Growing up in a home where news was on all the time (like a
Pavlovian subject, the All Things Considered theme jingle
still makes me think of dinner), and then eventually deciding on a
career in the media myself, I have been fascinated by how the News
decides what news is news. Even today, it often seems arbitrary,
like in the case of presidential hopeful Ralph Nader.
Nader, garnering crowds of thousands of supporters (in Portland,
Oregon, 14,000 came out) is newsworthy whether the big media
conglomerates will admit it or not. Nader and his supporters
suspect, however, that it is out of fear that thhey have stayed
away, as Matt Welch writes in News For Change.
Nader is bitingly critical of the mainstream media, citing one
example where they avoided his press conference on corporate crime,
which was, in his words, ‘because there are six or seven giant
media conglomerates who control most of the audiences, and the
newspaper and magazine circulation.’ Considering their position and
the current trend of increasing corporate control of all aspects of
the media, he puts the pieces together: ‘You think they want to
report on corporate crime, fraud and abuse?’
As Nader tries to climb his way further up the single digits in the
polls, with the hope of at least 5 percent, which would mean
federal funding next time around for the Green Party, he will need
the media’s spotlight. — Amanda Luker
Go there>>
