If you don't mind having to think, you should read this posting. It is, at last, a consolidated explanation of how so-called "professional journalism" has always been co-opted by owners, editors and advertisers.
On the flip side, it's also a clear explanation for why citizen reporters in the blogsphere have become both indispensable to Journalism and the people they serve as well as a threat to Big Media's status quo.
Dry up the tears for that golden period in US Journalism that never was
There’s a widespread assumption in left wing circles that increasing concentration of media ownership is, ipso facto, the main if not sole culprit for the appalling performance of mainstream journalism in our time...
The usual mantra is “It’s the media concentration, stupid!”. But in order for me to believe that claim, that a few decades ago, when diversity of ownership was more widespread than now, everything was honkey dorey in Ed Murrow heaven, you’d have to show me first a period when the American media was substantively better than today, and that, friends, is hard to do, no matter how many media icons you roll out to worship...
The question we must ask is: when confronted with severe crises of democracy and criminality in foreign policy, what did the press do?
Consider a few turning points in American history. Let’s take first the infamous “Palmer Raids” in the first quarter of the 20th century...
Now, this was a blatant unconstitutional abuse of power, for if freedom of speech and political assembly are worthless when you side with an “unpopular” viewpoint or vision, what is the meaning of protected freedom? ...
Emblematic of the media’s attitude, on January 3, the day after the raids, The New York Times reported the roundup of “2,000 Reds” putatively involved in a “a vast working plot to overthrow the government.” The headline read: “REDS PLOTTED COUNTRY-WIDE STRIKE–ARRESTS EXCEED 5,000–2,635 HELD.”
