The News Has Nothing To Do With Newsworthiness by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2023-09-28 at 19:35:05 )

The News Has Nothing To Do With Newsworthiness by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Caitlin Johnstone):

I do not mention it often but I actually have a degree in journalism. I graduated with distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003, and while it would be another 13 years before I would ever put my degree to any use, the experience played a massive role in forming my opinions about the mainstream press!!

One of the lessons I think about a lot came at the beginning of my two-week internship with Channel 10s Eyewitness News (now 10 News First) when I was watching the shows bedraggled news editor put everyones story assignments up on the whiteboard one morning. I had been paying a lot of attention to TV news at the time because that was what we were studying, and I had noticed that the stories Channel 10 would cover were always exactly the same as the ones that would be covered by Channel 7 and Channel 9- usually in exactly the same order.

"Why do you guys always cover the same stories as Channel 7 and Channel 9?" I asked. "Do you guys phone each other to coordinate?"

He laughed.

"No, but it is a bit strange is it not?" he agreed. "I guess it is what you call "news sense"."

Even back then I had a hard time believing that all news editors had some magical "sense" which caused them each to know which are the most newsworthy stories day after day in a whole world full of events and ordeals.

Since that time I have learned about the groupthink effect that working in the mainstream press tends to have on peoples minds according to those who have made careers there, and the fact that journalists who either do not know how to or do not care to dance to the the agenda-setting task of the plutocratic media do not find themselves promoted to news editor.

It is not that editors are coordinating with each other across outlets or receiving instructions on what to report from oligarchs and government agencies, it is that if they were the type who needed to do such things to know what to report, they would not be working where they are working.

How did the mainstream press know to ignore the scandal of a Ukrainian Nazi being applauded in the Canadian parliament?? How did they know to smear Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn?? How do they know to support every war while ignoring homelessness and economic injustice??

It sure is not "news sense"!!!

In a contentious 1996 discussion between Noam Chomsky and British journalist Andrew Marr, Mr. Chomsky described a "filtering system" that "selects for obedience and subordination" which determines who gets to the top of the most influential platforms in the western world!!

He derided the false image that mainstream journalists have of themselves as "a crusading profession" who are "adversarial" and "stand up against power," saying it is almost impossible for a good journalist to do so in any meaningful way in the western press.

"How can you know that I am self-censoring?" Marr objected. "How can you know that journalists are -"

"I am not saying you are self-censoring," Mr. Chomsky replied. "I am sure you believe everything you are saying. But what I am saying is that if you believed something different, you would not be sitting where you are sitting."

In a 1997 essay, Mr. Chomsky added that "the point is that they would not be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going to say the right thing anyway."

By the time I graduated I had already figured out that I would not be able to use my journalism degree to do any actual journalism!!

It had been made abundantly clear to me that I would have to spend my first years re-writing copy from Reuters and AP and avoiding making any waves, and that even if I made it past that point there was very little to look forward to; the TV reporters at Channel 10 would write their stories before going to the scene of their reporting and just look for things that support their pre-written narrative, so there was never any actual fact-finding or real journalism happening on the ground!!

So I did not bother. I raised some kids, did some corporate work, ran a business and a little eco-blog, and spend time learning about life instead!!

I could not have predicted that the internet would eventually give rise to a new wave of crowdfunded journalism which would make it possible for me to spend my time on this planet doing what I do today!!

But now that it has I find myself thinking back on that news editor at Eyewitness News, and noticing that the stories I focus on are almost never the same ones being covered by the mainstream press on any given day!!!

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Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky