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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Decline And Fall Of Mainstream Media

R.F. Goggin


Could the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement, inadvertently precipitate the demise of some long-established American mainstream news media companies, or their conglomerate hierarchy? The thought comes off a little more than wishful thinking to me, as I absorb the news reporting having to do with the protests to date. Be it traditional television, print or the well-known internet media companies that most people generally use for news or information, it’s clear to me at least that these powerful news outlets prefer to safely immerse themselves in a sort of conveniently contrived, self-conscious fog of war, so to speak. 

And so I wonder for such reasons, if I am the only person who finds the coverage having to do with the Wall Street protesters by major media outlets, curiously lacking in detail or ability, or more importantly, in journalistic integrity.
 
While continuing to underestimate the disillusionment of many millions of ordinary U.S. citizens with the current condition of their republic, having basically neglected to turn up the heat on Washington D.C. politicians, multi-national corporations, mega-banks or the Federal Reserve, what if anything of relevance to such matters has the mainstream media chosen to occupy themselves with or to emphasize?

A whole lot of superficial nothingness, actually.
Currently, when they are not seeking some manner in which to politicize the protests taking place across the country, the only question applicable to ‘big media’ seems to be what it is exactly that Americans demonstrating in the streets are protesting? That obviously loaded question, seems to me, the product of some entity or another who would sooner not know the answer.

Such broad-based journalistic irresponsibility lends itself to the supposition that there seems to be a sort of across the board denial by nearly all major news outlets of the clear and present fact that the political process in America is in the most obese state of corruption and disgrace, that the nation has ever experienced.

Are the people who are protesting in the major cities of the United States being purposefully marginalized, or to take it a step further, publicly tried by media conglomerates for their transgressions into the national spotlight? Has, ‘Fox News’, ‘CNN’, ‘ABC’, ‘NBC’, or ‘CBS’ silently declared themselves the judge, jury and executioner of an American protest movement? Or is the traditional media, simply existing in a self-imposed protective cocoon because of this unexpected popular uprising? Could it more subtly be rather, that the symbiotic relationships of big media companies to their commercial advertisers; or with Washington politicians, is at risk of compromise should they actually choose to function like a genuine ‘free press’? Suffice as to say, all the major news companies are the offspring of parent companies which donate regularly to Presidential candidates or political parties.

No need for me to single out any one major media company for preferable extinction, except perhaps, for ‘Fox News’, which at this moment sees fit to set loose their tiresome talking ‘pinheads’. People, who find it acceptable to go so far as to degrade those citizens presently exercising their inherent right to protest, and to thereby demean the unimpeachable prerogative of Americans to employ as a matter of individual liberty and sanctity, the cherished practice of self-determination. This, time-honored means by which of course, the union of the United States itself, was founded upon.

The case for media conglomerates in the U.S., does not seem a promising one, should they fail to embrace the ideals of the ordinary citizenry over the greedy and fraudulent displacement of our very democracy. By not holding the feet of  Wall Street high-rollers, federally elected politicians, big banks, investment firms or ultra-corporations - to the fire; all of which have played a part in igniting the flames of revolution, it just might mean the eventual obsoleting of some.

The all out abandonment of investigative reporting in favor of political bias – or objective, the quick, sensational buck, or the practice of elevating rich and famous media magnets to demigod status, just may become everything but good copy from this point forward to casually slap upon those who have finally made it their business to defend ‘their’ American dream.

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