You Must Be Kidding

As we all know, the printed press is dying. The factor most often mentioned as the cause for this is the rise of the Internet.

No doubt, the fact that I can get most news for free on Internet, news that are updated by the second beats buying a printed paper that contains yesterday’s news basically.

But it seems to me that one factor that is not often mentioned is the lack of interest of the public for the nature of the news.

What started me on this track was the feeling that during press conferences national leaders seem mostly to answer factual questions about their politics but rarely to be challenged about their positions.  This seems true for Obama, Harper in Canada and Sarkozy in France.

So what exactly is the press, and the media in a more general sense, doing?  Isn’t the usefulness of the public medias seriously curtailed if their only achievement is to relay government politics and decisions?  Where has criticism and challenging of policies gone?

It seems to me that challenging the powers that be in the media is a dying tradition.  This was specially obvious to me during the last days of the Bush presidency.  Before the last 2 or 3 moths of his term, barely any criticism about Bush’s policies could be found in the medias, and then, with the rise of Obama and the nearing of the end of the term, the floodgates seemed to open and criticism was flowing from every direction.

Traditionally the medias were the guard dogs of our democracies and served as safeguards against abuses by the governments.  No more it seems, they have become channels for government propaganda and little more.

Nowadays it seems that the government is making the medias by giving it it’s daily subject matter and medias are making governments as we could see in the case of Berlusconi coming to power:

While all three articles adopt different positions, and point to the complexity of what happened, one thing remains clear. Berlusconi would not be ruling Italy now if he did not dominate a massive media empire that enabled him to manufacture a political party.(Open Democracy)

If the medias are going to just keep relaying government policies without serious questioning and criticism, why not just make the media part of the government?  At least it will be up front and we will have no doubts as to who’s talking.

Related Posts

• Now you REALLY must be KIDDING I'm not gay, transgender,bi or anything like that.  I'm you're straight heterosexual guy. Anti-gay law in Uganda But this proposed law really gets to me as a human being and for the occasion I do feel gay in the sense that this proposed law attacks me as if I......

Related Websites

• How do you regulate your kids' use of the computer and internet? Over lunch today we were talking about how kids these days have such easy access to computers and the world of internet. Whether they are out at internet cafes or using their parents' netbooks at home, kids these days are pretty heavy users of internet. Not only are they......
• Using the Internet for Antique Appraisals Do you know how to use the internet for the purpose of obtaining antique appraisals? There is no reason why you cannot make good use of the internet in order to determine the value of your collectibles and your antiques. Keep reading. So, do you think that you may have......
• Blogging Business is on the Rise You don't have to be an analyst to realize that blogging business sites are on the rise and that it has become the latest career choice for a number of people. In just a few years, the amount of blogs that are currently on the Internet has increased dramatically. While......
• The Last Days of Summer Today it was official, we took down the pool so it has to be the last day of summer. Okay, maybe the last day of summer is officially on September 21st and the last day of summer vacation isn't until Monday but you can definitely feel the days winding......
• 5 Kitchen Appliances I Can't Live Without I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. Probably too much time. However, there are 5 time saving appliances that I use very frequently and which I could not live without. Since I prepare nearly all our meals at home, they have saved me a lot of money, as......

Tags: challenging of policies, criticism, governments, medias, press, press conference

This entry was posted by Francois on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.