After the previous post it was brought to my attention that ‘media and money’ model is applicable primarily to commercial media and NOT the public media.
While that is correct, there are still a few things to consider in relation to media organizations.
1. Funding for public media has been declining for decades. Which makes public media resort to similar strategies as their commercial counterpart. Will they be willing to question their sponsors? Just how many documentaries have we seen on the detrimental effect of the colas? These soft drinks that have zero nutritional value. They are also universally sold products. In both rich and poor countries. Yet, how much resistance do we see?
Good intentioned journalists exist in all organizations. Limitations placed on media organizations, i.e. time, competition, self-censorship, political leaning of media organizations, deeply influence the ultimate media products.
If anything public media, in the interest of public should be running a regular campaign. Providing recipes for homemade drinks, possibly from around the world. This is just an example to indicate how such a product that primarily contributes to landfills and not to our health, is hardly questioned. Yet, we will see several documentaries on climate change without making any connection to the rise in pre-cooked foods, canned products and the damage that leasing our daily chores to the corporations has done to the environment.
2. Public media’s need for a large audience remains the same as that in commercial media, although it may not always influence its reporting.
3. Public media ‘too’ suffers from its blind spots. Observation has demonstrated that public media, such as NPR & BBC too fall in the same trap of geopolitics. Often public media covers non-western countries from a western perspective, ignoring culture and context.
Good intentioned journalists exist in all organizations. Limitations placed on media organizations, i.e. time[1], competition, self-censorship[2], political leaning of media organizations, deeply influence the ultimate media products.
[1] The turnaround time for media reports has decreased drastically, influencing the time and commitment given to researching or providing information in a context.
[2] Cadet journalists realize early on which side of the bread is buttered. They learn to self-censor and even tweak the stories to match the leaning of the editor or the news organization.