NCMR 2008

A fantastic video to watch for 40 mins... Bill Moyers addressing the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform.
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"What does it matter? Why a media anyway? I’m going to let an old Cherokee chief answer that. I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before we moved to Texas, of the tribal elder who was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself. He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The boy took this in for a few minutes and then said to his father—to his grandfather, “Which wolf won?” The old Cherokee replied simply, “The one I feed.” Democracy is that way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed. And media provides the fodder." (great little story)
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"The new owner of the Tribune Company, the real estate mogul Sam Zell, recently toured his new property, the Los Angeles Times newsroom, telling employees that the challenge is: how do we get somebody 126 years old to get it up? “Well,” said Zell, “I’m your Viagra.” I’m not making this up. He told his journalists that he didn’t have an editorial agenda or a perspective about newspapers’ roles as civic institutions. “I’m a businessman,” he said. “All that matters in the end is the bottom line.” Just this week, Zell told Wall Street analysts that to save money he intends to eliminate 500 pages of news a week across all of the company’s twelve papers. That can mean eliminating some eighty-two pages every week just from the Los Angeles Times. What will he use to replace reporters and editors? He says to the Wall Street analysts, “I’ll use maps, graphics, lists, rankings and stats.” Sounds to me as if Sam has confused Viagra with Lunesta."
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"As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The news hole in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight."
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