At
The Nation, Reed Richardson writes
Blaming the Victim, Excusing the Powerful: What Real Institutional Media Bias Looks Like. An excerpt:
To fulfill the promise of a free press in our democracy journalism can’t be satisfied with assuming the posture of looking down on the powerless. Instead, journalism, at its best, should be—must be—about punching up at the powerful.
Most, if not all, individual journalists wholeheartedly agree with this ideal. And yet, time and again it’s easy to find examples of an institutional media bias that undermines this ethos. By consistently favoring the status quo and reflexively deferring to authority, news organizations that should be exposing and condemning abuse, prejudice and corruption all too often end up excusing, justifying and perpetuating it.
As a result, celebrities, corporations and government officials all command an outsized influence in the traditional media. This phenomenon isn’t new, but the magnitude certainly is. As never before, these entities are able to mobilize a veritable army of handlers, lawyers and flacks to soothe, shape and, spin the press into accepting their version of reality—no matter how tenuously related to the truth it might be.
This fundamental bias marks the central thread that runs through the coverage of everything from Bill Cosby to Ferguson to the US drone strike program. Stripping away each of those storylines’ unique details reveals the same flawed core: a media that grants the benefit of the doubt to the establishment and that saves its cynicism for the voiceless. In a way, this bias acts as a kind broad enabler of all prejudice, allowing whatever latent inequalities exist in the status quo to go unchallenged, if not outright defended. Thus, institutionalized sexism, racism and militarism enjoy a sympathetic ear in the press precisely because they are institutionalized.
Take, for example, the collective mea culpa amongst the media establishment for having ignored for so long the numerous sexual assault claims against Bill Cosby. Sure, the damning case against Cosby received attention from Philadelphia and People magazines in 2006, not long after he settled a civil lawsuit that included thirteen other anonymous victims. (The latest number now stands at nineteen victims.) And website Gawker brought up the allegations again back in February.
But these are the exceptions, not the rule. […]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—The future of democracy is up to you:
The single greatest moment thus far of the Occupy Movement may have followed immediately upon one of its worst. The spontaneous greatness of the spirit of the people revealed itself exactly in the aftermath of a demonstration of the cruel thuggishness that too often defines the movement's opponents and enemies. A UC Davis police officer blithely pepper sprayed a group of unarmed, passively resisting, and even seated on the ground college students. His demeanor personified the inherent violence of the enforcers of the 1 percent.
The response of the occupiers personified what it is to be on the right side of a historic turning point. Because after the officer had sprayed them, as the crowd of students, staff and other participants and observers shook off their immediate disbelief and outrage, a wonderful beauty was born. The crowd coalesced as one not in violent retribution but in noble moral outrage. They began chanting "Shame on you! Shame on you!" Arms were raised not with sticks or clubs or other weapons of violence but with cell phones and cameras. They were bearing witness. They were ensuring that millions of others all around the world could and would bear witness. The small company of police officers was surrounded but the only threat they faced was of widespread public humiliation. They slowly backed away. Whether or not they were fully conscious of it, they were fully shamed.
It's often been said that Gandhi would not have succeeded against the Nazis, and it is true. The British Empire never will be remembered as a bastion of humanity's better angels, but a fundamental part of the British national narrative is a pretension to being civilized. Gandhi revealed to the British people something the British people themselves did not want to acknowledge about themselves. That is why he succeeded. His humanity and the humanity he helped reveal in the Indian people revealed to the British their own lack of shame.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Another tough day for a radio show, this time in the wake of the Eric Garner case. But we found a back door into the racial issues through Chris Rock's remarkable essay in
The Hollywood Reporter.
Greg Dworkin already had it in his round-up, along with the morning's key reads on Garner. Did you notice? Health care spending growth is the lowest ever recorded. Ebola update: Boston, no; Atlanta, maybe. Mood lightener: toilets are gross. Next: pondering the Garner case. Why isn't selling loose cigarettes considered "disruptive" genius, like Uber? Chicago's schools are the latest public entity suckered by bond brokers.
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