The president has a messaging problem. The Democrats have a messaging problem. The progressive community has a messaging problem. However, the problem is not the message or its delivery. The problem is the media.(see below)
Mainstream Media Is The Problem
The owners of the corporate media must spend every day laughing about how dumb progressives are. We raise millions of dollars to run ads to counter the misrepresentations they broadcast and then buy those ads from the very same media organizations that are misrepresenting us and our issues. Why do we continue to give them our money when their corporate owners are undermining our messaging with dishonest reporting?
Establishing A Progressive Broadcasting Network Is The Answer
Progressive candidates for political office and our progressive organizations such as MoveOn.org and PCCC spend enough money on television advertising to support a new network dedicated to re-framing the national debate and restoring journalistic standards to the broadcast community. Instead of having one national broadcasting company like MSNBC, which is owned by General Electric, by the way, we can build a network of 200 broadcast affiliates and . . .
Building A New Broadcast Media Network Is Not Only Possible, But . . .
I have spoken with others in the broadcasting field who tell me that they paid $20,000 to go to a private school to learn broadcasting. We can offer people who want to begin a broadcasting career the opportunity to learn the trade for free at the same time we are producing quality content and developing an army of progressive personalities to deliver our message. Of course the broadcasting network we are building will employ a team of professional broadcasters who will, in effect, operate a virtual broadcast university which will confer academic credentials in broadcasting to those interns who complete a combination of on-the-job and formal training in broadcasting, journalism and journalistic standards.
It Is Currently In The Planning Stage
Using existing infrastructure and technology, a newly established organization is employing a team of broadcast professionals and an army of talented interns to develop just such a network. Delivering our message and informing our communities over our own progressive network is not only within the realm of possibility, it is currently in the planning stages and can be expected to roll out in the 2nd quarter of 2011. The details of this new network are not available for public consumption yet, but the official announcement can be expected at the end of January, 2011. This new network, expected to build out to 200 affiliates over the course of the next 2 years, will provide the progressive community with the messaging machine capable of going head to head the corporate media to re-frame the national debate and to bring the issues before the American people that are important to the progressive community.
Corporate Media Can Never Be Expected To Serve The Best Interests Of America
One of the biggest issues facing America is corporate greed. Clear examples of this fact are pervasive. The disparity between the minimum wage and executive salaries of corporate CEOs is a perfect example. Consider this: you are a reporter working for a corporate media asset, say, CNN? Your corporate motto is "The Most Trusted Name In News." You note that even well-respected former corporate CEO's like Lee Iaccocca have publicly stated that excessive CEO salaries and bonuses are not serving the best interests of America. You may think this story deserves merit - unless your employer is a corporate CEO. In the days of Edward R. Murrow, television news departments maintained professional independence from personal bias of upper management, largely with support of the full faith and credit of the US legal system, but those are the bygone days. Today, America simply can not depend on corporate media, sometimes referred to as Mainstream Media (MSM), to fulfill our essential democratic need for a free press.
Corporate Media Is On The Wrong Side Of The Class War
A real free press would point out that we are engaged in a continuous and eternal class war. As Warren Buffett honestly pointed out, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." But those who get most of their news from corporate media are unlikely to be aware that the economic crisis we are suffering through today is a result of this class war because . . .
Corporate Media Prefers Infotainment Over Journalistic Standards
The class war never rises to the surface of the national debate until a progressive leader speaks out against the excesses of corporate CEOs and the policies of greed and union-busting they champion. When someone of a high enough profile to be heard in the national debate speaks out for policies favoring the middle class at the expense of the wealthy elite, a deafening cry that (s)he is "invoking class warfare" issues forth from the corporate media. However, over the past week during which we were faced with possibility of the GOP Congressional leaders blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for idled workers three weeks before Christmas unless Congress extended a tax cut to billionaires, where was the media? Did anyone in the media point out that the economic crisis which caused our workers' unemployment resulted from the very corporate excesses that the GOP was once again defending? No. When they weren't too busy broadcasting "news" about the hate campaign of the Westboro Baptist Church, they were interviewing GOP leaders who repeat the same myth about wealthy "job-creators" over and over again to hypnotize their audience. There is not enough time to present facts because corporate media is too busy representing the viewpoint of their corporate owners. And when corporate greed is not being threatened by a ground-swell of middle class efforts to win some minor advance in our financial security or our standard of living, corporate media will focus on Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan rather than to give bandwidth to any of the thousands of middle class organizations laboring passionately to bring about progressive change in America.
