell of a lot more money off the public if they could show ties to the bush white house AS THEY DID OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS with several reporters.

If that wasn't an anomaly, those reporters that were burned would be singing.

Hell, some reporter somewhere if any of this were plausible would be singing with the actual facts. You can't have that many people involved... you couldn't afford it, our government couldn't afford it.

If what you said was true, none of those reporters would have ever been outed for doing bush's bidding.

[endarkenment]

11. Another lead headed coincidence theorist.

Thanks for the gratuitous insult. It is always appreciated. Really, read Chomsky on Manufacturing Consent and get back to me about how and why the media behaves the way it does. It is not just about selling magazines. A key component of the republican strategy to institute one party rule is control over the media and a key component of that is media consolidation and through media consolidation message control. You can dismiss this as looney tunes bullshit all you want. Have a nice day.

[MadHound]

12. And yet interestingly enough, magazine and newpaper sales have been

On a steady decline, one that matches the same decline in "hard" news reporting in their publications. A decline that seems inversely related to the increasing number of puff pieces that are being published. It is also interesting to note that this decline in readership also takes place against a background of ever increasing media mergers, to the point now where six media corporations control aprox. 90-95% of the media in this country.

I'm old enough to remember the days of hard news, and I never heard once, outside the corridors of power, somebody moaning and groaning over the lack of puff pieces. However now we have an entire large segment of society deriding the state of journalism these days, and our media outlets are awash in cotton candy that passed for journalism. This isn't just in print magazines like Newsweek, no, this is also on your nightly news shows. Take for instance CBS, that hallowed institution of Murrow and Cronkite. Who's manning the chair now? Perky Katie Couric whose specialty is showing her legs off and breathlessly delivering puff pieces. I've watched her a couple of times now, and at most CBS under her reign delivers five minutes tops of hard news. The rest is just filler. Same with NBC, ABC and Fox. All of whom have ties to either the Bush administration or the military industrial complex. This isn't tinfoil friend, this is reality.

Time and again we have seen what happens to reporters who try to report the hard facts, the hard news. They get shunted aside, or kicked out all together. Rather and Koppel are just two examples.

And for you to state that this is what America wants, well you're just not paying attention. People have been screaming for a return of real journalism, but since the media is controlled by corporations with a vested interest in dumbing down society, these critics aren't heard. But when a voice in the wilderness is finally allowed to be heard, it is devoured with great gusto. Witness best sellers like Alterman's "What Liberal Media", and the report of the 911 commission. Hell, your premise is even undermined further by the rise of the internet, and sites like DU. People come here to swap links to news stories that they won't read about anywhere else.

Sorry friend, but you are wrong, and your premise is misguided. We are indeed suffering from a lack of real reporting, and the reason we're suffering is because of corporate censorship, not because hard news no longer sells.

[endarkenment]

14. Excellent response.

You have far more patience than I do at this point with these kinds of responses. How anybody can claim that there is no media manipulation, no message control, no coercion, with a straight face at this point is beyond me.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

18. Unfortunately - we're in the minority. Everybody else wants to hear b.s.

How wonderful and manly our pretzeldent is.

[RangerSmith]

23. I really don't think thats it ...

Newseek would be shouting that from the rooftops if it would sell.

IMHO, Americans don't want to spend their mad money on bad news.

[treestar]

25. Maybe that's the point; the other continents can handle the facts

Americans have to be coddled.

The point isn't that they are just doing what sells, the point is that this is what sells in America. To other markets you can sell reality as news. The purchaser is trying to get the news that matters. Whereas in America, the customers are seen as preferring to bury their heads in the sand.

[waiting for hope]

3. I don't think so -

Just visit www.mediamatters.org and shift through the thousands of examples of how the media has lied, omitted and fluffed up what's going on today. It's sickening.

[Squeech]

5. Yup

How I think it works is, the media (i.e. the people whose corporate envelopes own all media outlets) have convinced themselves that the paradigm for a successful American media enterprise is People Magazine. Therefore, *everything* is seen through the lens of "personalities" (which doesn't necessarily mean actual personalities, it might just be the facade on the corporate envelopes, e.g. Tom Cruise).

That's also the real reason for he-said-she-said journalism: that factual information is devalued unless it can be shown emitting from the actual mouth of one of those personalities. And then the fictional convention of balance is achieved by finding another personality of equal stature to mouth an opposite view.

[endarkenment]

7. See Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

The short answer is yes to both. It is both self censorship and imposed censorship. Your confusion is thinking that 'the media' and 'the state' are separate entitites. We live in a plutocracy (or I prefer the term kleptocracy) and the overlap between 'the state' and 'the corporate controlled mainstream media' is huge.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Yes.

I suspect they had some coersion from the government not to run the real cover. Either directly or indirectly by having to worry about losing access.

[Rex]

13. Propaganda 101

When there is question as to the governments legitimacy, the tools of power shift from a mandate by the people to other means. One is to control the military and use them to keep the masses in line. Another is propaganda, which is the one the BFEE uses day in and day out.

[LTR]

16. No

This is called 'underestimating your audience'.

Newsweek obviously thinks its American readers are a bit shallow.

[leftofthedial]

19. three factors

1. Media consolidation has ensured that the neocons own most of the corporate media. They hire and promote only their own loyal propagandists.

2. By having worked diligently for a generation, the fascists now flood all outlets with their message and planted pundits, all carefully synched with the current fascist talking points. This makes content simple for the networks and leaves very little time for opposing viewpoints.

3. The media are intimidated, with threats ranging from being cut off from news sources to threats of physical harm silencing all but the very bravest.

[Jcrowley]

26. Yes

In the US, corporate propaganda has played upon the high level of religious beliefs in the community, beliefs which leave its citizens predisposed to see the world in "Manichean terms''. This outlook leads towards a preference for action over reflection, a "pragmatic orientation'' that is perfectly suited to the corporate aim of identifying positive symbols with business, while assigning negative values to those that oppose them, such as labour unions and welfare provisions.

The organised dissemination of these symbols had its initial impetus in groups such as the National Americanization Committee, which succeeded in manipulating nationalist and patriotic symbols during World War I to associate corporate values with the "American way of life''. The psychological power of this association cannot be discounted: it has proved to be an enduring feature of the political climate in the US today.

Since then the corporate agenda has embraced all areas of society - media, schools, academia and the workplace - with focuses on different levels from "grassroots'' to "tree-tops''. It has succeeded via the mass media in identifying capitalism with democracy and in portraying any challenge to corporate elites as either "subversive'' or "extremist''.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look at what a former New York Times Journalist John Swinton was saying about journalism all the way back in 1880 in free America:

“I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.”

“The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?”

“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”