GOVERNMENT HAS TOO MUCH INFLUENCE ON THE MEDIA, SO GOVERNMENT SHOULD FUND THE MEDIA
The following passage forms the crux of Paul Krugman's column today:
Through its policy decisions - especially, though not only, decisions involving media regulation - the U.S. government can reward media companies that please it, punish those that don't. This gives private networks an incentive to curry favor with those in power. Yet because the networks aren't government-owned, they aren't subject to the kind of scrutiny faced by the BBC, which must take care not to seem like a tool of the ruling party. So we shouldn't be surprised if America's "independent" television is far more deferential to those in power than the state-run systems in Britain or - for another example - Israel.
The reductio ad absurdum of Krugman's argument is a media organization that receives its funding from the government is freer from government influence than those media organizations that are merely regulated by the government. I'm not going to bother explaining what's wrong with that as it should be obvious.
Not surprisingly, Krugman's absurd theory yields myopic implications:
And the implicit trading surely extends to news content. Imagine a TV news executive considering whether to run a major story that might damage the Bush administration - say, a follow-up on Senator Bob Graham's charge that a Congressional report on Sept. 11 has been kept classified because it would raise embarrassing questions about the administration's performance. Surely it would occur to that executive that the administration could punish any network running that story.
Gee, is there anything a network could do in that instance? Hmm...let me think real hard...boy, this is tough...wait, just a minute...ah, there, I think I've got it: The network could run a prime-time story suggesting that the administration was engaging in petty payback! And, after that, they could run lots of other stories damaging to the administration. Boy, got a severe case of brain strain thinking up that one!
One last thing: Krugman uses media mogul Rupert Murdoch as an example of someone who is likely to be a victim of Bush Administration interference. Krugman notes that Murdoch owns "Fox News and The New York Post." Three days from now is the one-year anniversary of the New York Post running this image and headline on its frontpage. I wonder, has Murdoch yet felt the blowback from W. and Company?
P.S. If you want more, see Hoystory and Minuteman.
posted by DAVID HOGBERG
Posted 2:19 AM by The MinuteMan
Did You Know There Was A War On? (It's Over Now)
Television coverage of the Iraqi war was intense. Viewership was up. What does Prof.Krugman have to say about this?
A funny thing happened during the Iraq war: many Americans turned to the BBC for their TV news. They were looking for an alternative point of view - something they couldn't find on domestic networks, which, in the words of the BBC's director general, "wrapped themselves in the American flag and substituted patriotism for impartiality."
This article refers to comments made by BBC Director-General Greg Dyke, but lacks the specifc quote provided by the Earnest Professor. Are there any viewership figures?
BBC reports on the war were shown four times a day on the cable network BBC America, available in about a third of U.S. television homes. BBC America also ran about 100 hours of continuous news coverage when the war broke out.
The network can't say whether Dyke's anecdotes about U.S. interest are reflected in a larger audience; it has no ratings information for its news shows.
BBC World News coverage is also available on 220 public television stations in the United States. Ratings for its newscast increased by 28 percent during the war, according to the program's distributor.
During the war, viewership for Fox News Channel jumped by 207 percent, for CNN by 250 percent and for MSNBC by 294 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.
So, an increase for the BBC of somewhere between "don't know" and 28%. Increases for the US outlets exceeding 200%. There was a war on, and a rising tide lifted all boats. Figures for Al-Jazeera not offered here.
As Prof. Krugman admits, and this story mentions, the BBC was, in the eyes of critics, less than impartial:
The BBC's own impartiality has been called into question, however.
Some conservatives nicknamed it the "Baghdad Broadcasting Corp." And one of the BBC's own correspondents, Paul Adams, accused the network of downplaying British military achievements in Iraq and exaggerating the impact of casualties.
Andrew Sullivan had some beauts about BBc reporting, but what is the point? Speaking of which, what is the point of this column? Privately held media may have an incentive to curry favor with the ruling administration - does the Times dare print this? Here is an odd hint of a possible direction for this column:
...Yet because the networks aren't government-owned, they aren't subject to the kind of scrutiny faced by the BBC, which must take care not to seem like a tool of the ruling party. So we shouldn't be surprised if America's "independent" television is far more deferential to those in power than the state-run systems in Britain or - for another example - Israel.
Hmm, a call for state ownership of broadcast media? Only a state run media can be truly free? Well, it is a pretty muted call. Maybe we should attempt to stabilize the regulatory regime? Well, it would be easier it we coul dstabilize the industry. Shouldn't this column mention the Capture Hypothesis? Here is a link to an article on business-government collusion, which I probably ought to read at some point. Feel free to tell me if you love it, or otherwise.
I suppose the Earnest Professor is warning us that bad things may happen under the evil Bush regime, or, hypothetically, any other. But I am not worried, not while Paul and Howell are on the job and Hillary! waits in the wings.
[A] funny thing happened during the Iraq war: many Americans turned to the BBC for their TV news. They were looking for an alternative point of view -- something they couldn't find on domestic networks, which, in the words of the BBC's director general, "wrapped themselves in the American flag and substituted patriotism for impartiality."
Leave aside the rights and wrongs of the war itself, and consider the paradox. The BBC is owned by the British government, and one might have expected it to support that government's policies. In fact, however, it tried hard -- too hard, its critics say -- to stay impartial. America's TV networks are privately owned, yet they behaved like state-run media.
What explains this paradox? It may have something to do with the China syndrome. No, not the one involving nuclear reactors - the one exhibited by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation when dealing with the government of the People's Republic.
In the United States, Mr. Murdoch's media empire - which includes Fox News and The New York Post - is known for its flag-waving patriotism. But all that patriotism didn't stop him from, as a Fortune article put it, "pandering to China's repressive regime to get his programming into that vast market." The pandering included dropping the BBC's World Service - which reports news China's government doesn't want disseminated - from his satellite programming, and having his publishing company cancel the publication of a book critical of the Chinese regime.
Can something like that happen in this country? Of course it can.