Galloway on the Middle East
I'm about to go away for a week, so feel I ought to leave something provocative here in the hope it generates an entertaining string of comments to read when I get back.
So, please click here to listen to George Galloway discussing the hostilities in Lebanon and Gaza with Sky News. Hats off to him for the lambasting of Murdoch's evil empire. Incidentally, the fact that Murdoch is such a powerful figure in the media all over the world ought really to put paid to the notion that the mainstream media contains a liberal bias. That's just wrong.
N.B. no more below.
So, please click here to listen to George Galloway discussing the hostilities in Lebanon and Gaza with Sky News. Hats off to him for the lambasting of Murdoch's evil empire. Incidentally, the fact that Murdoch is such a powerful figure in the media all over the world ought really to put paid to the notion that the mainstream media contains a liberal bias. That's just wrong.
N.B. no more below.
posted by Peter at 15:43
10 Comments:
Two controversial items in the same paragraph... let us hope this does, indeed, generate discussion. First, does anyone serious take Galloway seriously? He's a clown of inuendo; a haircut with a suit. But then, I suppose it wouldn't be Europe if demagogues of dubious veracity weren't beloved by rabble and rabble-chic elites.
And Pete, this isn't physics where one counterexample disproves a proposition. I can't speak for the media in the entire world, but here in the U.S. the media, however sociologically diverse, have the same training, the same education, have read the same books, and see the world the same. All that sameness isn't conservative.
Hmmm. So, not many people reading. Oh well.
Kev, don't patronise me please, I'm well aware of what field we're in. Murdoch is widely regarded as the most powerful figure in the global media, and Fox is one of the most watched and trusted news channels in America. It's not a single counter-example. Also, noone outside the US thinks that CNN is remotely left wing. I'm surprised that someone normally as precise as yourself is prepared to claim that "the media... have the same training..." - unfortunately the form of words you've chosen means your statement could be refuted by a single example, which there's no need to produce.
As you know Galloway got elected over here. It's because he stood for the Respect party in the most Muslim constituency in the country. I doubt that most Muslims would choose him to represent them, but that's the choice they had in Bethnal Green and Bow, and presumably it was deemed worth it in order to supply some balance.
Okay, if it's not merely anecdotal, what's the evidence? What % of global media outlets does Murdoch own? In what ways and to what extent does he influence what is reported by those outlets? What % of Americans rely primarily or exclusively on Fox News Channel for their news? What % of the world's population relies primarily or exclusively on Murdoch-owned news outlets for their information?
Take a stroll around the web at the CV's of journalism school professors and then the bios of reporters. Two of the most prominent are Columbia and the University of Missouri. How many conservatives do you find?
Oh, and I alsmost forgot Galloway. Does your response mean that you take Galloway seriously? Come on. He's a very bad joke, but still a joke. He's simply not substantive and taking him seriously does everyone a disservice.
Two possible discussions could develop from Galloway's theatrics - one on the conflict itself, the other on the reporting of the conflict.
Whilst I find Galloway obnoxious and narcissistic, highly unlikely to convert people towards his stance, his assertions about reporting bias deserve some attention. At this point the two possible discussions will invariably become intertwined.
This is not to suggest that the western media or Murdoch empire are the sole culprits, nor are they a homogenous evil (there has been a lot of excellent, balanced reporting on the conflict) but they play a crucial role in framing debate.
I don't think we need exhaustive data on %ages of global media ownership to know that Murdoch is an immensely powerful figure. I can help a little with one of your questions - we polled 10 countries to find out what news source people trust most. From an open-ended question, the top two (each with 11% of responses) in the USA were Fox News and CNN. I think in terms of viewership Fox is slightly lower than CNN but I believe it's the 2nd most watched news channel in the States. Interestingly, 59% of Egyptians name Al Jazeera. I would imagine there's less competition in Egypt than in the States, but 59%!! That's huge - more than the BBC gets over (32% i think).
I'd also refer you back to Raph's comments regarding an earlier post, when he spoke of only being offered a limited set of POVs by the US media.
Re: Galloway. My point was that the fact he got elected means we ought to listen to what he has to say. We can disregard it afterwards if we want. He's probably about as relevant as, say Ann Coulter?
With the data, it's all on how you phrase the question. Of course FNC is near the top of news channels, but disregard news CHANNELS and ask about news SOURCES and I wonder what happens. If memory serves, the ratings of the nightly news programs dwarf FNC and CNN. In the big ocean of global media sources, Murdoch controls a very small school of fish.
As for the variety available in the U.S., I've got the basic package my cable company offers and I've got various selections including some BBC programming. I also have, um, the Internet, which is where I get most of my news. But I don't think variety is an unqualified good, so I don't see any need to defend any perceived lack of variety in U.S. media.
As for Galloway, he can get elected secretary general of the UN and his bloviating will still be noxious rubbish, and anyone who listens to him will be the worse for it. I.e. the fact that he got elected most certainly does not mean we should listen to him.
I can assure you that we think carefully about how our questions are phrased. In the case of the "trust in media" poll, we did in fact ask which specific news *source* respondents most trusted; full questionnaire is at http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut.html
I'm a little confused at your reluctance to defend the lack of variety in the US media given your recent complaint that they all have the same training. Surely you were implying that this same training resulted in the same points of view being put out, and that this was bad?
Let me attempt to dispell the confusion. Lack of variety would not be bad if all the news sources were reporting the same thing because it was true. The definition of truth being employed here is correspondence to reality. For instance, if every media source in Austin reports that sunrise tomorrow is at 6:53 a.m., who could possibly complain that there's not enough variety in such reporting? But if the news sources' stories do not correspond to reality, then the complaint isn't really that there aren't enough different accounts, but that they aren't true. So variety really has nothing to do with it.
As for the relationship of this argument to a previous one, here it is: media reports routinely do not correspond to reality. One way they fail is by having journalists who have been indoctrinated by journalism schools. Most reporters in America begin stories with the same set of assumptions, and their reporting is guided by those assumptions. Those assumptions, it may shock you to know, are standard American leftist/liberal assumptions. They are thus different from the assumptions of many of their viewers, which might go some way toward accounting for the high level of distrust registered in your poll. But just having more sources with a wider variety of assumptions isn't an unqualified good thing -- which your poll bears out in people's response to Internet sites and blogs... surely blogs have the widest variety. There are millions, after all.
A newspaper whose headline each day was "Sun to rise yet later tomorrow as autumn [fall] draws in," or variations thereof, would lose circulation pretty quickly. When you move beyond reporting of scientific facts (or even when you're within the realms of science, i.e. evolution vs. intelligent design) there begin to emerge many different ways of telling the same story. I would warrant that your argument is not so much that news sources fail to report the truth, more that they report on certain elements of stories that they think are important. In a competitive context, you ought to get diversification of news reporting, filling up niches in the market such that different people can get hold of different news reporting that covers what they think is important. Ergo, variety should be a good thing.
Obviously the problem with the media is that reporting doesn't just follow opinion, it leads it as well. Thus in this country people who think it's important that lots of Eastern European workers are coming over (true) buy the Mail or the Express and also get told that this is placing undue strain on social services and depriving UK citizens of jobs (highly dubious).
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