Honeymoon period is over. Most definitely. In fact, we've completely skipped stage 2: comfort. Now we hate each other. We have now reached the point in the Journalism relationship, where we argue every day, and pick at the petty points of our conversation. This is the beginning of the downhill spiral - the beginning of the end and the rocky bottom of our love affair. Good luck to us both.
In week 6 of JOUR1111, we were taught about the nature of Commercial Media and its place in society. Commercial media, at a glance, includes things such as:
- Channel Seven
- Channel Nine
- Channel Ten
- Foxtel
- AUSTAR
- News Limited
- Fairfax Media
Commercial media exists to make profit, and this can be done through movies (20th Century Fox), newspapers (The Australian, Quest Community Newspapers, and The Courier Mail), dating sites (RSVP.com), ticketek.com, ninemsn, magazines (Woman's Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Cleo, Woman's Day, etc.), radio stations (B105, Triple M), and search engines.
"The first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred."C.P. Scott (Editor / Owner of The Guardian)
The lecture addressed the control that the major commercial media organisations have over what us, as consumers, are exposed to, and the legal and ethical obligations that they have on their path to control.
I was most interested in the information about internet censorship and the extent to which it goes. Censorship is not a new concept, but it was surprising to hear its scope within Australian media (the possibility of Dr. Redman's website being mistake for a porn site was fairly entertaining in itself).
The parallel's drawn between the quality of stories shown on commercial media new programs (such as A Current Affair, and Today Tonight) twenty years ago and today was particularly poignant. The idea of 'dumbing down' the news is an obvious ploy in commercial media today and can be seen in a multitude of outlets. Commercial news is rarely addressed to the curious individual, and I would go as far as to say that it is 'lazy' news, and addresses mediocre issues with cheap stories.
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