America Faces A Log-Jam Of Problems That Are Not Being Addressed
The challenge is daunting. If we had a truly progressive Congress and a real free press to moderate the national debate, it would take a decade to deal with our log-jam of problems, resulting from obfuscation and deception by the wealthy elite, that confront America. In fact, the vast majority of problems we face have been intentionally created by wealthy elites. For this reason, one problem stands out as fundamental and lies at the very foundation of corporate power and influence. The courts have created, by fiat, a doctrine that a corporation's first responsibility is to its stockholders. Adam Smith, in his The Wealth Of Nations strongly opposed the institution of the corporation except in those unusual circumstances where there is a strong compelling public interest to grant "super rights" to a group of individuals. That's right. Adam Smith, that great socialist, insisted that the ONLY reason for a state to authorize a group of people to incorporate is TO SERVE THEY PUBLIC INTEREST. Until the middle of the 19th century, every act of incorporation required a special act of the legislature of the state granting the charter. A state legislator could well have lost his job had he voted to issue a corporate charter to a group who was not acting in the best interests of the voters of his state. "Serving the public interest" has been replaced by "securing the greatest profitability for the stockholders" and, indeed, a board of directors can be sued for offering larger salaries or better benefits to the employees at the expense of stockholder profits. Can we expect a media bought and paid for by wealthy elites who hide behind their corporations to deal with the very problems they have intentionally created?
The Number Of Issues Piling Up That Are Not Reported By Mainstream Media Is To Great To List In Its Entirety In This Diary
We now have an out-of-control Supreme Court that has been installed by and for the benefit of wealthy corporate interests. American industry has been gutted and its assets transferred to foreign countries where these same corporations operate free of any social responsibility. Our democratic process has been thoroughly undermined by the combination of the flood of corporate money into the system and the concentration of media ownership by these same corporate interests. The future of our global climate is jeopardized by the blind pursuit of profits. Unemployment is at its highest levels since the Great Depression. Our prisons are full of people who are a threat to no one except, possibly, themselves. Our salaries and retirement security are be raided in search of more and more profits. Gay and lesbian persons are being denied the right to have their loved ones present when convalescing in the hospital. The concentration of wealth and the growing pervasiveness of poverty threatens to undermine not just our economic system, but the very stability of our political system. These subjects are not often discussed around the water cooler, but everyone has an opinion on LiLo going to jail or Larry King's retirement.
And Yet We Give Hundreds Of Millions Of $$$ (Probably More Like Billions Of $$$) To These Very Corporate Media Organizations
The irony of our political condition can be seen during each political cycle. The progressive community identifies a candidate that inspires confidence and mobilizes us to act. We not only work hard and diligently to deliver that candidate's message to our friends and neighbors, but we give up up precious cash, often sacrificing some real personal need, to send financial contributions to that candidate. In the absence of a free press, what is the candidate to do in order to deliver the progressive message to the public? According to OpenSecrets.org, during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, President Obama raised $759.5 million, half of which came from donations less than $200. Of that amount, $447.6 million (56.3%) was spent on media. That means that for every $10 a progressive sacrificed to help elect Barack Obama president, $5.63 went to corporate media. Add to President Obama's expenditures the $250 million spent by Hillary Clinton, plus the smaller amounts spent by a number of minor Democratic candidates, and we find that, for only the Democratic side of the 2008 presidential contest, over $1 billion (that's billion with a B) was spent. If the percentage of expenditures going to media is consistent across all Democratic campaigns, that would mean that Democrats sent over $563 million dollars to hostile corporate interests in an effort to deliver our message. The CEOs of ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Fox must be rolling on the floors of their corporate offices in laughter. Like a battered wife, the more they beat us up, the more money we give them. It is time to leave and get a divorce.
It's The Media, Stupid
And so, when the media tells me that the president has a messaging problem, I want to reach through my TV and grab to "broadcast journalist" by the throat and say, "You're damn right the President has a messaging problem. YOU are the #$&^%@#!*^&*% messaging problem."
We absolutely need a free Press, but don't take my word for it. Thomas Jefferson said that, given the choice between a democratic government without a free press or a free press without a democratic government, he would choose the latter. Reagan knew that, when he deregulated the media and permitted concentration of ownership by wealthy corporate interests, he was opening the door to "a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers." We cannot reasonably expect to be able to move the US forwards towards social justice and a free and fair economic system until we rebuild our free press. The effort is underway and will not arrive a moment too soon.
When someone calls in to a progressive radio host and says the Democrats or the progress community has a messaging problem, I want get his phone number so I can call him on the phone and help him understand this very simple fact - because FACTS MATTER - "IT"S THE MEDIA, STUPID".