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Why Is PBS Telling Us That Profit Is Journalism's Friend?
PBS has a website called MediaShift, billed as "Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution." Based on an alarming post this week headlined "Tear Down the Wall Between Business and Editorial!" (12/7/11), the revolution looks rather revolting.
The piece is written by Dorian Benkoil, who "handles marketing and sales strategies for MediaShift, and is the business columnist for the site"--a job description that suggests that PBS has already torn down the wall between business and editorial, since those responsibilities would seem to put you in a constant position of conflict of interest. (He earlier worked as "a liaison between the sales and editorial sides" at ABCNews.com.)
The piece is a primer on "how to blur the lines in an intelligent and ethical way," in the words of MediaShift managing editor Courtney Lowery Cowgill. It offers such tips as "If Sales Influences Editorial, It's OK," and insights like:
It's easy to demean "link bait" such as "Top 10" or "How To" lists, but if your users like and share them, and they generate profitable page views, is there really harm? If there's sponsor interest, all the better.
To be sure, the piece includes caveats, like: "You do need core principles that can't be bent--even if that means the business doesn't meet payroll." But it seems completely oblivious to the dangers of basing your business model on giving the sponsors what they want. It's hard to maintain a line in the sand when you've started out with the intention of blurring that line--ethically, intelligently or otherwise.
The most striking thing about the column is its celebration of profit-making as a liberating force:
Profit is what lets you not only continue another day, but also gives you the freedom to determine your own mission.... The more profit your company makes, the more leeway it has to do its work, to remain independent of government or other interference, and the more freedom to do good work.
Well, no. The point of a for-profit business is to make money, not "to do good work"; the more profit your company makes, the more it will strive to make in the future, so it can show stockholders an ever-expanding return on their investment. The pressure this puts on journalists to warp their copy is why the wall between business and editorial was made one of journalism's "core principles that can't be bent."
And the difficulty of maintaining such principles in the face of the profit imperative is why PBS was set up in the first place, to provide a home for journalism free from the obligation to please sponsors. But when PBS has sales and marketing directors who also double as business columnists, I guess that kind of journalism needs to find a new home.
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113 Comments so far
Show AllSo PBS now worships at the altar of "profit". No wonder my local PBS dropped Democracy Now shortly after the crash of 2008.
That is why PBS's idea of "fair and balanced" extends to comparing the views of the two parties owned by the 1% and little coverage of individuals or parties that represent the 99%.
well said mr writer
this is another example of corporate creep, and baby they are creepy
considering, as pointed out, that pbs was designed to be - in a sense - commercial free, then one can assume that this latest move really demonstrates how compromised pbs has become
i guess by trying to rationalize it as a good move tries to make it seem like a process has led these folks to these conclusions, and a natural process as well
it isn't that at all
it is a takeover and represents a capitulation to the dark side
how soon then would we see product placement - cause that makes profit too
the beat goes on....
PBS and NPR have been steadily moving in this direction over the years. The conservatives, the neocons, the neoliberals have chewed away at our public safeguards/safety nets ... PBS and NPR being part of those. They were to ensure the public access to truth and nothing but the truth in news, commentary and editorial. Lines drawn clearly between the three. It was never enough for the conservatives, neocons and neoliberals to control the private sector corporate main stream media. It was never enough to push their agendas in their vast empires. But this is what empires do. They are never satisfied. They never have enough. They will destroy anything in their path. The news isn't news anymore. It has to be spun to deliver for the corporate scheme. Advertising and sponsorship will be withdrawn if the messages delivered also do not benefit the advertisers and the sponsors. That's what journalism in the main stream is all about and has been for some time. Ah, yes, soon the all too common Hollywood scheme of increasing revenues through sales of film product placement will be as home in our 'news' as it is there in 'film'. 'Films' utilizing product placement to generate revenue stream for them and the corporations buying the 'p.p.' has been quietly accepted by the consumers. I have not witnessed any widespread rejection. No 'OCCUPY HOLLYWOOD' here, there or anywhere! The art has been hijacked and we've participated. No longer art ... I see this as propaganda machinery. PBS and NPR have become part of this propaganda machinery ... a fascist concept once rejected now hailed as the corporate saviour. So, where does that leave the listener ... the viewer ... the moviegoer ... with just another hook in his/her mouth being reeled in to the malls, the w ...marts, the bleed your wallet dry cinemas, eating and drinking and teching their way to zombieland ... and don't worry ... the humans are procreating at a strong enough pace to guarantee enough profits for at least the next few years ... at least until the flood waters take over. The viewer, the listener, the moviegoer = zombie behaviour ... oh, Hollywood and television are big on that ... feed zombies zombies made by zombies ... sort of like cannibals eating cannibals made by cannibals ... and what do you get? Nothing. And that's exactly where we are economically, socially, ecologically, environmentally.
