5 ms·

You actually believe that Amazon has editorial control over NPR and specifically exerted that leverage to make this article incoherent?

rmrfrmrf 6y ago
One of the common threads in media critiques like Manufacturing Consent and Hate, Inc. is that direct editorial control is not necessary in order to promote your agenda. Control of money and access, along with ideological indoctrination of journalists at elite universities, is all that's needed. See also my comment below about NPR listenership and trust in Amazon as an institution.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 6y ago
  Are you unironically referencing Manufacturing Consent?
- Aerroon 6y ago
  You just need to have influence over who hires the journalists. If they like you then they'll hire people who will probably also like you.
- jmcgough 6y ago
  Semi-off-topic but Manufacturing Consent really changed the way I see the world and think about media. As a kid I never questioned that Iraq War-era Time magazine article with diagrams of a mobile nuclear weapons facility. It should be required reading.
  - mleonhard 6y ago
    Same for me. Unfortunately, I found it hard to get along with some close relatives after my change in perspective.
claudeganon 6y ago
You actually believe that NPR doesn’t edit articles to protect the people who fund them?
- arcticfox 6y ago
  Yes, I do actually believe in their editorial independence. Here's an NPR opinion piece talking openly about the subject https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/148778815/an-impossible-standard-when-npr-covers-its-sponsors https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/1487788... Some excerpts that I liked (keep in mind, these are out of context, which is largely focused on why we should keep a very close eye out): > Companies are most interested in getting their name before NPR's audience. They are, in other words, more interested in you than they are in NPR's journalism. > The staff that sells sponsorships does not contact the newsroom to ask for coverage favor for a corporate client. To do so is a firing offense. > Companies and marketers almost universally know not to ask journalists for coverage favors in return for sponsorship and advertising. To do so would be an insult—like asking a professional journalist to be a prostitute. It would invite distrust and negative coverage. It also would undermine the independence that attracted NPR's coveted audience in the first place. > "Rote disclosures of every connection to a sponsor would not only clutter our programs, and be rendered meaningless in the process, but would also require producers to have an awareness of our corporate supporters that could actually be counter-productive and erode our firewall."
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    I mean this with all due respect, but highlighting NPR's own defense of their editorial practices is hardly convincing. NPR routinely runs editorial pieces that were pitched to them by corporate sponsors or their fronts like think tanks. They likewise have have discussion panels featuring these groups' talking heads. Listen to a few episodes of Marketplace if you want the most obvious corporate propaganda imaginable. Their impartiality is laughable.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      "Listen to a few episodes of Marketplace if you want the most obvious corporate propaganda imaginable." You mean NPR's business news show? That's what business news is, right?
dimnsionofsound 6y ago
The implicit threat of loss of funding and/or access is often enough to sway editorial decisions in a way that could appear like direct control.
- arcticfox 6y ago
  NPR is on the record [0] as not even informing their editorial staff of their 175+ sponsors, which causes other issues (for which there is actual evidence, which, while reasonable, I haven't seen for your theory): > That lack of awareness has led to some embarrassments in the past. Online spots from America's Natural Gas Alliance once ran next to a series on fracking, for example. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/148778815/an-impossible-standard-when-npr-covers-its-sponsors https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/1487788...
ardy42 6y ago
>>> We need to note that Amazon is an NPR funder. > You actually believe that Amazon has editorial control over NPR and specifically exerted that leverage to make this article incoherent? You don't have to have editorial control to have influence. For instance: how smart would it be for you to complain about your employer in public forums under your own name? People call that "biting the hand that feeds you." So even if you have a legitimate grievance or have witnessed clearly unethical behavior with your employer, maybe you decide to keep quiet because you need the money from your job. Your employer just influenced what you write without having any editorial control over you.
shevek_ 6y ago
This is the story of our entire media. No, they didn't line by line come in and edit the article, but any media outlet is going to self-censor to not lose a big sponsor. I think that's pretty self-evident at this point. The classic Manufacturing Consent does a deep dive into this dynamic. Related, newspapers are historically unprofitable. Why would someone like Jeff Bezos buy the Washington Post? Like any investment, he expects some kind of return. And the return in this case clearly isn't direct revenue.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Do you have any proof of that? Otherwise it's just conspiracy theory. Sometimes people do things that don't benefit them. It's called charity. I don't think that Bezos is a saint, but I also don't think he bought the New York Post to be his mouthpiece nor would the editors allow it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    I think you would find that the book or two hour YouTube documentary “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky provides compelling answers to your questions. I do understand it can be irritating to hear “watch this two hour doc” as a response to an internet comment, but it really is a master work on the subject. I haven’t seen it in a few years so I can’t do its arguments justice, but it completely changed my views on how media works. I have been meaning to watch it again though. For a different take there is a YouTube series from “Crash Course” on “media literacy” that I suspect goes over this, but I haven’t gotten that far in the series yet. And then there’s also Michael Parenti, another author who has written and has YouTube talks on the subject. Either way I just want to say it’s not wild conspiracy theory. It is an established body of work people are talking about here.
jessaustin 6y ago
NPR's CEO previously was in charge of external propaganda: "From 2015 to 2019, Lansing served as the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the independent federal agency whose programming reaches an average weekly audience of 345 million people in 62 languages." [0] Now at NPR he coordinates internal propaganda. Angry Bezos emails will be career-shortening for NPR staff. [0] https://www.npr.org/people/770270513/john-lansing https://www.npr.org/people/770270513/john-lansing
fnord77 6y ago
Cargill and Koch industries certainly did. So it's not a stretch.

rmrfrmrf 6y ago

One of the common threads in media critiques like Manufacturing Consent and Hate, Inc. is that direct editorial control is not necessary in order to promote your agenda. Control of money and access, along with ideological indoctrination of journalists at elite universities, is all that's needed. See also my comment below about NPR listenership and trust in Amazon as an institution.

