Showing posts with label newsworthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newsworthy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
This is all news.
Well, I mean it should be.
But it is not.
Why do you think that is so? Corporate ownership of the media?
From Truthout:
The following are all relevant, fact-based issues, the "hard news" stories that the media has a responsibility to report. But the corporate-owned press generally avoids them.
1. U.S. Wealth Up $34 Trillion Since Recession. 93% of You Got Almost None of It.
That's an average of $100,000 for every American. But the people who already own most of the stocks took almost all of it. For them, the average gain was well over a million dollars -- tax-free as long as they don't cash it in. Details available here.
2. Eight Rich Americans Made More Than 3.6 Million Minimum Wage Workers
A recent report stated that no full-time minimum wage worker in the U.S. can afford a one-bedroom or two-bedroom rental at fair market rent. There are 3.6 million such workers, and their total (combined) 2013 earnings is less than the 2013 stock market gains of just eight Americans, all of whom take more than their share from society: the four Waltons, the two Kochs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.
3. News Sources Speak for the 5%
It would be refreshing to read an honest editorial: "We dearly value the 5 to 7 percent of our readers who make a lot of money and believe that their growing riches are helping everyone else."
Instead, the business media seems unable to differentiate between the top 5 percent and the rest of society. The Wall Street Journal exclaimed, "Middle-class Americans have more buying power than ever before," and then went on to sputter: "What Recession?...The economy has bounced back from recession, unemployment has declined.."
The Chicago Tribune may be even further out of touch with its less privileged readers, asking them: "What's so terrible about the infusion of so much money into the presidential campaign?"
4. TV News Dumbed Down for American Viewers
A 2009 survey by the European Journal of Communication compared the U.S. to Denmark, Finland, and the UK in the awareness and reporting of domestic vs. international news, and of 'hard' news (politics, public administration, the economy, science, technology) vs. 'soft' news (celebrities, human interest, sport and entertainment). The results:
-- Americans [are] especially uninformed about international public affairs.
-- American respondents also underperformed in relation to domestic-related hard news stories.
-- American television reports much less international news than Finnish, Danish and British television;
-- American television network newscasts also report much less hard news than Finnish and Danish television.
Surprisingly, the report states that "our sample of American newspapers was more oriented towards hard news than their counterparts in the European countries." Too bad Americans are reading less newspapers.
5. News Execs among White Male Boomers Who Owe Trillions to Society
The hype about the "self-made man" is fantasy. In the early 1970s, we privileged white males were spirited out of college to waiting jobs in management and finance, technology was inventing new ways for us to make money, tax rates were about to tumble, and visions of bonuses and capital gains danced in our heads.
While we were in school the Defense Department had been preparing the Internet for Microsoft and Apple, the National Science Foundation was funding the Digital Library Initiative research that would be adopted as the Google model, and theNational Institute of Health was doing the early laboratory testing for companies like Merck and Pfizer. Government research labs and public universities trained thousands of chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, testers, troubleshooters, etc., etc.
All we created on our own was a disdainful attitude, like that of Steve Jobs: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
6. Funding Plummets for Schools and Pensions as Corporations Stop Paying Taxes
Threeseparatestudies have shown that corporations pay less than half of their required state taxes, which are the main source of K-12 educational funding and a significant part of pension funding. Most recently, the report "The Disappearing Corporate Tax Base" found that the percentage of corporate profits paid as state income taxes has dropped from 7 percent in 1980 to about 3 percent today.
7. Companies Based in the U.S. Paying Most of their Taxes Overseas
Citigroup had 42% of its 2011-13 revenue in North America (almost all U.S.) and made $32 billion in profits, but received a U.S. current income tax benefit all three years.
Pfizer had 40% of its 2011-13 revenues and nearly half of its physical assets in the U.S., but declared almost $10 billion in U.S. losses to go along with nearly $50 billion in foreign profits.
In 2013 Exxon had about 43% of management, 36% of sales, 40% of long-lived assets, and 70-90% of its productive oil and gas wells in the U.S., yet only paid about 2 percent of its total income in U.S. income taxes, and most of that was something called a "theoretical" tax.
