Friday, March 27, 2009

The MSM and Swimming Naked

By Robert Parry
March 28, 2009

There’s a Wall Street saying about what happens to traders who have taken too many chances, when the stock prices ebb: “When the tide goes out,” it’s said, “you see who’s been swimming naked” – what might be called the ultimate consequence of a bear (or bare) market.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since the Supreme Court has made money speech, the deep pockets of radio have been given the advantage of reaching larger audiences by virtue of more powerful broadcast signals and choice market places. Level the playing field for real journalism and Repugnacans will have to come up with better fairy tales to explain their legends. Money like statistics doesn't lie, but the hacks with money do.

Sat Mar 28, 08:17:00 AM 2009
Marshalldoc said...

Listening to yours and the plaintive cries for financial support from the editors of the various other ‘news-collector’ and de-novo journalism site e-mails I receive (TruthDig, TruthOut, BuzzFlash, Information Clearinghouse, Just Foreign Policy, The Public Record, AlterNet, DemocracyNow!, Facing South, to name a few) drives home the dilemma facing progressives.

It’s ironic that a political stance that eschews wealth for wealth’s sake is, by virtue of its very nature, incapable of supporting the myriad of news sources it depends upon in the absence of a reliable ‘establishment’ press. I don’t know many “wealthy liberals” there are (especially after the Madoff disaster) willing and able to support progressive journalism but I would bet - without fear of losing - that it’s far fewer than there are wealthy ‘conservatives’ who are dying to support a media structure predicated upon maintaining their privileges and their grip on power.

In the same vein, the right-wing media is, by virtue of their very psychology, willing, able, and happy to march in lock-step toward a single goal (the maintenance of power) while temporarily subordinating their personal agenda in favor of the ‘greater good’ while organizing the left-wing, progressive, media is akin to herding cats.

It seems to me that the only solution to maintaining a strong progressive media, especially as the economy swirls round the shitter and those of us on the progressive left, whose pockets are far shallower than those of the conservative right, become progressively less able to support a plethora of often repetitive independent news sources, is that anathema of progressives - consolidation & organization.

Perhaps it’s time for the editors of the progressive media to establish a working relationship in which the lion’s share of the paid journalism is pursued in fewer media outlets, with areas of assigned journalistic responsibility (based on interest & expertise) to minimize repetitiveness. That would certainly not prevent any journalist from maintaining their own site (at their & their fan’s own expense) but would allow the progressive community at large to funnel its limited funds to fewer, less repetitive, outlets.

I recognize the fact that diversity of opinion is the overwhelming advantage of the progressive media but, in times of financial stress, it may also be its Achilles heel that leaves us with the closing line “and then there were none”.

Sat Mar 28, 02:11:00 PM 2009

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