Thanks a lot, media assholes

[veronica_rich]

I knew Big Media would eventually make it rougher for their smaller (and more honest) counterparts to do their jobs, but this takes the cake.

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say this is not the first time I've run into something like this. We're wanting to cover an upcoming event, and the organization has a "media policy" that purports to control the content being broadcast or otherwise coming out of the event - and you have to agree to it in order to cover it. OH HAI, FURST AMEMMENT. Fucking hell. This bullshit was not common practice before Big Media owners started making it OK to suck cock with politicians to get tax breaks and break antitrust regulations so they could buy up more and more little outlets to pad their own pockets.

I hate this profession. I do not want to do it for the rest of my career, what is left of it. Ugh. I need another kind of job when I leave this one in a few years.

Comments

[yoiebear.livejournal.com]

Yes, our profession sucks! God, I want a nice PR job that allows for time off.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I think we should do PR for HGTV - big salaries for pushing tasty food.

[curiouslyfic.livejournal.com]

No kidding. That blows. Any luck finding loopholes?

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Nope. You know how corporate shows are - technically it's not illegal for them to do this. I just think it's shitty business practice, especially given the industry it's in (which I won't specify, but trust me, it needs all the positive it can get).

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

Speaking of censorship. Do you remember ever hearing about the Atascadero Gazette? This all happened some years (I believe ten years) ago:

The head editor dude laid down new Policy: No stories would be allowed that portrayed gays in any kind of a positive light whatsoever. No local hero, sports hero, war hero stories, if the heros (or heroines) were gay. Nothing that could lead Poor Innocent Children™ to suspect that gay people might just be decent human beings!

Bunch of the staff walked out on the spot. Advertisers pulled their ads. Readers cancelled their subscriptions. Yet the head editor dude insisted business had never been better! (a variant of "lurkers support me in email" no doubt)

I think the paper folded. I can't find it anywhere, anyway. Bottom line, though: if the staff hadn't taken a stand, the public would never have known about this horrendous "policy," hence the advertisers and subscribers wouldn't have bailed.

Is anyone at your paper thinking along those lines? Is it the kind of situation where something like this could have an impact?

P.S. Some former Faux News reporters did something similar, and here is an amazing video about it. I can't recommend this highly enough. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The problem is, it's a show outside our company - it's nothing we could really boycott, per se. They have their policies and lawfully, they're entitled to them. I'm just pissed off that they're expecting FREE media promotion and coverage, yet they want to control the message. I am frequently guilty of telling sources who want to read what's going to be printed before it's printed "if you want to buy the ad space, you can approve it down to the comma; otherwise, you get impartial coverage like everybody else."

ARGH. I need liquor.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Yeah, even my job has a "media policy." You would think in this day and age of everyone having a cellphone camera...well, almost everyone...media would be less controlled, not more so. Still, I hope good things for you this year.

(http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i61/Ericadawn16/?action=view&current=Veronicaspic.jpg)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I never was able to find Orlando in that shot. Were you?

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Orlando's supposed to be in it?

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Well, that answers that question, LOL ...

[roguedemon.livejournal.com]

It's scary that this sort of thing has become so normal. Did this start happening because of Bush, or was it always there?

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

If you want to get technical on media, it started with Reagan, when he removed the antitrust, anti-monopoly legislation FDR had put into place 40 years earlier, to prevent dominance of the message and ensure several sources would give varying POVs. But, Reagan and his cronies had buddies who wanted to make money by buying up everything in sight (*coughtedturnercoughrupermurdochCOUGHHACK*), and he made it legal to do so. But then came the Internet, which has done more to kill ad sales and remove financial support for publications (and even TV) than anything else. I'm all for free information, but the average reader is not educated well enough to understand the difference between somebody's possibly uninformed opinion on a blog, and an article or editorial written by a professional who has to use their real name and back up what they say with data or examples - and they tend to see those blogs on the same par as legitimate publications. (This is not to say some blogs aren't valuable or accurate, but a blog is a blog is a blog to Joe Q. Public.)