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Must Read News
Concentrated media and expansive copyright are the perfect storm not just for stifling debate but, increasingly, for weakening democracy as well.
At the Democratic Convention, viewers got the television equivalent of the modern paperback - from the Nicholson Baker-novel obsessiveness of "ABC News Now" to the fluffy, self-absorbed novellas of anchors interviewing each other on MSNBC and Fox News.
There are two issues here, trivialization and bias, but they're related. Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies, and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities.
The networks have replaced the civil and democratic values that once a played a role in decisions about what to cover with commercial and entertainment values that dictate a denial of seriousness or perspective when it comes to political stories.
Fast fact of the day
A 2003 study of 45 local TV stations found that in 7,560 hours of programming over one week, only 13 hours were devoted to local public affairs shows examining issues of governance or politics, less than one half of one percent. Source: Alliance for Better Campaigns
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