From Opening Eyes to Spreading Lies

        Sometimes the media brings to light atrocities that demand change and sometimes its exploits them by scaring the public and reinforcing old prejudices.  

      This article about the media's coverage of a young woman who died after being gang-raped on a Delhi bus, pointed out how the coverage of this event has brought to light the problem of sexual assaults in India. However it also has driven people to the streets to demand justice.  

      When a story goes global there is no way to hide it any longer.  You can't deny it, say no comment, or exercise the 5th in the court of the media.  Just like many people in America have demanded new gun control laws in the wake of the shooting in Connecticut people in India have gone to the street to demand new laws sexual assault laws and the hanging of everyone who took part in the gang-rape.  

           But just because a story goes global doesn't mean it will lead to cultural change or new laws. 

The problem is that so many stories go global, that they seem to drown each other out.  It the hours after a big story hits the media picks at it like flies pick at a dead horse publishing every juice detail, playing out every theory until they have made all of us so confused and horrified that we can barely recall what the story was about in the first place.       

Before we can put all the pieces together another breaking story comes across the wire and we our given a new monster to fear. 

     A few days after the incident in New Delhi, a crowd of villagers in India publicly beat a politician accused of rape.  I wonder what would happen if we could publicly beat every politician that is accused of committing a crime in the media.

     I like to watch shows like "Reliable Sources"  and "Daily Show" that are critical of the way the media covers important stores. We need more programs and stories that commend the media when they bring important stories to light and condemn them when they spread rumors. 

           

need more good stories about victims

need a filter more shows that look at it and think about good vs bad.  or at least make fun of it.     

More newspapers cut jobs

The Denver Post announced that it will buyout about 90 newsroom workers to trim costs. The paper only has about 268 workers in the newsroom so this move will take them down to 178. This comes one-year after the Post bought out a dozen newsroom positions. The Rocky Mountain News owned by Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co. eliminated 50 employees last month and The Baltimore Sun just eliminated 50 positions.

All these layoffs raise the question can small papers still provide the same quality coverage that their readers rely on with 178 people? Job cuts that are this big must have a lasting effect on what the paper is able to cover and how they divide their resources to cover local and national events. Most papers already rely on the big three to provide them with coverage of most international events. So if a paper cannot afford to have a corespondent in Iraq do they need one in Chicago? New York? Washington D.C.?

All these layoffs will probably lead papers like the Denver post to focus more on local events that they can cover better then any other news outlet.

Many news outlets have used layoffs as a way to boost their stock prices but that rarely ever works.

Media General Inc had a net lost in the first quarter of 2007 of $6.5 million and as a result they are cutting 70 staff positions from the Tampa Tribune.

Discovery started April by cutting 200 jobs, with more layoffs to come.

In the case of Le Journal in Quebec, Canada 140 employees were locked out after the company reached an impasse with the Canadian Union of Public Employees at the daily tabloid newspaper.