I have started avoiding the news as of late. It’s not that I simply find the news of the day too grim or upsetting. It’s more of a reaction to the way the news is meted out to the public and the manner in which the media is manipulated by those with self-serving interests. It has become painfully obvious that there is no segment of the newsmedia that seeks to protect the public, the common man, from the wealthy and powerful. Even populist movements, like the Tea Party, that have grown through news coverage are, when examined closely, the products of rich and powerful men. They appear to represent the best interests of the wider population but at heart serve the interests of the very groups that created the conditions that gave birth to these groups. The common man and the groups to which he belongs are often the product of the news and information he receives from the newsmedia.
I came across this some time ago and have had it rolling around in my head since then. It was written in the early 1920’s by newspaper publisher Edward Scripps, founder of the Scripps Company and the news service that transformed over the years into UPI, United Press International. He knew as well as anyone the power and influence of the press in furthering and protecting the agenda of the wealthy and powerful few.
The press of this country is now and always has been so thoroughly dominated by the wealthy few of the country that it cannot be depended upon to give the great mass of the people that correct information concerning political, economical, and social subjects which is necessary that the mass of people shall have, in order that they shall vote and in all ways act in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and the chicanery of the ruling and employing class.
It was disheartening to read this clip from almost 90 years back. The domination of the press by the wealthy and powerful certainly hasn’t diminished. If anything, it’s become more pervasive and more impenetrable to those who seek the real truth or question this unholy alliance between the wealthy, powerful few and the press. There is a thought out there that with the rise of the internet there is a democratization of information, that the truths that they need will get out to the people through smaller, more agile outlets. Nice thought. But realistically, while it may be effective for smaller movements among people in certain niches, it seldom reaches out to the wide spectrum of the population that is needed to affect real change or action in our society. If anything it has created clouds of information that hamper people from seeing anything in a clear and palatable way. Or fractured potential movements into ever smaller, narrower groups of interest that will never reach a wider audience.
As with many things, I don’t know why I bring this up today. The press certainly won’t change today. The wealthy won’t suddenly decide to stop using their power to influence the media. I guess I just needed to vent and hope that somewhere out there someone will figure out a way to bring light to the masses.
Another snippet from Edward Scripps–
A newspaper fairly and honestly conducted in the interests of the great masses of the public must at all times antagonize the selfish interests of that very class [the advertisers] which furnishes the larger part of a newspaper’s income. It must occasionally so antagonize this class as to cause it not only to cease patronage, to a greater or lesser extent, but to make actually offensive warfare against the newspaper.
Wells said, Ed. Too bad there’s nobody around today willing to take up your sword…
Redtree Times 
I’ve been politically active since 1964, when I campaigned for Goldwater. Since then, I have tried to stay informed. At my peak I was reading three newspapers a day.
No more. I’m tired.
I quit in January, about the same time I stopped writing daily posts for the Planet. And I don’t miss it.
Now, I keep up with events. But opinions, which is the bulk of news today, I leave to others. It’s just too tiring.
I’m with you, David, and I’m saddened by it, as though I have succumbed to a part of a larger, more insidious plot to drive concerned people away from their own vigilance. A plot to tire us with a constant stream of unchecked misinformation and opinionizing that defies any logic on any planet. A plot to fool us into believing that our opinions and concerns matter simply because we express them at will on this internet, creating a miasma of sound and fury that becomes incoherent and undirected. A plot to distract us with the shiny and new. A plot to demonize institutions and ideas that grew this country. Things like labor unions and institutions of higher learning. Organized labor is socialism now and universities elitist. A plot that has common people being suspicious of those who would help them and embracing those who would use and economically enslave them.
Sorry. It just starts to snowball. It’s just maddening that it seems so obvious and the people seem so blind and willing to stay that way.
What’s a poor boy to do?
What’s a poor boy to do?
Well, art is a good place to go. I love your stuff, Gary, but you knew that. And this is what you need to be doing. Not to mention that you’re a very fine writer and I don’t hand out that compliment very often.
For me, it’s spending my energy connecting with friends and my patient wife and doing stuff I haven’t done before. At 60 I’ve started learning Italian, how to play lead blues guitar and cooking Asian food.
All while playing harp in a band, holding down a brain-busting job, and finishing this novel.
It’s much more satisfying than knowing what outrage Fred Hiatt has perpetrated on a once great newspaper or sinking into despair over citizens who put their trust in corporate self-regulation and none in the guy next door.
Pass the vodka, Gary, and we’ll talk about things that really matter. Like art.
Bottoms up, brother!
I don’t disagree with your assessment, but other dynamics come to mind as well.
When I was in grade school – GRADE school, mind you – every student was taught the Palmer method of penmanship and took a course called “How to Read a Newspaper”. We learned about the five Ws and an H. We wrote lead paragraphs. We outlined and summarized and actually published our own paper.
Today? Wd u rd my FB pg & cmt?
I hate to go all old geezer on you, but the trivialization of the written word, the substitution of entertainment for news, an inability to distinguish between the truly important and the merely vapid and the absoluteyl pathetic desire of journalists to “be accepted” in the circles of the rich and powerful haven’t helped matters much.
It amazes me to know – and I do know it – that my standards for my own blog are higher than the standards of many journalists. Double and triple sourcing, correct attribution, a willingness to reveal personal bias, the ability to construct a clear sentence – those used to be assumed when reading a newspaper or news magazine. No more.
I used to have a professor who was concerned that his students learn to communicate, and communicate well. He prowled our classroom like Ahab after the whale, and when it was your turn to have his attention, you never forgot the experience.”Your words are beautiful,” he would snarl. “Your words are elegant, well-formed and appealing. But are they TRUE?”
Turn that man loose on the journalism establishment and we could have them whipped into shape in no time.
Yes, it does, on many levels, come down to a dumbing-down of the fundamentals of journalism and a “trivialization of the written word” as you pointed out. But for me the disheartening part is the loss of the concept that the press serves the interests of the wider population, acting as a vigilant watchdog. In this capacity, the press is one of the supporting columns of our democracy. Without it, our system begins to unravel.
Yes, we need more folks like your old professor…