Page 280 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2
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Med a Watch Groups |
there is little hope for the sector as a newsstand financial proposition. In print,
CJR and AJR survive on reputation and a mix of funding, and trade publications
such as Editor & Publisher continue to perform media watch functions, mostly
for industry audiences. The high-profile bust of Brill’s Content, a glossy media
criticism magazine that briefly achieved a circulation of more than 325,000 but
never made money and folded not long after reducing its frequency from 10 an-
nual issues to 4, provides a cautionary tale for anyone hoping for an expanded
audience for journalism critique. Brill’s Content, which attracted advertising
befitting an anticipated high-end readership, did bid to engage a broader seg-
ment of the public in holding media to account, but its financial failure demon-
strated that media watch entrepreneurship has its limits, and that the consumer
market alone will likely not sustain such a scale of activity. The issue of advertis-
ing revenue to support critical journals also poses a particularly difficult prob-
lem in an age when commercial ad buyers have demonstrated their willingness
to exert significant influence over media content, making challenging indepen-
dent analysis all that more difficult to disseminate to a broad public.
ThE FuTurE oF mEDia waTChing
One of the simplest and most direct models of media criticism to emerge has
come from another old media format: television. When Jon Stewart plays back
the self-contradicting statements of politicians and juxtaposes official absurdities
against common sense, using visual evidence, along with the obligatory look of
exaggerated befuddlement, he and the producers of The Daily Show on Comedy
Central advance media criticism to a stage many consider long overdue. Fans of
The Daily Show and loyal members of The Colbert Report’s “Colbert Nation” in
effect become part of a media watch community that not only calls to account
those in power as mainstream media seldom have, but ignites in a difficult-to-
reach demographic an actual interest in the news, even as trends show declining
newspaper readership and news awareness among young people.
Meanwhile, much media critique will, of course, remain trenchant and con-
tinue to be a main feature of alternative media and publications, even as it finds
its way into more mainstream venues such as Comedy Central. The growth of
Internet bloggers able to disseminate almost instantaneous comments about
news stories, reporters, errors, exaggerations, and outrages in a media envi-
ronment ripe with such fare guarantees the continuation and growth of media
watching.
see also Alternative Media in the United States; Bias and Objectivity; Blogo-
sphere; Conglomeration and Media Monopolies; Global Community Media;
Hypercommercialism; Media Literacy; Media Reform; News Satire; Public Ac-
cess Television; Public Broadcasting Service; Sensationalism, Fear Mongering
and Tabloid Media; User-Created Content and Audience Participation.
Further reading: Alterman, Eric. What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News.
New York: Basic Books, 2003; Bagdikian, Ben. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon
Press, 2004; Bennett, W. Lance. News: The Politics of Illusion. New York: Longman, 2004;