Sputnik (that's my dog's nick name): You make a number of excellent points. However, I would suggest that the hook placed inside viewers far exceeds the urge to lure them to shop at the mall. These "hooks" create beliefs about life, culture, economic roles, and political choices that become sewn so seamlessly into the fabric of modern Amerika that to doubt them becomes an act that increasingly approximates heresy. And we know how churches tend to deal with evident heretics...
Seems there are not many Americans left that care about truth.The conditioning Americans get thru massive exposure to junk culture --television,
internet,movies,public school,fast food-- have
rendered Americans mostly unthinking and uncaring except for their own comfort,"tribe''and
personal status.
Hollywood has always been a tool for the American empire to manufacture docility and complicity.Law and Order has already begun shooting an episode revolving around the occupation at Liberty plaza.Mother Fuckers.
Is it better to be on the "corporate" dole?
Yes. Exactly. If an idea doesn't sell then why spread it?
Ratwhiner.....
“ I was seeking for a fool when I found you.” – Shakespeare – As You Like It – Act 3, Sc. 2
The Public contributes to the “public –dole”, and when the Public needs it, they may also TAKE from it …..you moron. That is called my taxes and it is was meant for the Public or common good.
We are suffering from taxation with out decent representation and just because Wall Street has managed to “temporality corralled Congress ….for now…. in the next few months or maybe even years…..this will all change ….as doth the weather. It all depends on which way the winds are blowing. Its time for a sea change.
For the past two decades (or more) corporate welfare has continued to increase while welfare for individuals and subsidies for education, PBS and NPR have continued to diminish.
As the playing field keeps getting tilted more in favor of corporations each year, the self supporting PBS admonitions are therefore no solution.
Although it might constitute torture for you, I'd recommend the following:
1. Someone who cares about you tie you up
2. Begin a process of deconditioning
3. Google: Metonia Films, and watch the documentaries: "Lifting the Veil," and then "Human Resources" until you GET the Truth.
4. Drink a lot of water and fast for several days (to remove detritus from your Being)
5. Get out of uniform fast
6. Occupy Your Mind (and soul)
You are 100% ignorant. If you knew the facts regarding those percentages spent on any form of welfare (fast vanishing), and how many people in this country are hungry, and how many homeless, and how many without access to medical CARE... and in contrast, the SUMS lavished on the military, even for such "necessary" causes as developing a "new generation of nuclear weapons," you would WEEP for your own ignorance, and apparent seduction by The Great Deceiver.
Fact: The Fed doled out $319 billion to unemployed Americans over the past 3 years
=> http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/17/news/economy/unemployment_benefits_cost/index.htm
Fact: The Fed doled out nearly $8 trillion, with no strings attached, to the corporate banking institutions over these same three years.
=> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
The key to the attack is summed up in this line;
"The more profit your company makes, the more leeway it has to do its work, to remain independent of government..."
Let's pretend that we live in a democracy. You know, that government "of the people, by the people, for the people" sort of thing.
If your company's profits assure that you and your company can "remain independent of government", that means your company will increasingly act without regard for "the people".
This is a "democracy" of sharks.
The goal is to be independent of any concerns which involve people's lives and even their opinions.
This is the shared belief of both corporate-owned political parties in this nation of individualized indifference.
Profit before community - The new motto of the United States of Global Corporate Domination.
Excellent assessment.
