The Commerce Times

The good, the bore, and the ugly

Parallels can be drawn between media and baking: media’s main ingredients are logic and research, but for it to be truly delicious you have to spice it up and make it entertaining. Too much of one, however, and you’ve got something that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. This is where American and British media go wrong.

American broadcast news pays little attention to what is important for Americans to be informed of. Instead they base their content on what will get an emotional response from their audience. A finger in someone’s chili is a top story that will get a few follow up stories, and a politician’s scandal will become a national crisis that would need to have an update every day. These detractants can be they dangerous to politics because they confuse people about what the important issues are and can affect the outcome of an election.

Fox News is a perfect example of how bad American media can get; they pander to the extreme right for ratings, furthering the impact that extremism has on the American political system. Having Anne Coulter and Bill O’Reilly yelling about how single mothers are the cause of all America’s problems is attractive to them because it creates controversy. It just emphasizes the class divisions in U.S. society.

American media is also vulnerable to a number of influences. According to the Herman-Chomsky propaganda model, American consumers receive their media only after its been through four filters: ownership, advertising, news shapers and what they call “flak”.

Ownership and advertising restrict media content to reflect their personal views or the views of a group they would like to target. The news shapers filter refers to how journalists rely on experts to provide validity to their stories, but the owners of the media will bank-roll experts to express the view of their choice or will simply filter out any statements that do not coincide with the views of the company. Flak is negative feedback that media gets from powerful groups or people for printing a story that reflects badly on them; as a result, media is deterred from writing these kind of stories.

British media may have similar influences, but media accross the road is a very serious matter. Factbased in nature, the British media is determined not to publish or disseminate anything that doesn’t have profound indications or consequences. They are firm believers that the media has a duty to the public to give the important information
without spins or filters. Being the purveyors of night for Britain and all of…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

It can get tedious at times while consuming British media and it can be, for lack of a better word, boring. The ontonous speakers and tame use of imagery makes the British newscasts more peaceful than engaging. My uncle listens to the BBC every night … he can’t go to sleep without it. This may be fine for older viewers, but it definitely alienates a younger audience. And without the media to inform them of current issues, the likelihood that they will vote goes down significantly.

Margaret Cho, an American comedian, has some hilarious things to say about the difference between American and British news. Check her out on YouTube.

Canada, on the other hand, has it right. They have found a happy medium between sensationalist and serious news reporting. Canadian media is likely to be susceptible to advertising in the same way as American media, but the other three filters to a lesser extent. Ownership in America is completely different than it is in Canada; American media ownership is by corporations like General Electric, who owns NBC, and other companies who are selling products other than media. While this means the views expressed in the media are less varied, Canadian media orporations do not have ulterior motives when disseminating their content.

Some people think that government ownership of the CBC may mean that it would become a lapdog to the government but I believe the opposite. Right now we have a Conservative government in office but that has not changed the CBC from proliferating leftleaning media. The CBC at least doesn’t have to feel pressured by advertisers.

Check out quality Canadian interviewers like Cabby for The Score, Nardwuar, Jessie Cruickshank for MTV or your old boyfriend George Strombolopolous for the CBC, who are all very entertaining TV personalities. If it’s more serious media coverage you’re looking for, then any news media outlet will suffice.