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I don't think you need to invoke a grand unified conspiracy to explain how the Western corporate media come to toe the party line. I think it's much, much simpler:

There's a herd mentality to Western newsies that I frankly didn't believe until I saw it up close and personal on an issue I know a little bit about.

"Original research" is a small village somewhere in rural China as far as most Danish news coverage is concerned. The cycle for at least two thirds of the news [1] goes something like this:

  • Newsie is fed press release by a PR agent or spin doctor propaganda flack.

  • Newsie plagiarises press release. The press release has now become an "article."

  • Other newsies plagiarise the first newsie's article. The article has now become "news."

  • Political figure makes statement on the news. The news has now become an "issue." [2]

  • Newsie writes an article based on the interview with the political figure (or plagiarises his press release).

  • Other newsies plagiarise the first newsie's coverage of the political figure's statement.

  • Et cetera ad nauseum.

I wish I were in some serious way exaggerating or misrepresenting the news cycle, but it really is that bad.

[1] And that's not even counting the cars and sports supplements which might as well be written directly by advertisers...

[2] Of course, the political figure does this only in an interview to a friendly newsie and/or a press release of his own, which can branch off an entire news cycle of its own.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jan 17th, 2009 at 10:48:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Had the same experience myself - except sometimes I have exploited it, dishing up PR copy that lazy journalists can use verbatim or adapt, according to how quickly they want to get down to the pub. Most of this was in music/record reviews. Overworked local papers in particular were happy to use them. It's a form of syndication.

Never had the experience of having stuff become an issue, but I've seen it happen or heard about it from journalists who used to hang out at the same clubs in my partying days.

The phenomenon is stronger these days simply because cut and pasting is so easy. Back then, you had to OCR someone else's print copy or rewrite. (Journalist typing speeds were faster then)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 17th, 2009 at 11:16:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That and the fact that newsies are being tasked with filling up ever more pages of news (because more pages of news translates into more pages of ads...) on less and less time.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jan 17th, 2009 at 01:50:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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