Bird: I noticed that line, too. It's sheer libertarian, a derivative of the Reagan idea that goverment--i.e. any muscle that can be used to establish regulatory actions, like EPA laws, to counter big business' profit-only orientation--is the problem. Bernays & Walter Lippman and Pavlov would be amazed (if not proud) to see how far their efforts at collective behavior modification (and/or manufacturing consent) have evolved. "Who Will Tell The People?"
Corporations will not only make decisions that favor stockholders over customers, they buy enough politicians to assure that legislation and political rhetoric slants the playing field in their favor.
Did you say Dorian BankOil?
The bending of editorial content to the need for advertising revenue is not new. I know it existed at the NY Times 40 years ago. The difference is that it was considered like a family secret. Now it is not hidden. It is proudly proclaimed as a savvy strategy. The laws requiring "fair and balanced" public access on the radio or TV have been lost, and corporations rule there, as everywhere.
The freeness of one's speech is in inverse proportion to how much you are paid to say it.
The Public Broadcasting System has become the Private Broadcasing System-- with all respect and to Jeff Cohen's everlasting credit for moving to launch FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). The struggle continues.
Not buying into that phoney hero worship thing. Military personnel get paid to follow orders and that includes killing other humans. They are not sacrificing anything but their independence and free will. Today in the USA that's on a voluntary basis not conscription. I've ask no one to kill for me. "Warriors" kill and battle for themselves and glory not for my freedoms.
They didn't die for me. They died because it was the only way they could feel secure in their manhood. You've bought into the old army recruiting line. Sorry if I am not buying it.
rwaller -- You really need to be more specific. Who, what, where?
Rwaller....
The vanishing liberties here at home are related, by some metaphysical subtraction, to their having been exported to Iraq, is that it?
Do you have any idea how far the Bill of Rights has been undermined by the illusory war on terrorism?
Do you have any idea that these Wars of Aggression were engineered on the basis of fixed, which means false, pretexts? That means these wars are illegal, and constitute Grave Crimes Against Humanity!
Do you have any understanding of how much $ has been made by weapons' contractors, private mercenaries like Erik Prince, and corrupt companies like Haliburton...all for the "prize" of murdering over a million citizens, leaving 4 million homeless, and rendering how many thousand US troops into half the human beings they formerly were, either through having forfeited body limbs or been left with broken minds?
You probably don't know that laws are being forged right now that would essentially make any person who challenges US foreign policy into an enemy who's being alleged to grant "material support for terrorism."
If "liberties" like these are your excuse (or idea) for why persons are in foreign lands generally murdering civilians at a rate of 10:1 (against "enemy combatants") then perhaps such a brainwashed mind can believe its own case.
It is NOT a privilege to see our nation economically raped by banksters & the MIC.
It is NOT a privilege to see our jobs and manufacturing base exported to foreign lands.
It is NOT a privilege to see "leaders" break laws like The Geneva Conventions, Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, and The Constitution.
It is NOT a privilege to have thousands upon thousands maimed, murdered, and left homeless in some obscenely false bargain that's supposed to protect liberties in this lock-down Homeland Security state. These are dangerous lies!
Did you know they frisk Grandmothers at airports now?
Did you know they're reading all our emails?
Have you seen footage of police attacking peaceful protesters at OWS? Or does the concept of "free speech" seem like some communist plot to you?
Are the points & examples I've herewith made remotely related to the concepts of liberty or privilege?
Oh... and when you find out 20 years from now that the cover-up around 911 meant it WAS an inside job, what do you think your soul will make of all the false bravado that sent well-fed US soldiers off to massacre thousands upon thousands of innocents? What then, you brain washed fool?
Very well said, SR!
rwaller -
Your comments are much too generalized to be of any use. Also, as I read your words I was reminded of the pseudo-patriotic BS espoused by Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men". Try thinking for yourself.
Since most "wars" that the usa has engaged in have been executed because of business interests, soldiers are not "warriors" in some honorable & noble way. They haven't really served the peoples' interests. The men who fought in the 1776-1783 conflict - which, more or less, brought us "free speech" - were mostly civilians bonded in a common struggle to rid the country of an oppressive regime. I don't think the grandiose term "warrior" really applies to them.
...implying what? That the 20 century fascist German & Japanese regimes were going to somehow control the world to the extent that we'd all have to speak their languages had the USA & Russia not defeated them? That's quite a pathetic fantasy...
