[NLA] Media Alert

[KathleenBombach@aol.com]

We all know that media programming exists to sell products, but that is no 
reason not to fight to bring issues of our concern to the forefront. No one 
watches television just to watch the ads.

Journalism is a field with practitioners, too, and they learn professional 
ethics and understand their responsibility to inform the public. What is 
happening to the media today is unique: huge corporations are gobbling up 
multiple news sources and many fear they are standardizing their content. So 
instead of hearing news from multiplt independent sources, we are reading, 
viewing, and hearing the same news from multiple dependent sources--and we 
probably do not know it.

An example. You decide to go to the movies, so you watch your favorite film 
critic on TV to decide which current movie is the best. He is most positive 
about one movie in particular. You also notice that the news station you 
watch the most is covering the making of that particular movie with a great 
deal of fanfare, and your Internet provider is doing the same thing. In fact, 
you cannot go online without seeing that particular movie featured on their 
website. You decide to see the movie--with so many different people and 
sources featuring this movie, it is bound to be good.

What you do not know is that the same corporation owns the movie production 
company owns your ISP and the network with the film critic and the cable news 
network you watch. You are not hearing many different voices, you just think 
you are. 

Kathleen Bombach
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