Monday, March 21, 2011

The media conspiracy

I have a number of relatives who are Glenn Beck and Fox News fans. They regularly send me emails in which the underlying theme is that the “Lame Street” or “drive-by” media is the enabler of a liberal conspiracy to ruin America. One such email today, in combination with a sore back that kept me from going to the Y, prompted me to try to explain why this is a canard. I hate to waste nearly 600 words so I thought I’d post my response.

“I spent 30 years working for Time Warner, one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. It doesn’t make me the ultimate authority, but I think I have some insights worth considering if you believe the New York Times leads a conspiracy to drag the country into European socialism. I can’t prove you wrong but maybe you’ll at least consider how inherently illogical such a construct is.

I’ll begin by admitting that by-and-large, media people – writers, editors, producers, etc., are more liberal in their political views than the average American. But 50% of all people are more liberal than the average American, so that in itself doesn’t mean all that much. Look to the person on your left and then on your right. One of those people is probably more liberal – or more conservative than you.

But these folks are not defined solely by their political views. They are in the main regular working folks. For every Brian Williams pulling down $10 mil a year there are hundreds of people tolling in good but not great jobs, struggling hard to find a way to find profits in an industry whose customers expect everything for free these days. It’s these people who write the words that Brian Williams speaks each night on the news.

They have mortgages to pay, children to educate, car payments and all the other pressures of modern life just as you do, and just as those with more conservatives views have. They are not exempt from tax hikes, diminished public services, union excesses or financial disasters. They are no less oppressed by political correctness or the excesses that are a part of many well-meaning government/social engineering programs. There is no special category for them; they toil daily in an industry with steadily shrinking employment.

The business they are in is the business of building an audience. There are only two ways to bring revenue into a media company. Either the consumer pays to see/hear it, or advertisers pay them a sliding fee based on the number of people consuming what they produce.

Regardless of any one person’s political point-of-view, that person puts his job in jeopardy if he gives his political views a higher priority than building a larger audience. He risks failure if he aims his story at only those who will agree with his pov; he leaves money on the table if he alienates those he knows do not share his opinions. Despites these facts, it still happens sometimes, but if it happens too often his competitors will notice and will swoop in like the Barbarian hoards and take what has been left up for grabs. It is a blood-thirsty business – the media.

Finally, when you think of Time and Newsweek, think Coke and Pepsi. NBC and CBS? GM and Ford. The New York Times and Washington Post? They are IBM and Apple. It’s impossible to prove a negative, but these companies do not get together and agree to push a set of ideas and ignore another set of ideas. Did we not have electric vehicles for decades because GM and Ford met secretly to agree not to make them? There are naive people who believe this is the case, but logic and facts suggest the reason was that the public did not want them enough to buy them – until they did, and now everyone is making them.

It is no different with the media. The media produces what it believes will sell to an audience that has highly diverse political views. The rewards accrue to those who do that job the best. There are no rewards for political dogma disconnected from the moods of the broadly defined public.”

Friday, March 4, 2011

Going underground

This is going to be my last post for a while. I’m leaving Florida in 52 days and am starting to feel a little overwhelmed by my to-do list. Keep in mind that after 16 months in retirement I find it very difficult to commit more than a few hours per day to any task not directly related to nurturing my own comfort or amusement, but that’s how it is and there isn’t much I can do about it.

There is a lot to do, however, in preparation for my move to Ohio where I plan to begin a second career as an unpaid social provocateur. I’m not ready to talk about those plans yet, but they require complex planning and preparation. In addition, I continue to work on writing a book about something. Exactly what the something is keeps shifting on me. I’m certainly no threat to Stephen King in the category of “prolific authors.” After almost a year of pecking away I’ve written about 25,000 words, which is probably about 80 or so pages; I’ve a long way to go.

I really enjoy writing the Daily Blank. Of course has never been close to a daily, but I liked the name the moment McRik proposed it over a martini at Alfredo’s one cold winter evening after work (or was it over a shot and beer at Jimmy’s Corner?). And I enjoy reading your comments and getting a little conversation going even more. The last thing I want is for writing the blog to become a chore or an obligation rather than the fun it’s been the last three + years. I hope to be back this summer once the move is complete.

So while I'm going underground, I'll still be moving. And remember, the longest road out is the shortest road home.