YOU NEED AN EDUCATION:
Major General Smedley D. Butler - 13th Marine Regiment
Marine Expeditionary Force, China - (1898–1931) - Wikipedia
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.[13]"
This is that article by Jim Neurakas that seemed to have disappeared. Maybe it was something I had for breakfast-- things such as that happen.
I also happened upon more flags than I could believe at one article's comments section but then noticed it was a closed comments type thing. OK. I'm sorry. I made a mistake. As Allen Clarke sang it "I got into some bad ways/now Lord Lord please help me/help think a while. . ."
This is that article by Jim Neurakas that seemed to have disappeared. Maybe it was something I had for breakfast-- things such as that happen.
I also happened upon more flags than I could believe at one article's comments section but then noticed it was a closed comments type thing. OK. I'm sorry. I made a mistake. As Allen Clarke sang it "I got into some bad ways/now Lord Lord please help me/help think a while. . ."
Thank you, dogface. As I read rwaller's comments I was thinking that he/she must never have heard of Smedley Butler the most decorated Marine in the history of the Corps and he certainly must not have been exposed to Gen. Butler's words. It was a pleasure to see your comment. One can only hope that it will inspire rwaller to do some research.
hackerkat
member Smedley D. Butler Chapter, Veterans for Peace
Unfortunately, the warriors you refer to have sacrificed their lives for the expansion of empire and corporate profit.
Please check out the picture of Oakland arrests in the Abby Zimet section of this site before you refer to any fantasized version of free speech.
It only furthers your point if you can draw a clear line from the action of "warriors" to someone expressing an opinion on Common Dreams. Otherwise, you appear to be expressing a personal prejudice...not a bad thing to do but not very useful.
So, assuming your point to be true for the sake of argument, do you similarly hold that if we had not invaded Iraq, we'd all be speaking Arabic or if we hadn't napalmed a sufficient number of Vietnamese villages, we would all be speaking Vietnamese?
Do you also hold that there is something inherent in English that is inextricably tied to "freedom of expression"?
In my opinion, most wars the U.S. has engaged in have jeopardized freedom of expression, usually bringing with them inhibitions of free speech both in the legal sense and in the social sense. If we are able to express opinions on Common Dreams, it is largely due to the work of citizens who have fought *within the nation* for civil liberties.
ARRY: Well-stated, Arry; however, this poster's mind is so one-dimensional that I wonder if his head has become shaped like a string bean?
Ahhhh....Siouxrose! I just did a visual on that and the coffee just went everywhere.Thank you for the laugh.
Siouxrose -- I was kind of thinking "Flatland", but string bean works nicely.
Duller than a Wall-er:
You know, in a case like yours, a brain injury might do you a favor... kind of jump-start all those circuits that have obviously gone to sleep. You are a SAD case, kid. I know a woman whose son went off to Iraq. And she's a church-goer. All I had the heart to tell her is that to Creator, those who kill are the ones who will have MUCH to account for. All the phony-baloney team crap morphed into illusions of enemies is worthless, human fabrications of created Hell and Damnation. And ALL unnecessary...
And in case you missed this part, there was NO threat of terrorism before these blood-thirsty multi-billion dollar boondangles were set into motion. Now you can bet your not so sweet ass that there ARE some who will plot against this nation. The MIC created the enemy it pretended to vanquish! And because the military functions like a dumb animal, where a few at the "head" tell all the muscular sinews (troops) what to do, it's not that difficult for those who practice guerilla style tactics to find the weaknesses in the Beast. I mean, c'mon, 911... box cutters up against the most overly funded military in the history of the world? Dropping drones on sleeping, hungry families? ARE these your idea of bravery? Get out and fight with your hands and then tell us about your courage and might. A coward JUST follows orders, unable to discern what they mean and what purpose they serve.
Sound familiar?
Oh, that's what we are there for. To save GI's. Er...
A healthy soul is one that recognizes the fundamental humanity of all human beings. (That is not the same thing as endorsing all behaviors.) Since today's government, which, as one poster has made brutally clear for you (as per the testimony of Smedley Butler) launches wars of aggression for anything but noble purposes, is acting in a LAWless manner, and designating entire nations enemies when there is no genuine cause... for you to THINK that killing is justified reveals a primative, spiritually RETARDED level of consciousness.
