Tag: media war

Media War: The Power Of The Press…is Profit

Forgive them Father for they know not what they don’t.

They don’t report the news that matters, they report the news that sells.

Kagan Research, the media research firm, projected that the four cable news channels would earn $699 million in pre-tax profits in 2006. That would represent a jump of 32% from 2005, when they generated $529 million.

This is the first challenge of taking on the media, what they do is making money…so why should they change?

Before cable, TV news divisions were expected to lose money. It was considered part of their responsibility to the public, for using the public airwaves, to make a profit on their other programming.

The came Reagan and Gordon Gecco. Then came cable, the came the internet.

The NYTimes just got rid of a hundred people, journalism without sensationalism isn’t profitable.

“Ultimately the guarantor of our freedoms are the people.”

GORE: Ultimately the guarantor of our freedoms are the people. And these kinds of outrages, a president saying that he has the right turn George Washington’s 200-plus year prohibition against torture and torture anyone he wants with his assistants gathering in the basement of the White House – according to recent revelations – personally reviewing the kinds of torture techniques being used prisoner by prisoner, its obscene.

As usual, Al Gore is right.

Unfortunately, The People have a few obstacles in their way.

Such as a Congress that is …(Editors note: long, expletive laden description of Congress deleted for space reasons)….ineffective. So ineffective as a matter of fact, that in his post on Dkos yesterday Senator Kerry in effect said that we have more power than he does….


And, when it comes to getting coverage on television, I really think you are selling your own power short. My going on the television and shoe-horning a 5 second mention of this into an interview – especially when the interviewer wants the interview to be on something else – doesn’t really change the nature of coverage. And I could hold press conferences until I’m blue in the face and it won’t get more coverage if the news networks don’t want to cover it. In the end, the main pressure the networks feel is from you. It was satisfying for me to go on MSNBC and tell them they had to get over asking about Wright all the time, but what can really bring real change is when you make folks like CNN realize that you didn’t want to hear any more about it. Activism works.

When you push on your end, and I push on mine, we can make sure everyone knows that we all demand answers to this. We need to keep up the clamor in every way we can.

….he is saying, by my interpretation, that it is the press that holds the ultimate power at this stage of our democracy. That it is the biggest obstacle facing We The People in taking back our country.