‘Big Media’ loves scandal…
Ok, if we can have ‘Big Business’ and ‘Big Oil’, why not ‘Big Media?’ Anyway, just a thought. Normally we think of ‘Big Media’ as loving controversy and scandal. After all, for the past few weeks, you would think the Michael Jackson case ranked up there with the Cuban missile crisis or something the way it’s been covered lately. So keeping that in mind, I ran across this AP story that first broke on the internet on Friday 2/13. There was not a trace of it on any news sites (Reuters, AP, CNN, you name it). I found it odd that not a word of it was on any news site for 3 to 4 days after it first appeared on the DrudgeReport website. Many British newspapers covered it in that time period. Currently, the Associated Press is still the only major news outlet to touch it. Now the rule of thumb on how this stuff has been covered traditionally by the Big Media is that the seriousness of the story outweighs the credibility of the story. I have to give credit to Rush Limbaugh for first stating this (to my knowledge) but I feel it is a keen observation. Knowing this is their modus operandi, why did they choose to squelch this story? Is it that they have changed their ways and are now operating very cautiously…checking and double-checking every story before they run with it. Or are they making editorial decisions on what to cover and what not to cover? I hope they are doing the former, but I am not so naive as to doubt it is the latter….just because I have observed the nature of the ‘Big Media’ over the years and until I see a change in that, I will not be inclined to change my opinion. That’s fair.