Were you to look honestly at footage of all the "collateral damage" and still offer a sickening comment like this one, you'd feel your soul shrink into the dimensions of a pebble. If that.
Do you know--or understand--that today's U.S. sponsored wars tend to kill 10 civilians for every alleged "enemy" combatant? Don't you think if the geographical tables were turned, you'd defend your own family? And in so doing, be called an enemy combatant, and perhaps sent into the blackhole prison labyrinth sponsored by sadists in uniform and high government positions. They've changed the laws that once protected prisoners, i.e. those in custody, to allot to themselves the right to break persons down in mind, body, and spirit. Is that a cause to argue for? One day YOU may be THAT prisoner who's treated likewise in a foreign land... because the U.S., once a nation that honored Law, now leads the way in breaking it. In a sense, when the U.S. won WWII it subsumed the Nazi ethos into its own armed forces and now becomes them... the only thing difference, the dates, uniforms, and chosen scapegoats.
It's all a SCAR on the heart of humanity. And you are apparently acting as one of the perpetrators... I speak to you sternly as there is still a chance that you can save your soul (and possibly others within your weapons' sites) in the same way that a few BRAVE police officers decide NOT to arrest or attack protestors, or toss aged persons out of their homes when it was the BANKS who stole value, into the trillions, from The People.
Your loyalty is to a fiction. And you'd kill for it????
Is the D O D trying out that information program that simulates a live poster in the form of Rwaller? Is one of The Watchers collecting data on how some of us respond to the jack-boot, knee-jerk underlying premises of U.S. militarism and its eager, well-funded acts of aggression today?
I'm waving at you.... WATCHERS. The mirror has two sides, and we can watch you watching US, too. The warrior mind will never understand the mind that transcends the basis FOR war... but good luck trying. Ultimately, I think you owe me and several others a stipend for assisting you in your research efforts here. Cheers.
P.S. I was just thinking how Waller's responses remind me of the military's own version of a "Magic 8 ball." I presume that some in this forum realize that the U.S. military has tried to study how psychics do what they do, but they call the gift "remote viewing." Russia was into this BIG TIME... and the concept was brilliantly elaborated upon in the film, "Minority Report," albeit following a different plot-line.
Paranoid as in... there's no such thing as
Echelon?
Or FISA's ruling to listen in on citizens?
Or the McCarthy hearings?
Or the lengthy dossiers kept by the FBI & CIA on writers, playwrights, poets & artists! (See: "Dangerous Dossiers" for the record)
Or Cass Sunstein's idea to clog up websites with robotic programs like yours? (I guess the program designers figured that they'd need a comeback line if someone figured it out.)
Do I get the prize yet?
Indianflower...now I know why I read your sage comments exclusively...fight on for justice and ....
Peace
Rick -- I admire Sioux's eloquence, passion, and position on almost all the subjects she posts about...but "exclusively"? :-)
Dear Rick: This was one of the nicest compliments I've ever received, "Indianflower," Love it! I just sent you a cyber kiss. Thank you, so much.
And thanks to Kemo Sabe, Dog Face, & Arry for favorable responses to the comments I posted on this site. The subject of war (and how to transcend it) is of vital importance to me, and I suspect, many others.
Ratwhiner, you no never do have a point. Just like the GOP talking points. Duh!
Ratwhiner, you are so transparently lame.
People with a strong interest in free speech, freedom, equality, justice, etc. do not join the military. It is an institution that internally crushes those principles and those who believe in them. The military command hierarchy demands obedience and submission to orders from up the chain of command irregardless of their merit. Behind loyalty and camaraderie is the heavy hand of coercion. Insubordination is dealt with brutally.
This structure leads to a higher incidence within the ranks of substance abuse, violence, rape and suicide then within society at large. They are not fighting for their own freedoms, let alone fighting for the freedoms of the rest of us.
The police forces are becoming increasingly militarized and they are being used to prevent the public from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. The senate has just laid the groundwork to allow the military to be called in when the police prove inadequate for the task.