MEDIA, not JOURNALISM

“…Television and related media have been the greatest purveyors and conveyors of corporate and political propaganda in society… Anybody—and any idea—can be sold with a bright ribbon and a catchy jingle.”

MEDIA, not JOURNALISM

Written by : BENJAMIN G. DEFENSOR

“Particularly on radio and television, every item—from, a major disaster to a minor pronouncement by a politician—receives roughly the same attention and emphasis. It would not be surprising some day to hear an announcer begin the hourly news this way: ‘The world ends tomorrow, details after this message.

This is an observation made 40 years ago by Robert Stein, then editor of McCall’s magazine in his book, Media Power: Who is Shaping Your Picture of the World?

Stein reports that, a decade before, in 1959, in a symposium on “Mass Culture and Mass Media” sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ernest van den Haag warned: ‘Of course we have more communication and mobility than ever before. But isn’t it possible that less is communicated? We have all the opportunities in the world to see, hear and read more than ever before. Is there any independent indication to show that we experience and understand more? Does not the constant slick assault on our senses and minds produce monotony and indifference and prevent experience? Does not the discontinuity of most people’s live unsettle and some undo them?’

“Discontinuity is enhanced, if not caused, by the arbitrary amount of news we receive. What we get, which is determined not by what we need to know, but by the size of newspapers and magazines and the length of television and radio news programs, damages our sense of proportion…”

This was a complaint before the advent of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, what we now know as social media. To protect their hold on shaping the picture of the world, mainstream media, particularly electronic media, now also carry the content of social media.

So today, Jeffrey D. Sachs, an economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, warns against the electronic media overkill. In a recent column in BusinessWorld, Sachs said, “the past half century has been the age of electronic mass media. Television has reshaped society in every corner of the world. Now an explosion of new media devices is joining the TV set: DVDs, computers, game boxes, smart phones, and more. A growing body of evidence suggests that this media proliferation has countless ill effects.

“…Television and related media have been the greatest purveyors and conveyors of corporate and political propaganda in society.

“America’s TV ownership is almost entirely in private hands, and owners make much of their money through relentless advertising. Effective advertising campaigns, appealing to unconscious urges—typically related to food, sex and status—create cravings for products and purchases that have little real value for consumers or society.

“The same, of course, has happened to politics. American politicians are now brand names, packaged like breakfast cereal. Anybody—and any idea—can be sold with a bright ribbon and a catchy jingle.”

Sachs may well be making his observations also on Philippine mass media.

Last week, at the 22nd Philippine Ad Congress, the biennial gathering of advertisers, the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the country’s three rival television networks—Filipe L. Gozon of GMA-7, Eugenio Lopez III of ABS-CBN, and Manuel V. Pangilinan of TV5 (in alphabetical order) agreed that there is room for all three of them in the Philippine media scene. For the first time, print media reported the three top honchos stood side-by-side to share their thoughts on the future of television and media. Like all businesses the burden of their song was revenue.

The Inquirer, one of the leading, if not the leading, print media of the nation reported the light exchange among the three.

Lopez said that a third TV network would not shrink the advertising pie as his company’s revenues has not fallen despite the entry of TV5.

Pangilinan said ABS-CBN and GMA 7 “should worry about us because we are the certified No. 3. He said he did not know who between ABS-CBN and GMA-7 is No. 2.

Gozon said TV is still the cheapest form of entertainment to some 94 percent of TV-owning Filipino households. It will remain the “medium to beat for many years to come if it continues to provide superior entertainment and remains the medium of the vast majority of Filipinos.”

It is true that entertainment was the first rationale for the expansion of radio, the first of the electronic media. Radio sets were sold to provide music and radio broadcasting stations were set up to broadcast music so radio sets could be sold. This was the major business plan of Roy
Thompson of Fleet Street when he started out in Canada. News and advertising came later and took over the medium.

The mass media audience first brought together by news was “sold” to advertisers. Then entertainment took over from news as the main electronic media enticement. What the mass media audience get is what the media owners think will attract them so they can be sold to the advertisers.

In the US, “all roads to power … lead through TV, and all access to TV depends on big money. This simple logic has put American politics in the hands of the rich as never before,” says Sachs.

Sachs suggests a solution: “…Successful approaches around the world include limits on TV
advertising, especially to young children; non-commercial publicly owned TV networks like the BBC; and free (but limited) TV time for political campaigns.”

This could be horrifying for TV and other giant media outfits who would be expected to cry for freedom of media.

Media, not journalism.