8. Restaurant Servers Go Without Raise for 30 Years
An evaluation by Michelle Chen showed that the minimum wage for tipped workers has been approximately $2 an hour since the 1980s. She also notes that about 40 percent of these workers are people of color, and about two-thirds are women.
Well, I mean it should be.
But it is not.
Why do you think that is so? Corporate ownership of the media?
From Truthout:
The following are all relevant, fact-based issues, the "hard news" stories that the media has a responsibility to report. But the corporate-owned press generally avoids them.
1. U.S. Wealth Up $34 Trillion Since Recession. 93% of You Got Almost None of It.
That's an average of $100,000 for every American. But the people who already own most of the stocks took almost all of it. For them, the average gain was well over a million dollars -- tax-free as long as they don't cash it in. Details available here.
2. Eight Rich Americans Made More Than 3.6 Million Minimum Wage Workers
A recent report stated that no full-time minimum wage worker in the U.S. can afford a one-bedroom or two-bedroom rental at fair market rent. There are 3.6 million such workers, and their total (combined) 2013 earnings is less than the 2013 stock market gains of just eight Americans, all of whom take more than their share from society: the four Waltons, the two Kochs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.
3. News Sources Speak for the 5%
It would be refreshing to read an honest editorial: "We dearly value the 5 to 7 percent of our readers who make a lot of money and believe that their growing riches are helping everyone else."
Instead, the business media seems unable to differentiate between the top 5 percent and the rest of society. The Wall Street Journal exclaimed, "Middle-class Americans have more buying power than ever before," and then went on to sputter: "What Recession?...The economy has bounced back from recession, unemployment has declined.."
The Chicago Tribune may be even further out of touch with its less privileged readers, asking them: "What's so terrible about the infusion of so much money into the presidential campaign?"
4. TV News Dumbed Down for American Viewers
A 2009 survey by the European Journal of Communication compared the U.S. to Denmark, Finland, and the UK in the awareness and reporting of domestic vs. international news, and of 'hard' news (politics, public administration, the economy, science, technology) vs. 'soft' news (celebrities, human interest, sport and entertainment). The results:
-- Americans [are] especially uninformed about international public affairs.
-- American respondents also underperformed in relation to domestic-related hard news stories.
-- American television reports much less international news than Finnish, Danish and British television;
-- American television network newscasts also report much less hard news than Finnish and Danish television.
Surprisingly, the report states that "our sample of American newspapers was more oriented towards hard news than their counterparts in the European countries." Too bad Americans are reading less newspapers.
5. News Execs among White Male Boomers Who Owe Trillions to Society
The hype about the "self-made man" is fantasy. In the early 1970s, we privileged white males were spirited out of college to waiting jobs in management and finance, technology was inventing new ways for us to make money, tax rates were about to tumble, and visions of bonuses and capital gains danced in our heads.
While we were in school the Defense Department had been preparing the Internet for Microsoft and Apple, the National Science Foundation was funding the Digital Library Initiative research that would be adopted as the Google model, and theNational Institute of Health was doing the early laboratory testing for companies like Merck and Pfizer. Government research labs and public universities trained thousands of chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, testers, troubleshooters, etc., etc.
All we created on our own was a disdainful attitude, like that of Steve Jobs: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
6. Funding Plummets for Schools and Pensions as Corporations Stop Paying Taxes
Threeseparatestudies have shown that corporations pay less than half of their required state taxes, which are the main source of K-12 educational funding and a significant part of pension funding. Most recently, the report "The Disappearing Corporate Tax Base" found that the percentage of corporate profits paid as state income taxes has dropped from 7 percent in 1980 to about 3 percent today.
7. Companies Based in the U.S. Paying Most of their Taxes Overseas
Citigroup had 42% of its 2011-13 revenue in North America (almost all U.S.) and made $32 billion in profits, but received a U.S. current income tax benefit all three years.
Pfizer had 40% of its 2011-13 revenues and nearly half of its physical assets in the U.S., but declared almost $10 billion in U.S. losses to go along with nearly $50 billion in foreign profits.
In 2013 Exxon had about 43% of management, 36% of sales, 40% of long-lived assets, and 70-90% of its productive oil and gas wells in the U.S., yet only paid about 2 percent of its total income in U.S. income taxes, and most of that was something called a "theoretical" tax.
