Not that anyone cares, but I apologize for falling off the map. I have been swamped with my teaching... (I always said I wanted to teach research methods, and I did, and do, but it is a lot of work, and it is like teaching a foreign language to many of these (last semester) seniors.)
Obama is in socal. He will actually be in Pomona tomorrow, at an electric vehicle experimental site (which I had not previously heard of) and then at a pseudo town hall meeting in downtown LA.
I showed my media class the stewart/cramer bit. and we were discussing why cnbc had no real obligation to anyfreakinbudy but their owners... and the class has been debating whether Guvmint control of the media is the only (best) alternative to the status quo corporate media.... whadda ya'll think???? I gave modern bbc as a positive example, and pointed out that in 11 European countries the gov't owned media is the number 1 rated channel, but they seem skeptical to put it mildly...they can't seem to envision how pbs could be #1....
(sorry for the slang, but it is how I type when grieviously organized)
Thursday, March 19, 2009
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3 comments:
"I gave modern bbc as a positive example, and pointed out that in 11 European countries the gov't owned media is the number 1 rated channel, but they seem skeptical to put it mildly"
the flip side to this in the UK/Ireland is that you get people giving out socks (tr: ?) about having to pay the license fee so they can fund show x/y/z which is crap.
and while I'm very much in favour of public broadcasting, and the BBC (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Irish broadcaster RTÉ) do put out some excellent programming, there is an alterbative source of pressure to corporate evil from government influence and/or 'public morality'. example: the David Kelly case where a BBC investigative journalist was forced into a significant climbdown over the Blair government's WMD assertions; and (far less tragic) Russell Brand being forced to quit his job at the Beeb after the Daily Mail made a big deal of an off-colour radio sketch (which hardly anyone complained about when it aired).
EZ,
I've always wondered if public tv would end up being much different than "regular" tv. I mean if there was a government run financial channel, do you really think it would be running hard hitting stories about how the president's financial advisers all have their heads up their asses? I imagine it would end up running stories along the lines of "it's possible that the president's advisers have their heads up their asses, but we don't really know, because we're not that bright, having gotten degrees in journalism from American universities, so who's to say? One thing we can say is that the president's advisers think everything is swell."
As much as I love certain BBC programming, I imagine that much of it is junk that doesn't make it across the pond, if you will. Just like we have Lost, BSG, the Shield, the Wire, along with a whole lot of Two and a Half Men. I love some PBS, and it does kids programming really well, but much of it is also crap and I need only to point to one of the many, many Dr. Weil "specials" that are run to make my point. Independent Lens and POV can be good, but they can also be crap.
In your mind would not having commercials be the benefit? Because that would seem to lead me to believe we'd just see more money spent on ads elsewhere.
what's a financial channel?
BBC News is one of the most respected news networks in the world (especially in the pink bits). the BBC Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman hits everything hard to the point of being a misanthrope, and as he also presents the University Challenge quiz show he already gives out about low standards of education.
you can check out the full Beeb schedule and program list here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes
in Ireland, the national broadcaster shows ads as well as getting a license fee (which really pisses off commercial broadcasters and the aforementioned license-fee protesters). it would be interesting to know how many of those 11 countries take the pure BBC approach to funding.
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