Where We Live: The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone On The Media
A discussion about the past, present, and future of media in our world
A 24-hour news cycle, media moguls with political agendas, blurred lines between news and commentary. To many, these are sign’s that today’s media couldn’t be farther removed from the integrity of its roots.
After more than two decades reporting on the Media, NPR’s Brooke Gladstone is of the opinion that we’ve been here before, and it’s actually been worse. Gladstone presents her manifesto in the new book The Influencing Machine.
Through the medium of graphic nonfiction, She and illustrator Josh Neufeld frame today’s media in the context of two thousand years of history, and in the process challenge some cornerstone assumptions of the press, including objectivity and the roots of media bias, and dispell a fear that a media machine may be controlling our minds.
Today we’ll talk with Gladstone and Neufeld about all this, and what the media really says about us.
What do we need to be aware of as media consumers today? And how can we negotiate the changes technology brings to the media of the future?
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Listener email from Jonathan
Brooke Gladstone seems to be making the argument that the media doesn't sway public perception to a substantial degree, that they are "reflecting" the public sphere, and that distorted reporting can simply be "fact checked" by consumers: the "just Google it remedy. Her point is taken that history doesn't show an unbiased media, but then jumps to the astounding statement that the media is not engineering its coverage. How can this interview not have mentioned the following realities that point to very different reality:
- the obscene monopolization of media over the last decade or so and the obvious dangers and information corruption of that.
- the laziness of coverage - repeating other media or echoing government officials, for example the reduction of internationally placed correspondents
- the 'INFO-TAINMENT' focus of major media, (Fox, CNN, etc.) and even NPR
- the revolving door of media machines like Fox and political aspirants like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich
- the responsibility of the media to sort out accurate and important information, REGARDLESS OF OUR ABILITY TO FACTCHECK EVERY DETAIL WE CARE ABOUT.
- the fact that there was a more contentious media during the age of Murrow and Kronkite
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