8. Restaurant Servers Go Without Raise for 30 Years
An evaluation by Michelle Chen showed that the minimum wage for tipped workers has been approximately $2 an hour since the 1980s. She also notes that about 40 percent of these workers are people of color, and about two-thirds are women.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Still obsessed
Even after a mudslide in the United States that may have killed more than 100 people--apparently in a place built by people with knowledge that a massive landslide would one day likely occur in the area--the nation's news organizations are still obsessed with the mystery surrounding one disappearing plane.
Of course I understand why this story is "newsworthy" but the level of coverage has been nothing less than astounding, especially considering how many people die (and are killed) from other causes that never make the news.
This is a reminder of one of the main points of the book: The media focus on some things and not others, directly impacting the things that people think about, worry about, and fear (and the things they don't).
BREAKING NEWS: MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370
Change based on radar analysis
After the search for Flight 370 debris moved 680 miles to the northeast,
a plane takes images of "objects." Those will be analyzed in Australia.
FULL STORY
Of course I understand why this story is "newsworthy" but the level of coverage has been nothing less than astounding, especially considering how many people die (and are killed) from other causes that never make the news.
This is a reminder of one of the main points of the book: The media focus on some things and not others, directly impacting the things that people think about, worry about, and fear (and the things they don't).
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Stories also NOT in the news today
Yes, there is a missing airplane. And, as I suspected from day one (because I studied the 9/11 attacks and thus know much of what we knew prior to that attack with airplanes), it is looking more and more like the plane did not crash but instead was hijacked and possibly even landed safely. I seriously suspect that, eventually, evidence will surface that we also saw this coming too.
But alas, there are other, far more important stories that should be news today but largely are not. Here are some frightening examples from the independent news source, Truthout.
Luckily, it's noting serious: just global climate change; environmental disasters all over the US; a high risk of a nuclear disaster in the US; hazardous working conditions; stunning NSA spying; police brutality; rising income inequality; reckless spending on "defense."
Why do the mainstream media largely ignore such stories?
But alas, there are other, far more important stories that should be news today but largely are not. Here are some frightening examples from the independent news source, Truthout.
Luckily, it's noting serious: just global climate change; environmental disasters all over the US; a high risk of a nuclear disaster in the US; hazardous working conditions; stunning NSA spying; police brutality; rising income inequality; reckless spending on "defense."
Why do the mainstream media largely ignore such stories?
Abrupt Climate Change: No Bioperturbation
By Bruce Melton, Truthout | News Analysis
Reporting on a World of Environmental Catastrophes - All in Just One Month
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis
On the News With Thom Hartmann: US Nuclear Regulators Are Hiding the Risk of a Fukushima-Style Incident, and More
By Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Program | Video Report
Snowden Docs Expose How the NSA "Infects" Millions of Computers, Impersonates Facebook Server
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
Coming Home to Roost: American Militarism, War Culture and Police Brutality
By Colin Jenkins, The Hampton Institute | News Analysis
IMF Urges Redistribution To Tackle Growing Inequality
By Carey L. Biron, Inter Press Service | Report
America's $1 Trillion National Security Budget
By Winslow T. Wheeler, Project On Government Oversight | News Analysis
Monday, March 17, 2014
Things in the news, things not ...
So for all of my spring break, I was not surprised that the lead story in the news was of an airplane, packed with people, that just disappeared. And to this day, almost two weeks later, no one knows where it is.
Still in the news? Yep:
Why is this story newsworthy?
Well, it is random. Unusual. Potentially violent (if all those poor people died) and criminal (if someone did it). It is a mystery on top of all that.
But lots of other important things are not making news, as usual. Many of them are of course more deadly than plane crashes. Such as corporate crime. As one example, consider yet another example of car manufacturer not recalling cars even after it knows for years about a defect--a defect that killed dozens of people.
Yeah, that story made the news, because it is another corporation killing people for money. But it is not the lead story. Nope, that would be the airplane.
Here is another story that is not making the news, in spite of its importance:
Florida has executed 84 people since the Supreme Court announced the modern death penalty regime in 1976. Zero of them are white people sentenced to death for killing an African American. Indeed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American” in the state of Florida.
Where do I find this? ThinkProgress. Not the newspapers or TV stations. Even though this pattern is found in just about every death penalty state!
