modern media - society watchdogs or poodles to power?
Post on 22-Oct-2014
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Questions of failed public accountability and governance lie at the heart of serial crises facing today's societies. Rolling economic breakdowns, rising inequality and looming environmental disasters all highlight the gulf between popular will and politicians' responses. Our media seem blind to this mismatch, unable to link the many problems to their common cause in the loss of people's influence over government.Patrick Chalmers, an ex-Reuters reporter and author of Fraudcast News, lays out the charges against his chosen profession. He presents an insider's account of how mainstream media are far from being the watchdogs of power they like to pretend. Quite the opposite – the bulk of their output blinds people to their powerlessness in the face of modern politics, at every layer of government.Yet his is a hopeful story. It includes a plan for how people can make their own media and lay claim to their political voices.Patrick Chalmers is a journalist and author of Fraudcast News — How Bad Journalism Supports Our Bogus Democracies. You can listen to him talking about Fraudcast News in a “pop-up” interview from last year’s Rebellious Media Conference.TRANSCRIPT
Modern Media:
Society watchdogs…
…or
poodles of power?
The Leveson InquiryOngoing since July 2011
Oops - that’s us
Rally for Media Reform Westminster, London
17th May 2012
The news so far… Leveson about more than phone hacking.
Evidence points to:• corruption of police• corruption of public officials• intimidation of elected politicians• emasculation of five successive British
governments• corruption of democracy here in Britain
Who the beneficiaries?
• media owners • all those who profit from emasculated
government, such as wealthy elites and under-regulated global financial markets and corporations
In a nutshell… it’s not us
Deeper problem concerns governance
• Media misdemeanours unquestionable
• Impacts on individuals’ lives have been devastating
• Far worse for society is this complicity between successive governments and powerful media groups and their clients
Modern governments more like what the Ancient Greeks called:
Oligarchy(or rule by the few)
Brian Haw (7 January 1949 – 18 June 2011)
Multi-layered governance failures
• Local government (Rotten boroughs…)
• UK national government (Iraq…)
• EU (Lisbon Treaty process…)
• Global (Kyoto, financial markets…)
Where is the journalism that describes these multiple
failures?
We have to do it ourselves
Real journalism focused on real democracy
• Regular, free local film screenings
• Make on local media for screenings
• Focus on local governance
• Train local journalists
• Share output
• Collaborate with like-minded reporters
How Bad Journalism Supports Our Bogus Democracies
www.fraudcastnews.net
@patrickchalmers