WC3w6pXxgGd 6y ago
Are you unironically referencing Manufacturing Consent?
Aerroon 6y ago
You just need to have influence over who hires the journalists. If they like you then they'll hire people who will probably also like you.
jmcgough 6y ago
Semi-off-topic but Manufacturing Consent really changed the way I see the world and think about media. As a kid I never questioned that Iraq War-era Time magazine article with diagrams of a mobile nuclear weapons facility. It should be required reading.
- mleonhard 6y ago
  Same for me. Unfortunately, I found it hard to get along with some close relatives after my change in perspective.

claudeganon 6y ago

You actually believe that NPR doesn’t edit articles to protect the people who fund them?

arcticfox 6y ago
Yes, I do actually believe in their editorial independence. Here's an NPR opinion piece talking openly about the subject https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/148778815/an-impossible-standard-when-npr-covers-its-sponsors https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/1487788... Some excerpts that I liked (keep in mind, these are out of context, which is largely focused on why we should keep a very close eye out): > Companies are most interested in getting their name before NPR's audience. They are, in other words, more interested in you than they are in NPR's journalism. > The staff that sells sponsorships does not contact the newsroom to ask for coverage favor for a corporate client. To do so is a firing offense. > Companies and marketers almost universally know not to ask journalists for coverage favors in return for sponsorship and advertising. To do so would be an insult—like asking a professional journalist to be a prostitute. It would invite distrust and negative coverage. It also would undermine the independence that attracted NPR's coveted audience in the first place. > "Rote disclosures of every connection to a sponsor would not only clutter our programs, and be rendered meaningless in the process, but would also require producers to have an awareness of our corporate supporters that could actually be counter-productive and erode our firewall."
- claudeganon 6y ago
  I mean this with all due respect, but highlighting NPR's own defense of their editorial practices is hardly convincing. NPR routinely runs editorial pieces that were pitched to them by corporate sponsors or their fronts like think tanks. They likewise have have discussion panels featuring these groups' talking heads. Listen to a few episodes of Marketplace if you want the most obvious corporate propaganda imaginable. Their impartiality is laughable.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    "Listen to a few episodes of Marketplace if you want the most obvious corporate propaganda imaginable." You mean NPR's business news show? That's what business news is, right?

dimnsionofsound 6y ago

The implicit threat of loss of funding and/or access is often enough to sway editorial decisions in a way that could appear like direct control.

arcticfox 6y ago
NPR is on the record [0] as not even informing their editorial staff of their 175+ sponsors, which causes other issues (for which there is actual evidence, which, while reasonable, I haven't seen for your theory): > That lack of awareness has led to some embarrassments in the past. Online spots from America's Natural Gas Alliance once ran next to a series on fracking, for example. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/148778815/an-impossible-standard-when-npr-covers-its-sponsors https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/03/16/1487788...

ardy42 6y ago

>>> We need to note that Amazon is an NPR funder. > You actually believe that Amazon has editorial control over NPR and specifically exerted that leverage to make this article incoherent? You don't have to have editorial control to have influence. For instance: how smart would it be for you to complain about your employer in public forums under your own name? People call that "biting the hand that feeds you." So even if you have a legitimate grievance or have witnessed clearly unethical behavior with your employer, maybe you decide to keep quiet because you need the money from your job. Your employer just influenced what you write without having any editorial control over you.

shevek_ 6y ago

This is the story of our entire media. No, they didn't line by line come in and edit the article, but any media outlet is going to self-censor to not lose a big sponsor. I think that's pretty self-evident at this point. The classic Manufacturing Consent does a deep dive into this dynamic. Related, newspapers are historically unprofitable. Why would someone like Jeff Bezos buy the Washington Post? Like any investment, he expects some kind of return. And the return in this case clearly isn't direct revenue.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
Do you have any proof of that? Otherwise it's just conspiracy theory. Sometimes people do things that don't benefit them. It's called charity. I don't think that Bezos is a saint, but I also don't think he bought the New York Post to be his mouthpiece nor would the editors allow it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  I think you would find that the book or two hour YouTube documentary “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky provides compelling answers to your questions. I do understand it can be irritating to hear “watch this two hour doc” as a response to an internet comment, but it really is a master work on the subject. I haven’t seen it in a few years so I can’t do its arguments justice, but it completely changed my views on how media works. I have been meaning to watch it again though. For a different take there is a YouTube series from “Crash Course” on “media literacy” that I suspect goes over this, but I haven’t gotten that far in the series yet. And then there’s also Michael Parenti, another author who has written and has YouTube talks on the subject. Either way I just want to say it’s not wild conspiracy theory. It is an established body of work people are talking about here.

jessaustin 6y ago

NPR's CEO previously was in charge of external propaganda: "From 2015 to 2019, Lansing served as the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the independent federal agency whose programming reaches an average weekly audience of 345 million people in 62 languages." [0] Now at NPR he coordinates internal propaganda. Angry Bezos emails will be career-shortening for NPR staff. [0] https://www.npr.org/people/770270513/john-lansing https://www.npr.org/people/770270513/john-lansing

fnord77 6y ago

Cargill and Koch industries certainly did. So it's not a stretch.