Still in the news? Yep:
Plane search area: 11 countries, deep ocean
Could jet have avoided radar?
New reports add to the mystery surrounding Flight 370 while an aviation engineer among the passengers draws investigators' interest.FULL STORY
Why is this story newsworthy?
Well, it is random. Unusual. Potentially violent (if all those poor people died) and criminal (if someone did it). It is a mystery on top of all that.
But lots of other important things are not making news, as usual. Many of them are of course more deadly than plane crashes. Such as corporate crime. As one example, consider yet another example of car manufacturer not recalling cars even after it knows for years about a defect--a defect that killed dozens of people.
Yeah, that story made the news, because it is another corporation killing people for money. But it is not the lead story. Nope, that would be the airplane.
Here is another story that is not making the news, in spite of its importance:
Florida has executed 84 people since the Supreme Court announced the modern death penalty regime in 1976. Zero of them are white people sentenced to death for killing an African American. Indeed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American” in the state of Florida.
Where do I find this? ThinkProgress. Not the newspapers or TV stations. Even though this pattern is found in just about every death penalty state!
Thursday, December 5, 2013
THIS is not news ... THIS is ...
But THIS is the lead story on CNN:
Full Episode AvailableDecember 04, 2013 - Jehane Noujaim
No charges against FSU QB
Prosecutor: No reasonable chance of conviction
Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston will not be charged in a case of alleged rape, the state attorney for Lee County, Florida, said.FULL STORY
And THIS is just on a comedy show ...
In this series of clips, comedian Jon Stewart illustrates what happens to corporate criminals, what doesn't happen to them, and explains why. And also shows why it is not news.
Aired: 12/04/13
Viewed: 7,249
Heavy Settle - Admissions of Non-GuiltEpisode #19031Corporations escape full prosecution for financial fraud by paying back a portion of their ill-gotten gains in legal settlements. (03:29)
Aired: 12/04/13
Viewed: 10,061
Blackstone & CodereEpisode #19031Samantha Bee investigates the shady, totally legal business dealings of a private equity firm called Blackstone. (07:00)
Aired: 12/04/13
Viewed: 19,712
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Why, exactly, is this a national news story?
Prosecutor out 'to discover truth' about teen's death
Parents believe son was murdered
State authorities ruled no foul play was involved in the death of Kendrick Johnson, who was found in a rolled up gym mat. A federal prosecutor says he's opening a formal review of the case.FULL STORY
In fact, why is any one murder ever a national news story? A leading story especially?
With 14,000-16,000 murders in any given year, why are some newsworthy whereas others are not?
And what about the hundreds of thousands and millions of others who are killed through the reckless and negligent actions of other people that never make the news?
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
What's in the news, whats' not
First, what is in the news?
Violent teens kill someone "just because." Yep, that is news.
Eliot Spitzer in Union Square, New York, July 8, 2013. (Photo: Timothy Krause)Before Eliot Spitzer’s infamous resignation as governor of New York in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for controlling the banks. It may not be a coincidence that the revelation of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.” The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the states.
Violent teens kill someone "just because." Yep, that is news.
Teens charged as adults in shooting
Cops: Man slain by teens, just because
A random act of violence has left a promising 23-year-old college baseball player dead, a family devastated and two countries rattled. FULL STORYFULL STORY
Random violence and dangerous street criminals? Yep, that is news.
What about widespread corporate crime? The links between corporate offenders and our own government? The policies they created that allow it to occur? The people they hire to "regulate" (cough cough) the offenders?
Nope, not in the news. Unless you look at alternative sources such as Truthout. For example:
Not Too Big to Jail: Why Eliot Spitzer Is Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt | News Analysis
Eliot Spitzer in Union Square, New York, July 8, 2013. (Photo: Timothy Krause)Before Eliot Spitzer’s infamous resignation as governor of New York in March 2008, he was one of our fiercest champions against Wall Street corruption, in a state that had some of the toughest legislation for controlling the banks. It may not be a coincidence that the revelation of his indiscretions with a high-priced call girl came less than a month after he published a bold editorial in the Washington Post titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.” The editorial exposed the collusion between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street in deregulating the banks in the guise of regulating them, by taking regulatory power away from the states.
Just more evidence for the importance of independent media!
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