Here's a different angle on last Friday's post on Ads and politics, about attack ads and the 'attack media.
It shocks me that so many are so shocked at media bias. It's about time people stopped complaining about media 'agenda setting' and started accepting the reality of media ownership. It's not just elections that bring this up. People questioned the BBC's 'objectivity' in on his hostility concerning religion, and coverage of the Iraq war.
A recent Bivings Report looks at it from the perspective of advertisers, and essentially says that frankly, my dear they don't give a damn.
Frankly, it does not ultimately matter. People have become accustomed to hearing advertisements for day-to-day, politically neutral products in all kinds of contexts that are biased. How many people have abandoned a company because it runs ads during NBC’s liberal drama on the Presidency, “The West Wing?”
Frankly, the media --be it cable, satellite radio, AM radio, NPR, or network TV-- always throws in a dose of opinionated commentary, hate talk, political bias, and disregard for social norms. If advertisers are so upset by all this, they should be rushing for the exits from the Fox network (because of such fare as Trading Spouses) and the ABC (not because they don't see eye to eye with Nightline, but because of fare such as Desperate Housewives.)
Just for the record:
Here is a top-10 list of media distortions, from Conservative Web site, MediaCenter.Org/
And here's a link to Journalism.Org's study about people's attitudes to media. (Increase in the percentage of people who believe the media is inaccurate, biased etc.)
If this is the reality of the media, no wonder advertisers hold their noses and continue to slot their ads.
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